It's a Small World...Afterall!

Matching teal shirts for our entire family. A creepy, over-sized mouse trying to give me a high five. Frozen bananas.

My 4-year-old memories of Disneyland are pretty vague and not entirely appealing. There are the memories oozing with high school drama from Grad Night...but I keep those separate! Nothing about the Magic Kingdom has ever appeared so special as to make me consider it the happiest place on earth...

...until I had a 2.5 year-old chanting, "Disneyland! Disneyland! Wanna go to Disneyland"...every time I buckle him into his carseat!

I'm not going to lie. I.AM.SOOO.EXCITED. We are going next week as part of our tax-return-slash-babymoon-slash-Josh-is-done-with-his-crazy-quarter-slash-Axton-is-free gift to ourselves. (Obviously, we aren't trying to justify the expenditure!)

Anyways, I have all but pulled on my mouse ears and donned my fanny pack. We are going for two days of discounted SoCal bliss, and we have every intention of pushing through grumpy spells and afternoon naps. Look out, Mouse...we're comin' for ya!

Tear...

Where, oh where, has this little one gone?!

I marked something off my to-do list a few nights ago that I have been putting off for almost three years...I printed out pictures of Ax when he was little and "completed" his baby book. It was pretty emotional for me to bust out all of the pictures. I CANNOT get over the fact that he was this small once!

My goal is to be on the ball with #2 and not procrastinate when it comes to documenting. I'm pretty horrible at it. Is it inexcusable that I didn't record how old he was when he took his first bath? I just guesstimated. Don't worry...it was well within the medically-correct recommendation!

I can't believe this little bugger is going to be three in a couple months. I am even more in shock that another one is presently growing in my stomach, eating away at all my muscle tone...well, I'm actually eating away all my muscle tone with cupcakes, but you get the illustration, ya?

...My Baby You'll Be

Last night I watched my friend's little ones for a few hours. I was impressed. So impressed, actually, that I have been consumed by the thoughts of my "horrible" parenting skills the entire day. All three kiddos were in bed by 7:30, without any resistance or wild tantrums. The oldest girl, whom Axton happens to be utterly in love with, gave him a kiss goodnight. Not a peep out of that room for the rest of my time there. Meanwhile, I had Axton in tote, and he was not ready to go to bed at 7:30...he was actually quite insistent about going to the zoo that very moment!

Sometimes I can't help but feel utterly lacking in my role as a mother when I encounter examples like this. I am surrounded by a demographic of friends that are on top of their game when it comes to mothering, and honestly...it is super intimidating. Today, however, while I was on minute 45 of my shopping trip, and the little guy had all but punched me in the face (that was probably coming soon, though), he calmly asked for my hand. When I gave it to him, he placed it

on the side of his face, and said, "Love you, Mommy, " and proceeded to lay his head down on the edge of the cart basket.

Let me tell you, it's kind of awkward when you start crying in the toothpaste aisle at Target.

It's hard to not get upset when he is smirking at me from the top of a 20 ft ladder at church after I've frantically ran across the room telling him to stop but he's already 5 ft above my head. It's irritating to fish the remote control out of dirty dish water for the third time in twenty minutes. It's almost impossible not to cringe when he has decided to uproot my Plumeria even though I've already put him on time out for attempting it a second earlier.

But...

it's not hard to love him. Not one bit. It is oh, so easy! And I can't help but remember that no matter how dismal I think I can be as a mother sometimes, I will always have this amazing, loving, perfect proof that I am doing SOMETHING right.