Hayden was accepted into the Lamplighter prescshool program!

Besides being deemed very advanced and above average in the areas he was evaluated, he is also very advanced in temper tantrums, parental manipulation, jumping up and down, dinosaur taxonomy, running around, screaming and singing songs about Jesus. 

In other words, a typical and wonderful 2 1/2 year old.

Congratulations Hayden-we hope you get a scholarship to college, because paying for your preschool is dipping into your college fund!

At the Table

Evelyn had her first solid food, rice cereal, on January 26th, 2012 and here are the obligatory pictures of her pre and post eating.  We were all present to witness the monumental event! Although she didn't really love the food that day, she tried hard and has now tried all sorts of fruits and vegetables (most of which she loves).  You don't need a keen eye to notice that our Christmas decorations are still up in these pictures.  When I was growing up, our Christmas tree was often up into February, so you can't blame me. 

And then there is Hayden, pointing at the camera and telling us what to do...as always.

In the backyard

It has been an unseasonably warm winter in Dallas this year so we have spent many of our afternoons in the backyard. We have a few little games we play like "green dinosaur" and "spin around until you nearly throw up", but mostly, Hayden likes to run. He cries when mommy and daddy can't go anymore. That's just more inspiration for me to start running again-so I can keep up with my 2 year old!

                                     

 

Getting back on track

I stopped blogging over a year ago. I am not sure why, but I guess I felt like the posts couldn't be as honest as I wanted them to be. At the time, I felt like they needed to be profound, though-provoking entries. Now I just want to document what is happening around me so that I don't forget this time in our lives. So much has happened since my last post, but most importantly, we added a new member to our family: Evelyn Kate Miller. Evelyn for my grandmother and Kate for Matt's great aunt-both of whom are deceased. She is four months old and the fourth human member of our family, which is what prompted the new name of this blog. I'd like you to meet her now:

Morning Walk

Hayden and I take a walk almost every day, but the weather hasn't allowed for walking lately. It has been raining and icky for about 4 days now, so today we were both happy to get outside. For a brief moment we had some sun and the world just looked a little different.

Boy Clothes

Little Lord Fauntleroy outfit


Hayden in his Thanksgiving jon-jon

I had been saving Hayden's Thanksgiving outfit since May when I bought it at a fantastic sample sale-a precious corduroy burnt orange jon-jon with a squirrel aplique on the front. I paired it with a white peter pan collar button down and brown lace up shoes. He looked like the perfect angel child that he is (except when tired, hungry, thirsty, cold, hot or bored) and when he looked at himself in the full length mirror, he pointed to the squirrel and flashed a huge, dimply smile. "Success!" I thought to myself. When I told him to go show DaDa how cute he was, he tore out of his room to find him. DaDa took one look at him and said, "what is he wearing?" It was at this point that I realized that fathers don't understand jon-jons.

If you don't know what a jon-jon is, you are probably a) not from the South and/or b) not a mother of a boy. Imagine a one piece jumper either short or long, depending on the season, made of some type of adorable fabric, with precious little buttons at the straps. They usually have a matching shirt of some sort with piping or small details on the collar. Rarely, the collar may have some kind of lace or scalloping, but honestly, I think that's taking it a little far. When my dad used to see a little boy in a jon-jon, he would refer to him as "little Lord Fauntleroy" (see above) which is a bit of a stretch considering the Little Lord wore some sort of knickers, but this was my first introduction to men not understanding that moms of little boys need jon-jons.

For the record, I don't dress Hayden in a jon-jon for school or trips to the grocery store or otherwise mundane outings. Jon-jons are reserved for special occasions AND playdates with my friends who have little girls who always show up in precious little dresses with matching bloomers or tights and mary-janes adorned with a little flower. Sadly, jon-jons are the mother of a boys lame attempt to compete with tiny girls in dresses.

