Marshall Memories: July 2011

Thursday, July 28, 2011

1st Dentist Trip & Mommy and Clay Day

Last Friday was Clay's first trip to the dentist! I was a little nervous as to how he'd react to someone trying to look at his teeth since he's not super-cooperative when I try to brush his teeth at night. Thank goodness for this thing in the waiting room...

So the waiting room experience was really good! Clay was being an angel and playing sweetly. Then the hygienist called us back and I thought we were going to have a melt-down because he didn't want to leave the cool trains! But the hygienist saved the day and encouraged him with stickers... which if you know Clay, stickers are the way to his heart! While back in the room the hygienist went over everything... when to brush his teeth, how many times, how we need to floss (yeah, right!) and how they are on-call 24-7. She was really nice and obviously had kids of her own because she didn't skip a beat as Clay dumped out all 500 stickers onto the exam table and rearranged every single one of the drawers in the exam room. They had about 75 of these turtles that Clay insisted on dumping out all over the place... but whatever keeps him occupied!
Finally, the dentist came in and took a look at Clay's teeth. Clay was not a willing participant, but did open his mouth up enough for the dentist to notice that his bite is completely off because he sucks his thumb. Looks like we're going to have to work with him on that! The dentist said not to worry about it too much, but if he's still sucking his thumb by his next 6 month appointment we may have to use the nasty-tasting nail stuff!

Since his appointment was on a Friday, I decided to take most of the day off and have a Mommy and Clay day! We had a blast! After his dentist appointment we went and ate lunch at a little Chinese place. Clay ate my wonton chips and a fortune cookie and played with his cars. Then after lunch, we went to Target to pick out his prize for being so good at the dentist! He's been asking for a McQueen backpack since he's moving up to a big boy class at school, so I told him we'd get him one if he was good at the dentist. He decided on one that had both Mater and McQueen. Then it was time to head home. I had so much fun on our Mommy and Clay day and so did he!

Now he's all excited about going to the dentist because he gets to play with the trains! Hopefully he'll stay this excited about the dentist all the time!

And before I forget... there's a couple of funny and cute things he's been doing lately.

I will ask him, "Who's the best mommy in the world?" or "Who's the best Daddy in the world?" and he'll point to me or Mark and say "That one!". It's so cute!!

The other day I went to pick him up from daycare and he was in the room next door to where his stuff was. I was gathering up his things and the door was open between the rooms so I could hear him talking. All of a sudden the teachers started laughing hysterically and saying "Say it again, Clay". Then my son proceeded to demand "Come on, WOMAN!" to Miss Lynn, one of his teachers. Oh... NO. HE. Didn't! So I marched over to the room and the teachers told him to say it again. Granted, it is pretty funny coming from a 2 year old, but I had to get on to his daddy who taught him to say that!

Oh, my child! The teachers in the class he's moving up to have told me they are excited that he is moving up to their class because he's their comic relief! Guess he's going to be the class clown!

Thursday, July 14, 2011

34 Months!

Holy cow! Less than 2 months and my little baby is going to be a 3 year old! I have not even begun the party planning! Actually, that’s a lie… I do have the date and part of the entertainment! We are planning on doing it the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend… and I couldn’t be more excited about that!! I’ll have Saturday to get ready for it and then Monday to recover! Plus I don’t have to compete with football… and bless my child’s poor heart! He’s just got one of those birthdays where you are not going to make every football fan in the south happy because there is not a Saturday starting in September that doesn’t have one of our state’s teams playing.

So… what has he been up to lately?

The potty training is going quite well! He surprised me 4th of July weekend with how independent he already is with his potty training. We had our friends with young children over and I was suggesting to everyone to go potty before we went out on the boat. I went myself and when I came out, I couldn’t find Clay. I asked one of the girls and they said he had headed upstairs. So I went up there and found him sitting on the potty… all by himself!! Then this past weekend we started the whole wearing “big boy underpants” thing. The first session didn’t go so well… he got a little excited when his Nan came over and it was back to diapers. We probably did 5 sessions over the weekend and 2 out of the 5 he kept them dry and clean. He gets stickers when he goes on the potty and then if he keeps his big boy pants dry and clean, he gets a bigger prize! We’ll try again this weekend and see how he does! He’s even been going to the potty at school!! Such a big boy!

He’s OBSESSED with fruit snacks! He was only eating Cars fruit snacks, but now he’s not discriminating. If it’s a fruit snack, he’s going to eat it! I guess there are worse things to eat. At least they are made with “real fruit”. He’s also very fond of apples. He LOVES an apple! Some of his staples I think are starting to wear on him. He used to eat Nutri-grain bars like they were going out of style, but now he won’t eat them as much. Same with waffles and muffins. But if it has McQueen on it… he’ll eat it no matter what!

