He's baaaack

Xaiden and I picked Xander up from Mustang on Thursday afternoon, and we were so happy to see him. Xaiden had a bunch of smiles for big brother, his face just lit up when he saw Xan. It was too cute. One of the first things we did when we got home was to give Xander a haircut. He'd been growing it out for a long time, but there was absolutely no style to it, so I told him that we could cut it like Poppa's or I could try (try being the keyword here) to trim it up. He chose for me to trim it. Apparently I forgot to mention to him that I have zero haircutting skills. I had been just trimming the back and around his ears, but it was beginning to look like he had a helmet instead of hair, so I decided to try to do a fade on the bottom part. After working on it for probably ten minutes, Jason came in and asked what I was doing to the poor kid, took one look at his hair, then confiscated the clippers from me. So, he ended up with a haircut like Poppa's but a little longer and a bit of a fade in the back. Thank goodness for Poppa :)

He looks like a totally different kid. We told him he could grow it back out if he wants and he's happy because it's still long enough to use gel.

So, Xander is starting preschool next month for one day a week. I need to get him enrolled by June 1st, so my welcome home present to him was immunizations the day after he got home. He wanted to know why we were going to the doctor, and I wanted to be honest with him, but I also wanted to actually get him there without dragging him through the door, so I told him she was going to give him his immunizations. I'm not sure what he thought it was, but it got him into the exam room. Once we got in there, and the nurse had the shots ready; I explained what she was going to do. It was quite clear at this point that he had failed to obtain clarification as to what immunizations actually were, and he did his very best to opt out. She told him he had to get them to go to school. So, he decided he didn't want to go to school. She told him he would get his friends sick. He said that he didn't mind if they got sick. Then she showed him pictures of kids who had things like measles and mumps. They were pretty nasty pics and I took him over to them so he could get a close up view. At this point, he started crying because he knew he didn't want what they had in those pictures, but he also knew that he didn't want to get poked in the leg. He was in an impossible situation. He decided his only chance was to stall. Once I sat him on the table and she started leaning him back, he tried the, "Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait..." but then he didn't have anything to tell us. And that was the end of the stalling and the beginning of the squawling. He screamed when she cleaned his legs, he screamed (rightfully so) when she gave the shots, he screamed when she put on the band-aids, and he screamed for quite awhile afterward. He also told her that he didn't like her anymore. Luckily, it wasn't our regular nurse, because I'm quite sure he's gonna hold a grudge about this one. She said that she can usually just tell them, "No, this is how it is" and then do it, but that he just broke her heart. Xander was quite put off by the whole thing and was probably glad to hear that her heart was broken. He didn't want a sticker, he didn't want an ice cream, and it hurt to sit in the car (especially the bumps). Fortunately, Grammy was with us to hold his hand all the way home and carry him into the house once we got there. After about fifteen minutes of being home, he was jumping on the trampoline and swimming in his pool. I guess having fun was more important than getting sympathy. After all, we've got to keep our priorities straight.

Just One

The past few days have felt so strange having just one child around here. Xan's been quite busy in New Mexico going to aquatic parks, baseball games, and the movies. Apparently, he's only told LaLa that he wants to go home a couple of times, and that was because she made him follow rules like eat his dinner before having cake and things of that nature. She's probably the meanest grandma ever :) LaLa had to go back to work today, so Xander gave Grandpop a bit of a hard time when she left, but Grandpop managed to smooth it over with a trip to the movies to see Monsters vs. Aliens, some popcorn, and candy. I guess Xan's also been playing hard out in the field with Dottie by his side most days. It sounds like he's been having a great time. His trip will be coming to an end on Thursday, and I'm really excited to go get him.

With Xander gone, Xaiden has really been enjoying being the only child. He's been doing all kinds of new things over the past few days. He has mastered the art of crawling in just a couple of days, and today he pulled up on the couch and cruised over to the table next to it to play with my keys. Xander is not going to know what to think when he gets home. When he left, Xaiden was still pretty immobile. When he gets home, Xaiden will be following him all over the place!

Xaiden has also discovered recently that he absolutely LOVES drinking out of a glass. Whenever he sees one of us take a drink at mealtime, his eyes get really big and his little arms start flailing around and slapping his highchair tray. When he actually gets a drink, his two teeth make this little "tink, tink, tink" sound on the glass. He usually takes one drink and then he starts blowing bubbles. At dinner yesterday, his Pops was giving him drinks of water while he was feeding him. Xaiden seemed to get confused about what he was doing because he would take a drink, blow bubbles, take a bite, blow bubbles. Anyone who has ever tried this will tell you that it doesn't work out very well, mostly for Pops. Basically what happens when you try to blow bubbles with a mouthful of carrots is carrots fly out of your mouth and all over your tray and your dad. It was quite entertaining, at least Xaiden and I thought so. After honing this new skill with the water glass (and carrots), he decided to put it use in the bathtub. He would lean down and put his little face in the water, blow some bubbles, then look up at me with a big dimpled grin on his face looking so proud of himself.

Today I took him out in the front yard to try to get some good pictures of him in the flower bed. He was quite uncooperative. I'm not sure why I didn't consider the fact that he likes to try to eat everything within reach when I set out on this venture. If I had, then I probably wouldn't have done it at all. I took forty pictures and got two decent ones out of the bunch, the two above. Below are some of the not so decent ones, just for fun.



