Ben and Brookie

We went to visit Michelle and Brooke last week. Ben is in love. He was so sweet with his little "cuzie." He held her for a long time and she just looked at him and studied his face. So sweet. Joe was oblivious. Standard.

Playing with the boys

Joey and Ben crack me up on a daily basis. Joe worships Ben's every move and wants so badly to make Ben smile and earn Ben's approval. There are two places in our house where Joey's Ben shadowing has become particularly evident: in the kitchen, and in the bathroom. Joey has been a fickle eater his whole solid-eating life, but in the past week we have had a major breakthrough in the eating department. When challenged by Ben, we have discovered that Joey will eat. The boys will go head to head eating vegetables with Dean and I cheering wildly along with each and every bite. Our veggie eating face-offs often result in impromptu song and dance and dinner time is probably quite a site for our neighbors to witness!

The other male bonding location is the bathroom. We finally broke out the big boy potty a couple weeks ago after Joey kept tring to take his diaper off when he had to go to the bathroom. So far he has not produced anything in the potty, but he does follow Ben in everytime he has to...um...have a sit down and enthusiastically has his shorts and diaper removed and grabs some reading material to join his brother! So funny...and such good blackmail for the future.

This past weekend we went to my cousin, Mackenzie's, high school graduation open house. Ben enjoyed playing volleyball with the big kids and Joey managed to squeeze in some corn hole with Dean, Uncle Craig, and Uncle Clint. The boys' big 3-week-old cousin, Brookie, was at the party too! Pictured below with her adoring Nana.

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What Happened to Joey?

The title of this post was inspired by the question that has been asked of me at least 10 times a day for the last week. Kind friends and strangers take one look at the little bug, smile, and then get a horrified look on their face as they say "oh my, what happened?!?!" Tornado Joe has taken one spill after another the past week resulting in a mess of bruises across his entire sweet forehead. The first bruise occured last Monday. I had worked most of the day and literally had been with Joey for less than 1 waking hour when he ran away from me down the driveway and fell, catching himself with his head and resulting in this...

The next bruise occurred the following day when Joey tried to hug me while I was getting dressed for work and I stepped away from him and he hit his forehead on the bed frame. Mother of the year.

The next bruise occured under the care of our babysitter yesterday. She said they were playing and he just ran head first into the couch. That sounds about right.

Poor little man. All of Joey's accidents have driven us to make a rather drastic choice, but one we feel is in Joe's best interest. For the remainder of his toddler years Joey will wear a helmet wherever he goes.

The Boys...

wear me out... challenge me...are hysterical...are best friends...are the loves of my life...are sometimes a nightmare...love their daddy and each other with all their hearts...love to play outside...seem to enjoy destroying my house...are wildly spinning tornados of energy that somedays suck the life right out of me...worship their Uncle Craig...love babysitters...think their cousin Brookie is "so cute"...can turn any moment into dance party USA...have smiles that can melt your heart...have trouble sharing...think that bath time is the best time of the day...are very emotional (ben) and prone to tantrums (joe)...make me want, need, hope, yearn, pray to be a better mother, wife, daughter, sister, friend, christian, human being...love me even though I fail miserably. This time of year is always rough for me. I really struggle to find balance in my life and do justice to all the different responsibilities I have. In my quest to "do it all" I fear the only thing I succeed at is doing nothing well and being overwhelmed and irritable. I am not pleasant to be around and I admit to far too often taking my frustrations out on my little buddies. My patience is at an all time low...which is rough timing concidering the days are long and there is little respite from the chaos of our days in the summer. My prayer is like a broken record..."please Lord, please give me patience today to tackle all that is thrown my way and help the boys know that I love them and forgive me when I snap at them...and if you could throw some extra time my way that would be great as well!" I know that my struggles are no different than those of any mother, but I yearn to be one of those women who just make it look so easy and seem to have it all together...or I yearn to hit them with a wiffle ball bat. I really want my boys to remember me some day as the woman who loved them more than words and treated them with kindness, respect, unwavering love, and encouragement, and not the cranky, snappy, fiesty, nasty wench they are around far too often. In the wise words of Kathy Hammel "only you can make yourself have a bad day." So, today, I am going to take a deep breath, say my prayer for patience, and go greet the day. I know the day will be long, but hopefully the memories we make will be sweet, and we can hold on to the good stuff and get rid of the junk.