Last weekend we took Clay to see his first movie at the theater! I bet you can’t guess what it was… Cars 2! We went with our good friends, Emily and Jeremy, and their son Wyatt. Clay got to have his own bag of candy and was in heaven! Bless his heart… when the previews started he didn’t realize that they were just previews and wanted to know why we were not watching Cars. I explained to him what they were and he decided that every preview that came on he wanted to see that movie. He did better than I expected during the 2 hour movie! He stayed in his seat for most of the time and once it was over, he wanted to watch it again! We had to stay for the credits… he will not let you turn a movie off unless the credits are finished! I’m thinking our next movie will be the Winnie the Pooh movie coming out this weekend. He’s been asking to see that one!

He’s such a loving little guy. He loves to give me hugs and kisses and tells me he loves me! He still wants me to rock him before he goes to bed. He’s probably getting a little too old to be rocked, but I enjoy my snuggle-time with him too much to stop it. He’s a creature of habit – has to have everything in perfect order or he just can’t handle it! Hmmmm… OCD much? At bedtime we have to follow the same routine when I rock him… first we talk to Jesus, then I tell him a story of his choice, then we sing silly songs and then we rock. We can’t leave anything out or he will call you out on it!

He used to want to watch TV or movies all the time, but now he is just content to play with his cars. He’s spoiled rotten and has just about every one of the cars from Cars 2 and he knows them all. He’s got a carrying case that’s actually, Mack, the truck that hauls McQueen around. He LOVES Mack! Whenever we’re in the car, he loves to find all the big “Mack” trucks. We were in the Wal-Mart parking lot a couple of weeks ago and there were a couple of 18-wheelers there. Mark drove up really close to them so Clay could see them. You would have thought he had met his hero! He was so excited to get so close to them! It is so cute to watch him get excited over an every-day thing like an 18-wheeler!

So to end this post, I wanted to show off some pictures my friend Melissa took of Clay while they were here 4th of July weekend. This is the 2nd time she’s taken his pictures – the last time he was 10 months – and every time they end up being my favorite pictures! I didn’t do anything fancy with his outfit or make a fuss about how he looked… she just shot pictures of him playing in his room and outside and they turned out perfect! You should definitely check out her photography blog here: MG Photography

He's so serious in this one!

I LOVE this one! Melissa will do anything to get the shot... she had him pretending he was a dog and was throwing him goldfish as treats! Hey... whatever works!

Another one of my favorites!

Monday, July 11, 2011

Happy Birthday America!

Our 4th of July weekend was packed full of lots of fun! Our friends, Tony and Melissa, and their 3 adorable girls came over for the weekend. Saturday evening we headed out to the middle of nowhere for a friend’s huge 4th of July bash… and I mean HUGE! When the directions include “look for the roped off areas for parking and the porta-potties” you know it’s going to be big. Bad Mama here didn’t realize that Clay would not be allowed in the water for 5 days after his surgery so my poor baby had to miss out on the pool and huge water slide inflatable. He did manage to still soak himself in the baby pool and Spiderman sprinkler. “Technically” it was the 5th day, so I’m sure it there was no harm done. We ate until we were stuffed and sampled at least 5 different flavors of homemade ice cream. I’m pretty sure all Clay ate for dinner was goldfish and ice cream. Once it got dark, they had a huge firework show that rivals some of the big “professional” shows I’ve been to. There were so many fireworks that every time we thought they were done… they kept going… and going… and going!

The next day we spent it out on the lake. We rode around on the boat and then went to a cove to hang out and swim. Again… bad Mama! Clay is not allowed in the lake for at least until we go back for his post-op appointment in a few weeks due to possible infection from the nasty lake water. Thankfully my mother-in-law was able to come watch him that afternoon while he napped so we could take the girls swimming. That night we had my sister and her husband over for a yummy shrimp boil!

The next day our company left. Clay was sad to see his Caroline go! He had a lot of fun with the girls and has been asking when they are going to come back! That afternoon we went down the street to our neighbor’s house for another shrimp boil. While they were cooking it, a huge storm blew in… quickly! It was crazy! The winds were blowing chairs and tree branches all over the place. Then the power went out. We took the shrimp boil inside and ate by candlelight. All of a sudden there was a bright flash… lightening struck the tree right outside the house and ripped the bark right off of it! There were also a few trees that were ripped out of the ground at our marina… ripped out by the roots! It was a weird storm! Thankfully it cleared up in time for the big city fireworks show. We were able to see it from their back porch.

I was awful and didn’t take a whole lot of pictures. I did get some lessons from Melissa and she took some pictures of Clay for me. She’s given me a sneak peak of one of the pictures and it looks great! I can’t wait to see the rest of them!

Even though our 4th of July weekend was crazy busy we had a blast!!

And here are my awful pictures! They were so bad, I had to fancy them up using some tricks Melissa taught me. (Melissa, you'd be so proud! I figured out how to use the Coffee Shop actions!!)