Cutepalooza.

I don't know everything. 

"HOLD THE PHONE! Did she just admit she doesn't know everything?" I really did. As much as I wish I was all-knowing, there are things I don't know. Like why my kids were cursed with terrible digestive systems. Or why Mother Nature thinks it's April (which I'm loving, don't get me wrong, just as long as she doesn't think it's February in April.) Or why I'm still watching The Bachelor even though he's annoying & unattractive. Or why Cold Stone Creamery closed all of its locations within 20 miles of me (grrrrr!)

But, I do know one thing for certain: My kids are cute. Like, super cute. And I'm allowed to say this for 2 reasons:

1) I'm their mom. Moms get to brag. Like I always say, if you push it out, you get to brag about it.
2) This is my blog.

In case you need proof, let's talk about this little nugget, shall we?

Just look at that face! 

He makes my heart pitter-patter. He's just so happy and sweet and cuddly.

And did I tell you he has a tooth?! A tooth! When did he get this old?

I bet you're smiling right now at all the cuteness. That little smile is contagious, huh?

See what I mean? It blows my mind regularly that I made this child. 50% of that cute comes from me. Love love love my handsome boy!

(This post had absolutely no purpose other than to showcase some recent pics of my little man. You're welcome for all the hot mess babbling that came with them.)

Tiny Humans Club.

So often I think to myself that the little people in this house must have some sort of club meetings, a club whose sole purpose is to come up with ways to deplete my patience. The toddler would clearly be the leader of the club because, let's face it, that girl possesses some serious dictator qualities. She'd probably let Joe be the secretary or something (every club needs a secretary.) Anyway, I imagine the meetings go a little like this:

B: Ok, so how can we mess with Mommy this week? Aaaand, go!
J: Well...I could have a diaper blowout.
B: Rookie! You can do better than that. I'm going to color on the couch with a Sharpie again, right after I put stickers on the TV stand. She's at her wit's end with stickers these days! 
J: I could spit out my pacifier a kajillion times in a row and do some serious hair pulling. The hair pulling really gets her goat. But honestly? That's what she gets for letting her hair grow out so long.
B: That's better, but we need more. Oh, I know! I'll wiggle enough that my diaper gets all out of whack and I leak through my pants right when we get to a restaurant. I can also splash a ton of water out of the bathtub, drop 50% of my lunch on the floor, & ask for juice 37 times in a row until she gives in and just gives it to me.
J: I don't know how to do those big kid things, but I'm a rockstar at crying! I can whine incessantly for absolutely no reason.
B: Perfect, I'll do that, too. And I'll throw the world's biggest tantrum the next time she tries to put me in a shopping cart. I'm talking lie on the gross floor in the middle of Target, with jelly legs when she tries to make me stand up & arms flailing about.
J: I have so much to learn...
B: I think we've got a solid plan going here. Now all we have to do is iron out the middle-of-the-night Wake Up Schedule and we're all set.
J: I've got the cry-out-every-30-minutes-until-she-feeds-me part covered...
B: ...and I'll wake up once or twice & cry because I can't find my pappy/bunny/seahorse just to liven things up a bit. Maybe I'll even run into the hallway screaming at 2 am; that scares the life out her. OK, plan is set, so this meeting is adjourned. Until next week, brother...

And then I imagine they do some sort of secret handshake and go on their merry way.

Yep, my kids are crafty. I wouldn't put this sort of devious plotting past them. Some days they are like a well oiled patience-eradicating machine. And while I know full well that they don't do any of it on purpose or with malicious intent, they are so in synch with their craziness sometimes that I almost have to laugh.

Except, the joke's on me...

Christmas: 2011.

Christmas 2011. It happened. It came & went like, um, something that comes & goes really fast. And then we switched right into birthday mode and it went un-blogged about. But I promise it happened. Here's the proof:

Brooke decorated some cookies for Santa & left those on the fireplace for him alongside a cold glass of milk. And I can personally tell you that Santa enjoyed the crap out of that treat after unloading all of the kids' goodies (& going to midnight Mass.)

Here's the standard "waiting on the steps to see what Santa brought us" picture. Brooke wasn't super interested in helping support her brother on the step. And Joe, well, he wasn't super interested in pretty much anything that morning.

Brooke was a very good girl so Santa brought her lots of great surprises.

Joe was equally good and got lots of fun gifts from the Big Guy.

