This and That.

Hiya.  Tripp had a pretty good day today.  He was a little moody this morning when he got up and it seemed like his eye was bothering him a good bit, but then he took a good 2 hour nap rocking on MeMe and when he woke up he felt much better.  I think he actually sat up on his mat and played for about an hour kicking his feet and watching Mickey (without reaching up for me to hold him every time I walked by.  What a good kid.  He is such a great baby.

For about the past 2 weeks, Tripp has started figuring out what "bath" means.  He gets the "vibe" when I'm getting everything ready for dressing change (which is a HUGE process and I'd like to video one day so you guys can see).  And when you sit him on the table to start taking the dressings off, he immediately breaks down... holding his arms out for me and making the saddest face I've ever seen.  It's really sad.  Then he still HATES the water part (of course) even with salt.  Some days are better then others.  But then when we put him back on the dressing table after we get him out of the tub, he is good.  We let him play naked just for a little while because he jumps and kicks around like crazy.  He loves being naked.  But he is SUCH a good boy for the "putting on the dressings" part.

Still waiting for a few more pics before I post the party ones.  But I wanted to post a few from today and this week that were cute.  He finally started rocking on his baseball rocker by his self!! It's so cute... I've been waiting for him to be able to get on it and actually like it!

Hey Mom, if you put batteries in my ball popper from Christmas, 

it's like a new toy!!

Check out my B-eautiful arms!!

Tripp got this frog from our cousin, Lindy, for his birthday.

I LOVE it!  It's SO soft and SO padded. 

Plus it's super CUTE.

The "G-raffe" MeMe bought him after his shots. 

Think he's rotten? Noooo. 

This is a book my cousins Jackie and Julie bought us for Mother's Day/Tripp's Bday.

It is TOO cute.  It's from Flattenme.com.

And it has my face super-imposed into every page. 

I know Tripp is thinking... "I see this woman every second of the day.. and now she's in my BOOKS?"

Haha. 

And my favorite... 

This is what I wake up to every morning. 

The King.

Learning to rock on Homer.

Love,

Would you believe that cute guy on the right would give me any trouble?

Beckham slept in until 7:50am this morning. That is late for him. I got him up, assumed he was hungry and offered him some breakfast. The following conversation ensued:

Me: Do you want some milk?
Becks: No!

Me: Do you want some juice?

Becks: No! Water!

Me: Okay. Here you go. Here's some water.

Becks: No! Juice!

Me: Okay. Here you go. Here's some juice.

Becks: No! Milk!

Argh. The rest of breakfast went on like that until his tray was crowded with three sippy cups, a variety of fruit, and soggy Coco Crisps. By the time he got around to requesting yogurt, I'd had my fill of his tangent and asked him if he got up on the wrong side of the bed. Yeaaaah, he politely admitted. At least he's honest.

Anyway, I am on Day 4 of a 4-day-weekend that I desperately needed not only for my personal sanity, but for the ominous piles of unfolded clothes and bare cabinets that were complaining to be restocked. Or was that my husband complaining? I've lost track {and probably brain cells} over the past week, since my nose has been in a book or my eyes straining to read through education text over the internet. I actually think I burst a blood vessel in my eye. Not even kidding.

My stress level has been through the roof as I've tried to balance it all - wife, mother, student, housekeeper, shopper, temper-tantrum manager, etc. How many hats can I wear? Obviously, the blogger one fell off because I simply couldn't devote any more time to the computer than I already was. PowerPoint 2007 and I have gotten very close.

{Sidenote: my son is driving in his cozy coupe wearing a blue plastic apron that he insisted we tie on him. Kids are great.}

Fortunately, my next set of classes are spread out over seven weeks instead of three. But I'm taking two, so we'll see how that goes. At least I won't be teaching, and will have the majority of my time to focus on school, yard sale-ing, sunning, and vacationing.

Also, hopefully I will be able to share exciting news on the school front as of next Monday. I'm just waiting to sign a contract before I go blabbing about it. Let's just say I'm very excited and I think my class next year will be wonderful ;)

I hope all of you are well! I'm sorry I haven't commented, but I've still been visiting my fav BFFs!

Alive and Well.

Still here. Becks is still cute. I'll be back with more substance in the near future.

Birthday pics.

Hey guys... I know you've been wondering how Tripp's birthday party was.  Well, the party was great... but Tripp- not so great.  On Friday (his actual birthday) he was great, we stayed around the house with my mom and sis and Randy's mom and PawPaw Carey.  But then Saturday morning, the day of his party, he woke up with another abrasion.  UGH.  I was SO upset.  He was miserable and barely opening his eyes.  I gave him some Tylenol with Codeine, but that didn't do much.  SO we brought our rocker to the party and that's pretty much where he stayed the whole time.  He opened his eyes for about 15 minutes to take a few pics with the big Mickey and that was about it.  I just know that if he hadn't been in so much pain, that he would have had SUCH a great time!!  We even sang Happy Birthday to him with his eyes closed.  I know..... I was crying.  Anyway, I am not going to do his "Party Post" yet because I am waiting for pictures from my aunt, who was kind enough to take pictures for us!  So when I get those, I will post about his party and everyone who helped make it AWESOME!

