me & my shadow...

I love this boy more than life itself. I want him to stay my little shadow forever.

 

this is halloween, halloween, halloween

That's Emmett's favorite song to sing this month. I have always LOVED Halloween (second only to Christmas), so I couldn't be happier that Emmett has grown to share my excitement. We went all out decorating the house, and have watched "The Nightmare before Christmas" at least 5 times. We've been to pumpkin patches, carved pumpkins, made Halloween sugar cookies, and frequent our favorite place, Cornbelly's.

Cornbelly's is a huge fall festival/carnival. There are so many fun things to do - mostly for kids, but there is a giant corn maze and haunted houses for adults at night. Here are some pictures of our adventures there.

Anxiously awaiting the winner of the duck race

Classic Dad - Racing the pedal cars so competitively he rolled himself :)

oh yes, i rode the mechanical bull. And did pretty WELL if I say so myself...

PS WHAT is the deal with blogger and vertical pictures?! Why wont it rotate them?? Anyone?

when life hands you lemons

I am so grateful for your comments on  my last post. After I published it, I was a little nervous and thought "maybe that was a little TOO real for the blogosphere"...  then I didn't get any comments for awhile and was like "uh oh". So it was reassuring to read many of you feel the same way some days (or even some hours)

I've come to realize that many moms have these same feelings of inadequacy, a feared inability to keep up with the supermom next door. Or sometimes on the next blog. Or facebook page.

I'm sure I'm guilty of it as well. We use these blogs as our record keeping. What do we want to remember? The good times - those moments our hearts are overflowed with joy. So that's what we write about. And generally leave out the 70% in between when we're pulling our hair out and chasing our toddler down the street while he rides away on his Lightning Mcqueen scooter in nothing but a diaper (oh that's just me? awesome).

This isn't his scooter, but close enough

There is nothing wrong with being positive and sharing our happiest experiences. Yet the problem lies when you look at everyone else's lives and ONLY see the wonderful things. Then you look around your messy house, realize you're still in your pajamas, and your self esteem takes a minor blow.

Soooo my point is, why do we do this to each other? We're not doing it intentionally, but it seems so many of us feel this competition to maintain our supermom statuses. To prove that we've got this mom thing under control. Stepford husband? Check. Barefoot Contessa quality dinner on the table at 5? Check. Perfectly behaved toddler in his meticulously clean Gap clothes? Check.  Sound familiar? And the reality is... no one has this mom thing under control. It's a continual work in progess, but most of the time I enjoy the journey.

In fact, I'd like to take this moment to share a little story about my shower the other day :) Speaking of things I'd like to remember, I think I'll get a kick out of this a few years down the road:

 Here I was, trying to hurry and wash the shampoo out of my hair before the hot water ran out. Mind you Emmett was in the shower with me, as he usually is. So I close my eyes and start scrubbing the shampoo out of my hair, and all sudden "WAHHHH!", Emmett starts screaming in pain. So I open my eyes to see he's taken my Head and Shoulders, tried to apply it to his own head like Mom, and it has subsequently ran down his head and into his eyes. So I hurry and grab a washcloth, help him dry all the stinging shampoo from his eyes.
Once the crisis has been successfully averted, I return once again to the task of removing the remains of shampoo from my own hair. I turn around to kick the hot water up a titch, turn back towards Emmett... and what do I see? He's gotten a hold of my razor and is shearing his beautiful golden locks like a sheep!!
(Yes this is the cheap disposable razor that doesn't seem to  even work when applied to my leg hair)
I frantically grabbed the razor from his hands and assess the damage, almost in tears. His hair!!! (I had already made sure his scalp had no injuries of course). LUCKILY he has SO much hair, when it's all laid down, you can't see the couple of bald chunks he crazily removed from his own head.
Needless to say the shower ended as quickly as possible.

I'd like to say this event was a rare, one time occassion. But that would be a lie. In fact, I'm feeling pretty generous tonight so I'm going to share one more "Emmett-capade".

Just the other day Emmett decided to run out front in nothing but his birthday suit and his black slip-on dress shoes. (I'm laughing out loud now just recalling this situation). I was calling after him humorously "HEY! Get BACK HERE!!". And he thought it was hilarious. So he just kept standing outside our window on the porch. taunting me, laughing at his own hilarity. I was worn out and figured "eh, there's no one out front right now and he's just on the porch... it'll be fine for a minute". (At this point he's climbed up on the little bistro table on the porch and is beating on the window screaming and laughing himself silly) Then I hear it. Laughter. Lots of it. Coming from next door. And we're talking the non LDS, tattooeed family with a bunch of twenty-somethings next door. So I feel a little embarrassed and figure I should probably at least put a diaper on the kid.
I grab a diaper, head outside, and of course when Emmett sees me he scrambles down off the table and tries to take off running (which causes the group hanging out in the front yard next door to laugh louder). So I scoop him up, carry him inside, and lay him down to strap that sucker on him. And whaddya know, that wiggle worm wrestles his way free, and goes tearing back out front in his birthday suit (and dont forget the dress shoes, they're still on) squealing in delight. Of course my audience next door erupts even louder. and at this point all I can do is smile, wave, and take a bow. I didn't reeeeally take a bow, but you know what I mean.

Pretty much, my life is fun(ny?). Crazy, but fun. There's never a dull moment in this casa.