Joe's 1st Christmas at just 3.5 months old was quite different from Brooke's 1st Christmas last year at 11.5 months old. He didn't understand anything that was going on; he was content as long as he was fed on time & had his pacifier when he was ready to sleep :)

In addition to filling their stockings, Santa brings the Reeder children 3 gifts, just like the 3 gifts the Wise Men brought Baby Jesus. (Isn't that an awesome way to keep the crazy gift-giving at bay? Credit for this idea goes to my sister. I'm hopeful we'll always keep it this way. If we decide to be more generous in the future, any additional gifts will come from Mom & Dad. But, seriously, they get soooo much stuff from the rest of the family that they don't need more than this!) Joe's 3 gifts from Santa were a baby race track, fabric blocks that hold family pictures, & a bathtub basketball toy.

Brooke's 3 gifts from Santa were a cash register, some play food, and...

...which she clearly hated. She is still playing with this bad boy on the regular.

That was our Christmas morning, & it was about as awesome as it can get. The rest of the holiday was spent with our families - a pretty fantastic time as well. The kids were spoiled ROTTEN by everyone. The amount of stuff we were dealing with the days after Christmas was incredibly overwhelming for me. Just thinking about all of it is making me want to drink heavily. It took us weeks to put everything away and organize our lives. We even closeted a few toys for each child to break out on a rainy day because it would have been impossible for them to play with it all at once. (Well, at the time, it was impossible for Joe to play with just about anything. We actually just broke out his race track a couple weeks ago because he's finally old enough to enjoy it.) I think it goes without saying that we are so incredibly blessed!

This may be 2 months late, but we hope you & yours had a pretty magical Christmas this year! Ours was fun & chaotic & exhausting & exciting &...perfect.

4 generations.

Grandma Clara.

She is the essence of sweetness & kindness. With 9 kids, 26 grandkids, and (I think) 4o great-grandkids (with at least 2 more on the way), I think she would tell you she has lived a full life. She is 1/2 of the cutest couple I've ever known. She had the deepest love for her husband & theirs was a love story that anyone would long for. Just before his funeral Mass, as I approached her with tears streaming down my face as I mourned the most adorable grandfather a girl could have, she said to me, "Don't cry, we'll be okay." In what should have been her darkest hour, she was comforting us. She has an unwavering faith that, as I've always imagined, brought her peace in that moment.

She has bounced back from countless illnesses that should have taken her from us, but her strength and resilience have given us more time with her. At 96 years old, I know my children won't really have a chance to know her like I do. But I'm so thankful that they have had a chance to meet her. And with any luck, they'll get to spend even more time with her & maybe, just maybe, develop lasting memories of their great-grandma.

4 generations ~ February 2012

Brooke (2), Sarah (27), Clara (96), Joseph (5 mos.), Dan (60)

Brain dump.

* It has been a severely whiny day in this house, by baby and toddler. I need a drink.
* Blowing raspberries is hella hilarious to a 5-month-old. Especially when you do it the second the spoonful of oatmeal & carrots touches your lips and food spews all over the unsuspecting person that is feeding you. When I tried to scold him for it, he gave us the best little belly laughs - something we've only heard once or twice - which then made us all crack up.
* Also hilarious? The Super Bowl.

* I'm considering giving up baked goods for Lent, but I don't think I could do it. I still crave sugar. Like pregnancy-crave. It's bad news bears. I honestly think going cold turkey for a month and a half would kill me.

* Speaking of sweet, this picture pretty much kills me every time I look at it. Because the sweetness factor is through the roof.

* I've completely skipped Valentine's Day this year. I know, it's not until tomorrow. But I've barely given it any thought. I'm not opposed to it; I'm not an "it's a made-up Hallmark holiday" hater or anything. I see no problem with a day that reminds people to tell others that they love them. But I just didn't prepare for it. There isn't a single Valentine's Day decoration up in our house. I don't have outfits planned out for the kids to wear. I have a small gift for Brooke, but I'm not sure if I have anything for Joe (hmmm, I guess I should get on that.) I just don't have the energy for Valentine's Day this year.

* This little fella drools a lot. I'd love to see a tooth pop up to justify all the drool. (And the whining, for that matter.)

