Category: The Jays Days

It’s hard to believe, but it’s been a year since I first started this blogging adventure!  I started with an entry called “The importance of Looking Back” on Oct.21st.  The boyz and I had gone to what we affectionately refer to as the ‘tractor park’ after a rough day and the moments spent in the setting sun was the turning point for that day and for many to come.  The tool of blogging has helped me to zoom in and focus on what is really happening – that my boyz are growing up daily before my eyes.   It is SO important for me to continue looking back.  I regret that I’ve not been as disciplined as I seem to have been last fall.  And then I look back on all those initial entries and wonder, “How did I have time to do all that?”

So looking back, it was ironic that I took the boyz back to the Tractor Park almost a year to the day of my first blog and I captured a few sunlight filled moments again.  But mostly, it was a reminder of the importance of looking back and the importance of my continued discipline in writing and trying to capture these fleeting moments.

So in honor of the one year birthday of this blog – I am now going to spend a little time re-designing the look and giving it a fresh face.  With the new look comes a renewed commitment to looking back.

Fletcher enjoying swinging. (Do you know how hard it is to capture pictures while swinging?)

Here comes Griffin!

Farmer Griffin

Checking out the tractor

Worked a smile out of him!

Tiny little fingers getting bigger everyday!

Those hands and finger know just what to do

Kiefer helping me push Fletcher on a swing

He gets such joy from his baby brother!

It’s mutual!

Big guy climbed into the spider web

Griffin was hopping while he waited for us

The importance of looking back – they both turned to wait for me

But not for long….!

Then we amused them by having them roll down the hill and run back up

Kiefer helps Fletcher to see the bright spot in the day

Griffin had a bit of a melt down on the way to the car

I got lots of looks for not picking him up while he was running after me and having a fit.

So I have a confession to make.  I haven’t done any scrapbooks for the past six years.  I feel a lot of mom-guilt about this because I used to give my own mother so much grief for completing my older sister’s baby book with captions and dates and details and two and a half years later when she had me, my baby book only had one week of my life documented -the rest you can find a jumbled mess in a drawer in her house.  I vowed to document the moments, take gobs of pictures and tuck them away neatly in annual scapbooks so my children could watch themselves evolve year to year.  I’ve failed miserably!  I put together a book of Carter’s first week of life.  That’s it!  I actually caught up on my scrapbooks while I was on bedrest for the 13 weeks leading up to his arrival.  But haven’t done a single scrapbook since then!!

This blog is serving as one tool to help document and capture the funny things that they do.  I like to think of it as the story behind the pictures.  The color commentary, if you will. I’ve also kept calendars for each child with significant growth milestones in it.  And I’ve kept all of their artwork to date (they each have their own binders with their artwork in slipcovers.  See ROYGBIV blog if you’re surprised at this!)

But the other day, I couldn’t help but realize that I actually carry around a scrapbook of sorts.  My purse!  I use this purse for ‘grown up occasions’ – date nights, dress up events, any time I’m going out and I won’t need a diaper bag with me, I carry this purse.  Last week, I went along with Jim to a business conference for an overnight get away and as I was shuffling through my purse looking for lipstick, I came across every ticket stub to shows I’ve seen in the past six years including IRT, Wicked, Mama Mia, Symphony concert as well as a few funeral programs and wedding programs, and my 20th high school reunion program from this summer!   There were a few matchbooks and a mint wrapper or two from restaurants where we’ve gone on dates.  Digging for lipstick is like an archeological dig through my social life!  I didn’t have the heart to clean it out.  I just look forward to continuing to add points of interest to what could seem to the untrained eye to appear like an ordinary black bag.

Back in my college days, my roommates used to know how to really “get” me.  You see, we would play practical jokes on each other and each of us would take the next gag to the next level.  Anyhow, back then, I was the picture of organization.  I had separate binders for each class, neatly organized on my custom made bookshelf that sat upon my desk.  I had a mug for pencils, a mug for pens, my calendar neatly held my life together and it was always color coded.  But the thing that they thought was hilarious was in my top drawer I kept my scented markers in rainbow order.  Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet – or ROYGIBIV.  Doesn’t everyone do this?  I guess not!  Anyhow, when they really wanted to mess with me, they would open up that top drawer and mix up a few colors.  I’d always notice, of course!  And that was the fun of it.

