Big News in the Bell House….

 We’re Moving!

Where?

Well…

*It was voted #3 in “Safest of Nation’s 100 Largest Cities” in 1996,

*It was also named the number one college sports town by Sports Illustrated in 2003.

*In 2004 it was named the healthiest city in America by Men's Journal magazine.

*It was named Most Romantic U.S. City by USAWeekend.com, February, 2006

*It was ranked 2nd Best place in the Country for Education: Forbes, December, 2007

*The summers are supposed to be absolutely beautiful. Then winters, on the other hand, well….I better pack a warm coat.

*It’s 768 miles from Little Rock and the people there probably don’t say “ya’ll”.

Madison, Wisconsin…..Here we come!

Morning adventures of one cute, sly, sweet,16 month old boy….

 

Zane wanted to be like his friend, William, and get this cool fridge farm. He loves it. When he presses the chicken in the loft of the barn, it plays music. Zane claps, waves his arms, and dances. And makes sure that everyone else does, too. Here he is doing one of his signature moves.

 

I love this next picture for two reasons: a) what is that expression on his face?! b) he looks like he’s doing the ‘robot’. And maybe he is.

Look closely at the picture below. Something is missing. The pig “behind”.

It’s been missing since….oh…day 3? This morning I noticed that there were FOUR pieces missing. I searched high and low. No luck. And then I see a certain mischievous little boy opening the trash can.

“Zane, What in the world are you doing?”

“kdofiewlakfoijeow” or some kind of German, said with an innocent look on his face.

Upon further inspection I find the horse, duck, and cow “behinds” in the trash. None of the heads made it into the trash can. Weird. Guess I can count my losses on the ham. I’m sure it’s sitting in a landfill somewhere.

Switching gears, Zane tries to eat out of the dog bowls face first. Just like the puppies. But heaven forbid we stop there. Drop a yogurt melt on the floor?

Pick it up -- No hands required!

I know, gross.  But he looks so proud of himself. Good thing I swept and mopped last night.

Time to pick out a good read. The title of this book says it all, right?Thanks for blowing me that kiss, Sweet Boy. Love you more than Topsy Too-Tall loves Tiny Too-Little.

Sixteen months

 

Is this my new favorite age? Yep. I wonder if each age will be my favorite. I’m really lovin this kid right now.

At 16 months Zane weighs 22 lbs (up two whole pounds from the 20 lbs he weighed at 10 months), i don’t remember his height, and still has a big head. 90th percentile, I do believe. :)

He has added two new words to his vocabulary this month: 1. “Uh-huh”. He says this over and over if either one of us are on the phone. He will also walk around with the phone up to his ear and say “uh-huh”. And the other day he kept slamming the phone into the back of my head saying, “uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh”. Apparently he wanted me to call someone? 2. “Dee Dee” (Matt’s mom). Except it sounds like “day day”. A little Southern accent, perhaps?

He has replaced waving at everyone with blowing kisses to everyone. He’s a pro. Even makes the ‘smack’ noise.

He wants to let the dogs out of the kennel as soon as he wakes up. He points to the kennel as says, “Uh?”. He chases them around the house and pins them to the ground.

He is definitely a little BOY! He wants to rough house. He runs up to me and pushes me, to which my role is to dramatically fall backwards and tell him that he’s the strongest boy in the world. He gets pretty tickled at that.

He goes to the front window and says, “Dada?” When I know Dad-o’s almost home, we go outside and wait in the driveway for him. I love to watch that smile spread across his face when he sees Matt pulling into the driveway.

 We love you more each day, Mister Love Bear Man.

this ‘mom’ thing

This whole ‘mom’ thing, it’s not so bad. That sounds horrible. But sometimes that’s exactly how I’ve felt….Like I’m a horrible mom, especially in that first year.

But then there are days like today, where everything just seems to click. Days like today, where I feel like I’m Zane’s mom, and he loves me no matter what. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still not easy. He’s a mischievous little boy. Some days are very trying, but oh, so worth it.

The first year of Zane’s life was hard, to say the least. I’m not blaming him. He’s more or less a guinea pig, after all.  A little lab rat that Matt and I are using to learn how to be parents. But lately, Zane has been great.

Yesterday morning he did something that sealed the deal—we WILL be keeping him forever! Ha!  I was about to leave for work, and, as our routine goes, I told him, “Mama’s gotta go to work now. You be a sweet boy.” I ran my fingers through his hair and kissed him on the top of the head. He reached his little chubby hand up, grabbed my collar, pulled me down to him, and gave me a real life kiss on the lips. Complete with the “smack” noise. Be still, my heart! As if it isn’t hard enough to leave for work, he goes and does something so incredibly sweet that I have to just peel myself off of him.

 Zane is jabbering all the time. Sometimes when he jabbers, he makes duck lips (see pic above). I’m pretty sure he speak German. Too bad that I don’t.  But he has his own ways of telling me what he wants. 

On my days off, our morning routine usually starts with me bringing Zane, his sippy cup of milk, and his blankie into my room. We He watches Mickey Mouse Club House and drinks his milk. I rest my eyes for a few more minutes and snuggle with him. At some point he sits up, looks at me, and makes a smacking noise with his mouth. That’s his way of saying “Breakfast!”. When he finishes breakfast, he puts both hands up in the air, which means “All Done!” (I can also tell he’s finished when he quits eating the Cheerios and starts casually dropping them onto the floor and saying, “Lola”.)