The lure of the jon-jon begins when the soon-to-be mother of a little boy goes on her first shopping excursion to find that perfect outfit. She finds herself in a section of the baby clothing store that is 1/100th the size of the little girls clothing section sifting through a bunch of striped oufits that look OK until you flip them over and see the words "mommy's little monkey" or " gone truckin'" or "junior firefighter". As the boys get a little bigger, the clothing manufacturers move past stripes and start using things like a skull and crossbones, reptiles, trucks, firetrucks, cars, bulldozers, footballs, etc. Hayden has all of these things in his closet, mostly because I have bought them out of frustration that this is it-this is what there is for little boys to wear. For Holidays, it's Argyle sweaters or sweaters with dogs on the front; maybe some plaid to spice it up. Meanwhile, over in the girls section, there are tufts of pink toile, polka dots, florals, velvet, glitter and everything I always wanted when I was little (but it was the 70s, so I mostly wore hand-me-down polyester jumpsuits). The jon-jon becomes the middle ground, the not-quite-dressing-your-little-boy-in-a-dress option.

The other thing about jon-jons is that their presence in a boys life is short-lived. I am hoping I can push it until Hayden is 2 because I have some really precious hand-me-downs from my nephew, Pierce. But I fear, as most mothers of little boys do, that as soon as Hayden can make his own decisions about what he'd like to wear, he'll opt for the skull and crossbones, or worse, the I heart NY t-shirt. Since Hayden has recently been classified by his pediatrician as a "strong-willed child", we may not make it until 2. But to me, when the jon-jon goes, my little baby is also gone. He will be a little boy, and I am not quite ready for that.

Take Two

When I received a call from my sister, Kim, this afternoon asking if I was OK, I immediately realized that my previous post had been sent to most of your emails-unfinished. I know this little mistake sounded pretty desperate, but I promise, I had a (self-proclaimed) fantastic idea for that post. It went a little something like this...

My failure to get a job, despite all of the letters after my name has inspired me to really focus on being a great mom and wife.

{Sidebar-please refrain from sending me emails or comments stating the following or some modification of the following, "Amy, you have the most important job in the world." I already know this and as I watch with amazement as Hayden grows and changes by the day, I am so incredibly grateful to be unemployed. The problem is, I would like to have a PAYING job. A job that allows me to do what I have been studying to do for the past 10 years. So please, Save it!}

As most of you know, the duties of the mom and wife are often mundane and typically go unnoticed by the rest of the family. Although they would notice if you didn't do the dishes for 24 hours, no one really compliments you on what a great job of dishwashing you did (but Matt often thanks me for doing them, which I really appreciate). No one really cares when you clean out the closets or organize the tupperware cabinet or make up the bed every day. These types of tasks don't make you a more interesting person or make you feel rewarded at the end of the day, but they are necessary to make the household run properly. Besides, when Matt comes home at the end of the day and asks me, "what did you do today?" I can't just run through what happened on the Today show, The View, Oprah, Ellen and Animal Cops Houston (please don't ask about my love of animal cops). Instead, I can proudly reply, "I cleaned out Hayden's closet" or "I organized my office" or "I went to Anthropologie"-oops, that one slipped out by mistake.

One of my newfound wifely obsessions is saving money. This was inspired by last month's horrifying $1000.00 grocery bill, which I was determined to decrease significantly. Another inspiration was the depressing amount of food I was throwing away each week. So I started doing a few things like planning the weekly meals on Sunday, clipping coupons and shopping sales. I have to say that saving $40.00 a week on groceries might seem like nothing to some people, but it equates to $160.00 a month or $1920.00 per year! Giving up the Starbucks habit, probably another $50.00 a month ($600.00 a year); Changing my gym membership from family to single (no one else in the family uses it) saves us $360.00 a year. Although this is exhilarating for me, I think I am secretly driving Matt a little crazy. At first, the prospect of saving all of this money was exciting to him, but now I think he'd rather listen to Hayden cry than me saying. "today I found a coupon for $1.25 off a 12 pack of LaCroix" or "If you mix water with this remnant dishsoap, I think we can get another week out of it", or the worst of the worst, "I am re-instating meatless mondays".

The truth is, everyone needs a job. That's why retired people volunteer, kids sell lemonade and mow lawns and moms cut coupons and work to save money-it gives you purpose, it makes you feel like you contribute and it gives you something (really boring) to talk about besides your children. So for now, my job is supermom and superwife. I will quietly go about my organizing, cleaning and clipping coupons while Hayden sleeps and give him my undivided attention when he is awake. And even though I don't get paycheck or a raise or a Christmas bonus (but let's face it, no one gets Christmas bonuses anymore), I know that I am doing my job.