Fast forward nearly 20 years and I’ve lightened up a bit – but I’m still a closet perfectionist (and my closets are the only things I like to keep organized!)  I like to say I’m a laid back perfectionist  or a recovering perfectionist… but that same former roommate and I still get together and lately the boyz have been asking us to tell them stories about our college days.  Well, this one came up and they all got a kick out of it.  Funny the things we remember about people that stay the same over the years!

Well, then a few weeks later, Carter was doing his homework using his crayons in his 96 count crayon box – the one with the built in pencil sharpener in the back.  I bought this one for him because I always coveted this one as a kid.  We had one like this that we kept at my Grandmother’s house that we would use for coloring over there.  We always took really good care of it, but I don’t really recall having my own large box at home.  So it’s just a small way I indulge him (and me!)  So as he’s in the middle of coloring his homework, somehow the box tips over and all 96 crayons spill out everywhere!  On the countertop, all over the floor… it was 96 crayon pick up! Except it wasn’t really greeted as a game but instead met with a few tears.

So in a moment of motherhood wisdom I turned lemons into lemonade by explaining that this was an opportunity to RE-ORGANIZE his crayon box!  Wouldn’t it be nicer to have all the colors together in varying shades of rainbow order?? He saw the light and wiped his tears and was soon shuffling the reds from the pinks from the greens.  Once finished, it was a masterpiece of organization. And I know I was finally able to take a deep breath that the crayons were at last finally in the right place.

A few days later, Carter said to me, “Mom, I really like having my crayons this way! It’s so much easier to find the colors instead of looking all around for them!”  Ah-ha!  A ROYGIBIV convert in the making!

The other morning, I grabbed my camera to try to capture a glimpse of the carnage that Fletcher leaves in his path of destruction. He’s on the move and is into everything.  I keep trying to remind myself, as I clean up the wreckage, that this is how they learn but it might also be the reason I can’t get anything done or why I’m never on time.  But in the end, it’s all about discovery. He’s discovering how to open doors, and I’m discovering how to latch them.

He opened the fridge, was playing with the condiments

Unrolled the paper towels – maybe he was trying to clean up?

Loves the dishwasher soap door note the bottle of BBQ sauce at his feet

Helped himself to some carrots while in the fridge

Likes the lazy susan and was getting into the ziplock bags. I didn’t take a picture of the 100’s of bags that were everywhere!

Into the pantry… yes, that’s my printer router he knocked over with the broom

Then he moved onto my desk drawers

It’s that time of year again!  An unofficial holiday of sorts in the Hoosier land.  Indiana State Fair time!  It’s that season between the heat of summer and the start of school.  Before the leaves start turning and typically some of the hottest days of the year.  But I can’t think of a time that I’ve ever missed the State Fair!   We always went as kids, sometimes more than once! Regrettably, it was always the signal that school was about to begin.  But even as an adult – we would always go, too! Several years the kick off hot air balloon race would fly over our old house in the morning and we would watch as the balloons would fire their flames to keep up with the rabbit balloon.

But as a mother of four John Deere-loving boys – you can only imagine how much we look forward to the fair!  In fact, I must confess that before I went to the fair with Jim I never even knew there was a tractor area at the fair!  I kinda always just walked right by that area on my way to the midway.  But now that I’m a mom, we don’t go to the fair to ride the rides – we go to sit on and see the gigantic tractors!  That, and the wonderful kid farm area.  The boyz have really enjoyed this attraction over the years.  You grab a basket on your way in and then you learn about the process of farming as you walk along the winding path… you plant seeds, feed the livestock, milk a cow, drive a tractor, harvest your vegetable garden and pick apples from the orchard.  Then at the end you separate all your harvest and earn “money” that you can use to buy a treat from the store – either apple juice, a cheese stick, a carton of milk, or the like.