* I am sooooooo ready to night-wean. Joe only eats once (and has since the beginning - he spoiled me big time) but I'm just done with it. Brooke used to eat multiple times a night, so weaning her from middle-of-the-night feedings was a project. I feel like I could knock this out with him in a couple of days. Of course, it would require an incredible amount of patience at 4 a.m. and since I haven't slept in, oh, 13 months, patience isn't exactly my specialty.
* Speaking of things I don't yet have the patience for...we've gotten nowhere on the potty training front. She seems super disinterested, and I'm not gonna push the issue. All of this pressure that I've been letting get to me to do it? Pushing it aside. She'll do it when she's ready.
* Picking out the night's pajamas to a 2-year-old is a VERY BIG DEAL. If you don't pick the right ones, it can throw off the whole night. At the moment, we're cycling through 2 pair of "comfy jammies" (i.e. fleece footed pajamas) and her "cookie jammies".

* I'm tired, y'all. Like, super tired. I can't even remember the last time I slept more than 3 hours in a row. Joe hasn't had a good night of sleep since Thanksgiving. And I have a 2-year-old that rarely sleeps all the way through, which is fun because then I get to get up with alternating children every hour. And then she waltzes in our room at 6:45 a.m. ready to begin the day. And they don't nap simultaneously, so midday naps are out of the question for me. I'm tired. And I don't care if this sounds whiny - like Leslie Gore said, it's my blog & I'll cry if I want to.
* A family friend said to us the other day, after seeing us out with the kids, "Having two kids is hard work." For some reason, I really appreciated this. I think what struck me the most was that this was a father of three saying this to us. He didn't go on with "Just wait until you have a third..." or something similar. He just acknowledged that what we're doing right now is no easy task. And while having just one wasn't a piece of cake, and I'm sure adding a third or more into the mix would be a massive challenge, what we are in the thick of right this second is hard. Raising two kids is hard. I don't know why that affected me the way that it did, but I will always remember and appreciate that he said it.

Lately, via iphone.

So, I got an iPhone. And, well, it's pretty much the bee's knees. I went from an old school flip phone circa 1998 (just a step above a Zack Morris phone) all the way to the tippy top of the technology food chain. Talk about a culture shock! And even though I don't feel important enough to have so much power at my fingertips, I'm kinda diggin' it.

Since it's by my side pretty much 24/7 (except for those 2 days it spent in a Ziploc of silica gel after taking a swim in my water glass after having it only 2 weeks...womp! womp!), it has become a pretty big player in my life-documenting arsenal.

This has been our life lately, courtesy of the camera on my iPhone.

Sibling hugs.

 Exersaucer, or as I like to call it, the Poop Seat. (No joke, this is the only place he'll poop.)

 At the park in January. Thanks, Mother Nature!

 Favorite restaurant. Always has to have a mint at the end.

Happiest baby in the 513.

 At Papa's basketball game. Let's talk about how interested she is in the game. Clearly, she is her mother's daughter.

 Date night!

 Can you guess whose snowman is on the left and whose is on the right? Such a proud pizza chef!

"Mommy, Joe's awake!" (She does this every morning as soon as he makes a peep on the monitor.)

 More sibling hugs. Okay, so it's more like sibling smothering. His defense mechanism is to reach up and grab her hair or eat her face.

 This picture makes me laugh...hard. "I don't want to leave the park..."

 We've made way too many trips to the pediatrician lately...

Homeboy sits in high chairs at restaurants now.

 Big-time laundry helpers. Never too early to learn, right?

Napping on Mommy's side. He even sleeps cute.

Mmmm sweet potatoes!

 First haircut in a pink car, and she handled it like a champ!

 Joe's 1st trip to the ghetto!

Are you starting to feel a little more caught up on life with the Reeders?

5 Months Old!

Dear Joe,

Hi there, handsome boy! It's been such an awesome month with you! You seem so much older to us every single day, developing new skills and hitting milestones left & right. You can now roll both ways - you rolled from your back to your belly for the first time last week. You sit up unassisted pretty much all of the time, rarely toppling over anymore because you've learned how to use your arms to catch yourself. You jump around in the exersaucer and can play with all the gadgets on it (pressing buttons, pulling on toys, etc.) All of this means you are able to play more independently, requiring less of our undivided attention. Another big change this month is your diet - you are eating solids now! You still nurse about 6 times a day (5 during the day & once at night), but you're also having 2 meals a day, too. Sleep hasn't been the greatest (in fact, it's been pretty awful lately), but we'll go ahead and blame all of your miserable medical issues for that (your belly problems & itchy skin plus 2 colds & suspected teething, etc.) You're still growing at a steady rate, looking long and lean as ever. And, thanks to your heavy sister, your almost-20 lb body feels light as a feather to us! Here's the lowdown on your most favorite (and not) things right now:

Favorites
Toes - Oh buddy, you are obsessed with your feet! They are your most favorite things to play with. When we change your diaper, those legs go in the air and your feet go to your mouth. You eat all ten toes regularly, though you have a preference for the big toe on your right foot.
Giving open-mouthed kisses - You do this hilarious thing where you open your mouth wide and just attack the face of whoever is holding you. You give Mommy these "kisses" all day long. It's almost like you're trying to eat her cheek. You think it's so funny! And you smile really wide when Mommy gives them back to you.
Food - We started feeding you baby food this month and you seem to love it! It took a couple weeks for you to warm up to it, spitting out more than you ate. But you're a whole month in now and you just gobble it up. You've been eating oatmeal all month, which has dramatically improved your digestive system (you're pooping on your own again!) And just this week, you had your first taste of veggies - sweet potatoes then squash!
Pulling Hair - Ugh! This is Mommy's least favorite thing that you do. You are a major hair-puller. It probably doesn't help that my hair is the longest it has been in a long time.
Knuckles - In true baby fashion, you have a thing for knuckles. If you can get your hands on somebody's hand, their knuckles go straight into your mouth. It's pretty amusing to watch you try to get to them sometimes, as you'll nosedive for them. We imagine we will see some budding teeth in the coming weeks with how forcefully you are chewing on things lately.
Your Seahorse - It was only a matter of time before you became a Seahorse baby. You are no match for its magical powers to lull a child to sleep. You are soothed by its gentle music and soft light. We have no doubt that it will become a staple in your bed for years to come, just like your Big Sister.

Not-so-favorites
Shouting - It really frightens and upsets you when someone shouts near you. We don't raise our voices all that often, but when we do, you start crying almost immediately. Most frequently, we are reprimanding your sister from across the room, so you can blame her :)
Bottles - You pretty much refuse to drink from a bottle now, something that we really need to work on. You don't have to take a bottle that often, so you're just not used to it. Mommy appreciates the flexibility that comes with you being able to be fed by a bottle, so we need to have Bottle Boot Camp over the next few weeks!
Strangers - Just in the last week or so Mommy has noticed that you're slowly developing some stranger anxiety. You'll still go to just about anyone, but you seem to keep your eyes focused on Mommy or Daddy while someone else holds you.

You are the sweetest little thing, Joe. You love to cuddle really close when someone is holding you, cheek-to-cheek. You often wrap your arms around our neck like you're giving us a hug, which is pretty much the greatest feeling ever. The absolute best part of Mommy's day is when she comes into your room in the morning to get you. The second you see her, you get the most gigantic grin on your face and start wildly waving your arms and kicking your legs. It's the best way to start the day!

You are just the happiest baby boy, and everyone tells us so! We are so grateful to have you in our little family and to get to love on you each day. Thanks for another terrific month, little man!

Love,
Mommy & Daddy

Blog break.

It's not that I don't have things to blog about. I have tons, considering I'm about 2 months behind. And it's not like I don't want to blog about them. I do...sorta. I want the memories to be preserved. I just, I don't know, lost the motivation to do it. I'd call it writer's block if I actually considered myself a writer.

Plus, I'm trying really hard to do things for me lately. Which sounds all kinds of selfish, I realize. But honestly? Ever since Joe was born, I hit a point about every 3 weeks where I'm just going crazy and need a break. I love them to death, but I have to get away from these children every so often if I want to stay sane. And for a while, my "break" would entail a child-free trip to the grocery (which I imagine is a little bit what heaven is like) or maybe a quick run around town knocking a few errands off the list. But none of that is really fun or for me. So I'm really, really trying now to do things for me. Because I can't be a good mom to these kids if I'm burnt out.

So I've started working out again. (Go ahead, you can laugh right along with me.) And making plans with friends. And, if I get a few minutes to sit down at night, I'm doing what I want to do, not what I feel like I should do. And that's where blogging has lost out to other things, like Facebook & Pinterest (oh, the obsession...) Because blogging started to feel a little bit like a chore, which made it no fun to write (& likely no fun for you to read.)

But I'm eager to start writing again, to continue telling all of you how awesome these kids are and give you a tiny glimpse into our little world.

So stayed tuned.