It looks as though he is in pain or pooping or both in all of these, but at least I managed to get him to look at the camera. Most of the other 34 were pictures of him looking down at the plants, pulling various parts off of the plants, and attempting to eat said plants. In fact, some of them didn't even have him in the picture because I had to drop the camera to keep him from eating plants. Once I figured out that he was not going to be distracted from the flower bed, I had the bright idea to take him out and put him in the grass in front of the flower bed. It worked out much better, he instead looked at the grass, pulled up the grass, and attempted to eat said grass. So, out of ingenious ideas, I gave up and we went inside the house. No sooner had I set him down on the floor did he pull up on to the couch and give me the biggest grin. What a stinker!

Road Trippin'

Xaiden and I got back from Amarillo yesterday evening. On both days we left at 10:30 am and arrived at our destination at 5:30 pm....yuck! But both boys travelled really well. We only made two stops on the way there and one on the way back. The drive back home was easier as Xander wasn't in the backseat to wake Xaiden up when he fell asleep. I swear, every time he'd be asleep on the way there, I'd look back and Xander would be leaned over Xaid's face whispering something to him, or touching his foot, or poking at him, or who knows what else when I wasn't looking.

Xander didn't sleep at all during the trip, and was so excited about it before we left that he was nagging me all morning with, "Momma, let's just go." I tried explaining that I had to get everything packed up first, but he kept at it. So, I told him that when the clock said "one, zero, three, zero" we would leave (at the time it was 9:30). In order to ensure that we did not miss our departure time, he decided he would sit up on the counter and watch the clock. After a bit, he called me over and said, "Momma, Momma, LOOK! It's almost time to go!"....it was 9:41 :)

When we arrived in Amarillo, LaLa met us at the car. I'm not sure if she or Xander was more excited. We ate dinner, then headed back across the parking lot toward the hotel. Upon stepping down off of a curb, LaLa proceeded to trip and fall on her butt. Unfortunately, I wasn't sure if she was hurt or not, so I didn't get to laugh about it, but she and her friend Laura did. If it had been ten years ago, I wouldn't have even stopped to consider that she might be hurt, and now I can't even enjoy a good fall. I'm getting old. But, I digress. When we got back to the hotel, LaLa, the boys, and I went down and played in the pool for awhile. Once we got our showers and put on our jammies, Xan decided that the best plan was to not stay the night at the hotel, but just go ahead and drive to LaLa's house. We convinced him to stay with a potential swim in the morning, and this satisfied him for the night.

We had a really nice night visiting with LaLa and Laura. I'm pretty sure that Laura got more than what she had anticipated when she agreed to come on this trip. When it was time to change into swimsuits, Xander ran right in front of where she was watching TV and dropped his pants and started running around and cracking up. When it was time to put on jammies after getting out of the shower, she asked him if he could dance like the guy on the TV and he did....naked. And at some point in the evening I'm pretty sure that Xander farted quite close to her face (possibly more than once). She was great though, she just took it all in stride.

We all left yesterday morning (after much urging by Xander), and arrived home in the evening. I guess Xander told LaLa last night that in the morning he wanted to come back home (apparently he really enjoys road trips), but he changed his mind this morning. It feels really strange around the house without him here, but it is giving us more time with Xaiden, who is officially crawling (I made it official today, but don't ask me what my criteria are b/c I don't really have any). He is really loving his new sense of freedom, and his favorite thing to pull up on is the mini trampoline in the living room, but I'm not sure why. You'll see what I mean in the video.

Xaiden's personality has really started to develop over the last couple of weeks as well. I believe his personality would be best compared to that of The Incredible Hulk. There have been many times in the recent past that I've taken something away from him and thought, "Don't make me angry....you won't like me when I'm angry!" Although he gets quite mad and squawks very loudly when something he likes is taken away, in general he is a very happy and easygoing baby. I think the Hulkish qualities will prove to be pretty important over the next few years, how else will he keep SpiderXan in check?

Milestones and Monkeys

I've been keeping separate journals for the boys and writing them by hand, but I thought that this blog would be a good way to document our experiences so we can share them.

Xaiden hit a big milestone today by pulling himself up to standing using the rail on his crib. He was so proud of himself! Once he did this, he decided that he should try it with everything. He was successful using the side of his pool, but the bathtub was a little more elusive. I think he might have some other adjectives to describe the bathtub as he hit his head on it repeatedly, but he came out of the deal no worse for the wear. He's such a determined little stinker that I'm sure he'll just try again next time.

Xaid is also really close to crawling. He's getting around to where he wants to go, but it takes a LONG time. I don't think that I will be able to say that in a week, and I'm not sure that I'm ready to be chasing him around making sure that he doesn't put every one of his brother's pea-sized toy accessories into his mouth. This should be a real challenge, but at least I've got a week to prepare for it, although another year would be nicer.

Tomorrow we are off to Amarillo where we are going to meet LaLa and her friend Laura. We'll stay the night there, then Xander will get to go home with LaLa for a week. He is SO excited. He almost cried on Sunday when he found out that we couldn't go right then. So, everyday he's been checking the status of the wait time and asking if we can forego the wait and just leave right then. He's actually having a hard time getting to sleep right now because he's so excited. He's so funny. When I was putting him to bed tonight, I asked him if he knew how much I loved him. Of course he wanted to know, so I told him, "Bigger than the world." He responded, "I love you bigger than a monkey. No, bigger than the golf course!" After assuring him that was VERY big, I let him know that I loved him bigger than the universe. To which he replied that he loved me bigger than the moon and mucher than the uniforms. Can't beat that.