This experience is always a highlight, but this year in particular, it was the highlight for me because not only is it adorable and provides many photo ops but as we were walking into the dairy barn set up they had a lady in the mini barn to help the kids pretend to milk the cows.  One of the mannequin moo-ers was hooked up to an model of an electric milk pump that had a cord of blinking lights showing where the milk would travel the other hollow heifer was a manual milker where you could squeeze the rubber udder to “milk” the cow into a bucket.  While watching the blinking lights, Kiefer stole the show when he asked if the first cow was “charging”??  We all cracked up!!

All the Boyz in the backseat

A photo op outside the mini farm

Couldn’t pass up an op to take a picture with the State Fair Queen!!

Farmer Carter

Farmer Kiefer

Farmer Griffin

Griffin

Fletcher eating his new hat

Griffin driving the blue tractor. (he tried every color to see which rode the best)

Carter driving the John Deere, of course. Getting a little too big for this tractor

Carter & Kiefer captivated by the antique tractor show (Carter begging me, “Please can we stay to watch the thresher work?” How did he know it was a thresher??!!??)

Sitting on the REAL John Deeres

Kiefer

So serious!

Grffin

Carter

Watching the Chain Saw Competition (and getting ideas of how best to throw an ax!)

We LOVE John Deere

On the Tractor Trolly with Gigi and Mom

Captivated by the baby piglets

Trying to pet them!

We sat on nearly every antique tractor, and watched the antique farmers fire up the farming relics, we watched a chain saw competition (a fair first for me!) (And now I’m worried what  ax throwing and log rolling techniques the Boyz learned while watching!)  we rode the tractor trolly a full loop around the fairgrounds, we ate at the Dairy Barn and walked a worthy distance for “real” lemonade shake ups. We gaucked at the world’s largest boar and cooed over the 9 day old litter of piglets (Carter whispering in my ear “Can we keep one?”!!). We had a great time and more importantly, we shared it all with the grandparents and created memories at the fair for the next generation.

As I watched Fletcher enjoy a lemonade popsicle today, I couldn’t help but relish baby speed.  I love it.  Everything is so new that they take it all in.  Figuring out what they just did to move their hand or toes or whatever and then doing it again with a huge smile of satisfaction all the while forging new neural pathways.  Remarkable.  So today it was popsicles.  It took a lot of coordination to hold it in his hand (lefty!?) then to move it slowly to his mouth and catch it with his tongue.  Then the experience of tasting it.  He was watching his brothers do the same thing so he knew it was edible and I think he’d ascertained that it was even desirable and he was pleased to have his very own. So he started with a lick and I think it startled him with the coldness factor. Then add the sharp lemon-y taste the smile switched to a shocked big-eyed sour face then back to a smile.  Then he lost a little control of the joy stick and was getting some popsicle on his nose, then my shoulder, then the deck, then my ear… we were all along for the ride as he regained control and again steered the ship back to his drool filled mouth.  Oh, the sweet days of summer letting them drift along at baby speed.

Add it to the list of things I never thought I’d hear myself say outloud:  “We don’t throw our shoe at the driver!”  And of course it came from the one with good aim so it flew over my right shoulder and he hit the stereo when he did it.  I instantly knew who it was as we were speeding along 465 at 55 mph (or a little faster) while swerving as I reached to feed Fletcher some of the crumbly animal crackers I found in the bottom of my diaper bag because we were out past lunchtime and he was screaming of hunger. (Bad mommy! Bad mommy!)  I reached to the “backety-back” to share with Carter & Kiefer but Griffin was throwing the individual animal crackers to the ground as he was throwing a fit because he wanted the whole bag.  I tried reasoning with him but I should know better than attempting to reason with a hungry two year old.  So after about the fifth time of telling him he couldn’t have the whole bag  then I get beaned with the shoe.  He’s the only one who wears orange crocs these days so I knew it was him.  Unfortunately, I can’t even say it’s the first time…  the first shoe, of course, but last week it was his apple core, the other day it was his Lightening McQueen cell phone.  How many times do you say “You don’t throw things at the driver!!???!!”  It’s bad, but today my initial reaction was to crack up laughing!  Then I winged it back at him and said it in my most firm motherly voice.  “Don’t throw your shoe at me, especially when I’m driving!!!”