Just a few minutes ago…after he had been up for about 3 1/2 hours, he came running up to me and threw his arms around my neck. He laid his little head on my shoulder. I gave him his blankie and he made this sweet little noise, like “awww”, and snuggled his face into the blankie. That was his way of letting me know that he was ready for a nap. Man, does that feel good! Finally having a child that appreciates a little sleep! Hallelujah! To be able to lay him down, close the door, and hear sweet humming noises instead of screaming feels A.Maz.Ing. That’s when I pat myself on the back and think, “You’ve got this, Girl”. 

Now, off to access the damage to the couch where Z may or may not have spilled a bottle of bleach/water, aka puppy accident cleaner upper, onto the cushions. Oh, this ‘mom’ thing….never a dull moment. :)

poop.

I can’t think of a better word to describe my night. It’s been one of those nights where I stop and think, “Really? This is what my life is about now? I work 42 hours a week and come home to clean up poop?”

To start with, Matt is on call.  As in, went to the hospital at 5 this morning and will hopefully get off by noon tomorrow. Yeah, those doctors, they’ve got it easy, right? Well, that leaves me here to take care of the kiddo by myself. No big deal on a normal night. This was not a normal night.

I had just put Zane in his bath and was changing into my ‘comfy clothes’. That’s when it began. The ill-timed bathtub bowel movement. Ugh. It has happened once before, but Matt was here to help. I grab Z up out of the tub and set him on the toilet. Nothin. I get him down and start scooping the ‘foreign objects’ out with a cup and dumping (no pun intended) them into the toilet.

Guess who wasn’t finished? Far from it. I look over and he’s pooping in the bathroom floor and trying to climb into the cabinet all at the same time. My little multi-tasker.  Back to the toilet and he successfully makes his first deposit in the ole porcelain bank. I “clean” him up, start cleaning up the tub/floor/toilet, look over and he’s now pooped on the bath mat AND in the shower. Lovely.

His next pooping destination appears to be my closet. I intervene and slam the closet door shut…….ON MY POOR LITTLE POOPY HEAD’S FINGER!

Oh.My.Word. Obviously he’s screaming his head off, I’m overwhelmed with guilt, and scoop him up to console him. And now I have poop on my shirt. Lovely. I feel so glamorous. Can this night get any worse? Never ask that question because you won’t like the answer, right?

I find the splattered dog diarrhea in the hallway floor as we’re headed to Zane’s room to put on his pjs.

Poop, poop, and more poop. Have I mentioned how glamorous I feel?

In hind sight, I shouldn’t have let his little naked butt run around the bathroom. Should I have let him stay in the tub til he finished? Took him out and put a diaper on him? I don’t know…..I’m just trying to figure these things out as I go.

I even stopped in the chaos and took a picture of the poop in the floor with my phone and texted it to Matt and our moms. Didn’t want anyone to feel left out. I decided not to post it here. Consider this your lucky day. Maybe I’ll threaten him with it one day when he’s 16 and wants to bring an ole stinky, silly girl to my house.

Instead, here are some pictures of my sweet little boy before church. He’s holding a stick. Always. He loves to be outside and to play with sticks.

showers.

 

Here are some pics from Lindsey’s bridal shower in Conway last, ahem, month.  And a couples shower from….two months ago? Better late than never, right?

I used to have a Garfield comic strip on my fridge that said, “I’ll procrastinate tomorrow.” Couldn’t think of a better way to describe myself.

I’m not sure I have an explanation for this picture. Maturity at its finest.

Candid shot of Lindsey opening gifts with Brita & Nicole. She seriously had an assembly line going to open gifts. Let’s just say she got a gift or two thousand.

Lindsey had a little bit of competition for attention.

Family shot at the couples shower. Matt was out of town, Tyler had already left, and Zane was with my mom & dad.

Sisters! (in-law)

Hard at work opening gifts

Hard to believe that the wedding is next month! Can’t wait to post pics of the beautiful bride, the cutest little ring bearer, and I’m sure there will be one stressed-out bridesmaid. What are the odds Zane will walk all the way down the aisle, ring his little bell, and not throw a fit? Fingers crossed…..

Easter

 My Easter post is a “little behind”.

Why is there some unspoken weather rule that it MUST be cold and rainy every year on Easter day? Sunday morning was beautiful! I made the mistake of saying so out loud to Matt. So after church, of course it cooled down and began to sprinkle.

Luckily, the rain was short lived and we were even able to have our Easter egg hunt outside. Yes, I’m thirty. Yes, I still hunt Easter eggs. Last year I was out of my game and only found five eggs. This year, however, I found 22 eggs! Woot woot! Oh, yeah….and Zane found ten eggs with the help of his DeeDee.  I have no pictures of us hunting eggs because I was zoned in on the task at hand. 

 

Zane had fun blowing bubbles with DeeDee. He even put some of the soap in his mouth and blew his own bubbles.

His new ‘trick’ was hilarious. He would put half of a plastic egg in his mouth and it would cover his nose. Then he would bite down on it and it would pop out of his mouth, shooting across the room! Silly boy.

And once again, I must add the “bunny” pics that I’m sure he’ll kill me for when he’s a teenager. But they are so stinkin cute. Thanks Aunt Lindsey for the new little lamb!

 There’s gotta be a few more eggs around here somewhere….