Right now, I want to post some pictures from his Birthday on Friday.  These are before the abrasion... and are SO cute :)

Cute... but didn't go over well.

Takes after his Momma... loooooves icing!

Ok, so here is just a preview of Tripp at his party... 

Post coming when I get the pics :)

He suffered the rest of the weekend with his eye until we could get him in to the doctor this morning to get another contact and now he is feeling a lot better- except that he had to get 3 shots today!! ugh.  

But he's a trooper!  I think from now on, maybe the doctors will believe me that he needs them in PREVENTATIVE.  They just hate putting the contacts in as much as I hate watching them put them in! O well... all is good for now.  Too bad he missed his party. He was a day late and a dollar short!  

Love,

Happy 1st Birthday.

My sweet Tripp, 

Today you turn ONE YEAR OLD.  I can't believe it.  Sometimes it feels like only yesterday when they placed you in my arms... and then other days it feels like you should be 5 years old!  You have been through SO much in one short year.  As I write this I am lying next to you while you sleep... and good thing I'm not writing it on paper because I can't hold back the tears.  I have tears of joy and tears of sadness... but mostly I just have tears of LOVE.  I LOVE you so much that I don't even know how to say it.  Every single second of the day I just want to hold you and squeeze you.  And if you could talk, I know you're first words would be "I love you" because I tell you that at least 100 times a day.  

You are so special, my little man.  I know that it will be really hard for you to understand at first, but because you have endured so much pain and suffering... God has a very very special plan for you.  I just know it.  I can look at you and tell that you are an angel here on Earth.  Mommy is so lucky and so blessed to have you for a baby.  You have made me a better person in every way possible.  I will never take another day for granted... especially a day that I have with YOU.  

You are overflowing with personality.  You have a mind of your own.  You are completely 100% spoiled rotten.  And I'm not going to lie... (almost) anything you want, you will get.  Because you deserve it.  Right now you are clapping, banging your toys, smiling like crazy, rolling your eyes (precious), pushing backwards in your walker, turning the pages of your books, and lots of other fun things.  You are getting to be so much fun and Mommy thinks you are such a smart little boy.  

Right now, my heart doesn't know what to feel.  I feel so proud of you for fighting this horrible disease for a whole year.  But my heart is aching to watch you suffer everyday.  I have so many mixed feelings.  I wish I could take every single bo-bo away from you... from your eyeballs to the tips of your toes.  But what I think I'm really trying to say, my angel, is that I wouldn't trade you for any other baby in the whole wide world.  Because YOU are the most special baby in the whole wide world.  

My goodness, I love you.  I love you so much that it hurts.  And I hope and pray that you are with me for many more years so that I can SHOW you how very much I love you.  Have a wonderful day, sweet boy.  Mommy is SO SO proud of you.   And I am honored to be your Mommy.  

I love you, 

Mommy

Eyes and Prayers.

This will be short because I am tired, frustrated, and honestly.... just ticked off.  I had a good first Mother's Day.  Tripp and I spent the day at my parents and my dad's side of the family came over.  Then yesterday he woke up with another swollen eye.  This time the left.  They just keep taking turns.  I don't know why.  I don't know if he rubbed it in the night, if it was from being outside all day, or if he just has some kind of infection.  Frankly, I am tired of trying to figure all of this out.  I'm SO over watching my baby suffer and not being able to do anything about it.  I'm tired of watching him try to play with his toys with his eyes closed.  It's the saddest thing I've ever seen.

The eye doctor didn't want to put the contacts back in because there wasn't an abrasion yet, but today was worse than yesterday so I have a feeling that we will be back at the doctor tomorrow putting the contacts in unless a miracle happens over night (feel free to pray for one...)  Tonight, I'm just sad.  About so many things.  I want my son to stop hurting.  I want him to live a normal life.  I want to take it all away.  It's so not fair and I'm just mad.  Sorry.  I will try to post again and let you know how we are, but I'm also stressing about his party and trying to plan for that.  So sorry if I'm slacking.  Please say some extra prayers for Tripp and if you want to slip in a few for me (because I'm at my wits end over SO many things), I'd appreciate :)  Thanks.

Love,   

B to the izzy

I am officially in pursuit of my Master's Degree in Education. Thus, I am terribly busy. I am taking an intercession course that is an intense study of school leadership over the next 12 days. So, basically, in two weeks I will accomplish what normally takes an entire semester to do. On top of working and being a mom and wife and such. Plate = full. Blog = not a priority. My nose has been in a book (or two!) for the past 8 hours. The good news is that my entire program is online through the university where I received my B.A. in Education, but obviously involves a lot of self-motivation and discussion on Blackboard.

The last online course I took my senior year in college at UK and literally didn't finish any of my assignments until the week before the semester ended. Wouldn't recommend that. Fortunately, it was a course I was taking pass/fail so I managed to pass despite my minimal effort :)

Anyway, I promise pics of Beck and more substantial posts, but you'll just have to wait until I get the bulk of this class out of the way! I have some great furniture redos in the near future and room redos too (all this schooling is making a home office sound rather appealing).

I know this was boring, but that's what going on and why I'm MIA.

PS. Is anyone planning to tweet during The Bachelorette for #ATFT? If you're in, I'm in! Let me know!