Welcome to the world, Madeline Elizabeth (aka: Hud's sister)

Pre-baby dinner with family, tomorrow is the BIG DAY!!

Junius Heights End of the Year Potluck

Friday was Hudson's last day of school for the year.
He'll be going back for a month long summer session in June starting Monday, June 4.
We took these pics at the pot-luck lunch on Friday.
I'm pretty sure neither Scott nor I had ever seen Hud play this hard.

bouncy houses can be rough...minor boo-boo on the upper lip

Early Dinner at the Blue Goose

A few pics from this week

Hudson loves play-doh!

Dr. Akins gives George an exam. He was diagnosed with a boo-boo in his tummy.

Inherited skills from daddy, rock climbing.

And inherited skills from mommy.

Don't I look like my Daddy here?

Mommy and the Hud at coffee park

This time next week our lives will be forever changed. I am feeling anxious, excited, nervous, happy, sad and VERY uncomfortable. As ready as I am, I really hope baby Madeline stays put, at least until my doctor is back in the country (he's currently in Israel...) and preferably until we have family in town this weekend. Fingers are crossed. Enjoying my last few days, just me and the Hud...

Milkshakes

It's been a while since we've had a milkshake.
We were supposed to share this one, but instead someone drank the entire thing!

Every single last drop of it!

And came away with a fabulous milkshake-moustache as proof!

Sunday

Possibly our last trek out to Southlake just for Milwaukee Joe's ice cream before baby Madeline's arrival...Hudson had his favorite, "pink ice cream!" (aka: strawberry).

"The Kids in the Pool"

Feel free to just click on the "Play" button and watch the embedded video.  For those of you who are a little more adventurous, click on the small "YouTube" icon in the bottom right hand corner to view the video in YouTube.  Once the video starts playing, click on the "large viewer" or "full screen" icons so you can see facial expressions, interaction, etc.  Enjoy!

Today my goal was to try to put something really positive and upbeat on the blog. Lately there's been a lot of complaining on my part about my super cute terrible two-ster, and I apologize for that. I worried that if I didn't post some good stuff today all of my loyal readers may stop reading, so I was going to try to turn things around a bit.

But, alas....I don't have much good news to report. Hudson has been sick with a "tummy virus" that we're told could last 14 days. SPECTACULAR. On the plus side, he's already knocked out 6 of those days, which means he should be wrapping this up around the 26th, 4 days before our baby girl's debut.

Without going into too many details, I can tell you that this is setting the potty training we've been working SO HARD on WAY, WAY, WAY back and I just can't tell you how upsetting that is. My goal was to have his potty training done by the time baby arrived. We were so close. It's not Hudson's fault by any means, and I do feel so bad for him. I can't imagine having a tummy bug for 14 days (although that doesn't sound so bad when you consider the brutal final days of pregnancy...I may be willing to trade, I'll get back to you on that one).

Hudson had to miss school yesterday, but thankfully was able to return today.
He didn't go to sleep last night until after 9PM (even though he was in his bed at 7:30).
He woke up at 5:23 this morning. That's 5:23AM just to reemphasize.
For a child who normally sleeps 11-ish hours at night, 8 hours isn't gonna cut it.
This results in a grumpy, sleepy, tummy-bug having child which let me tell you is not a lot of fun.


So, I didn't accomplish my goal.
Not to worry, I've set a new one. I'm planning to sleep during Hudson's nap, which is happening right now so I better get to it. I'm gonna need some energy when he wakes up, which with my luck will be in 30 minutes...

I promise to post something good tomorrow....

Park pics from last weekend

 

Today I'm reading articles like this.

That's all I have to say about today.
Ok...one more thing...I love you, terrible two-ster!

 

Yesterday Hudson met a little girl at the park 

who wanted to give her toys a bath in the water fountain. 

Hudson was more than happy to lend a helping hand. 

We were more than happy to watch. 

Cute. Cute. Cute.

These are the moments that make me want 5 more children.

JUST KIDDING!

Mother's Day

When Willy Wonka wakes you up at 6:30AM, you have no choice but to get up, get dressed and celebrate Mother's Day at 7:30AM. Happy Mother's Day everyone!!

2 1/2 weeks to go!

There are moments I have with Hudson that are so special that they don't need words. Moments when I feel such a special connection to my son, where I am so incredibly grateful that he is healthy and happy. Moments where just sitting with him quietly gives me such great joy and happiness that it makes all the tough times worth it. Being a mom is such a gift, such an incredibly wonderful experience, one that while difficult and challenging, comes with such amazing rewards. As we come into Mother's Day weekend I am reminded of all the joys of being a mom, and I am so thankful and so grateful for all those moments when I am so happy and so proud just being a mom - Hudson's mom. I never, ever knew that my heart could be so full.

Hudson sings a medley

the trouble with independence

 

One of the many, many, many things I just absolutely love about the Montessori philosophy is that "the child's natural need for independence is encouraged". In this case, I refer specifically to the Montessori "care of self" philosophy, which strongly encourages independence and self care. 

Since Hudson started a montessori school last September he's learned how to dress himself completely, from head to toe, including shoes and socks and just recently his shirt (until about a week ago I had still had to help with the shirt). It's really, really amazing how much children this age can and are willing to do for themselves if given the opportunity. Hudson really wants to dress himself and usually says, "Me first! Me first!"  to let you know that he wants to try do it all by himself, but he'll let you know if he gets into trouble. 

This is all really wonderful and it's truthfully hard to believe that he can do all that he does. There are some instances when he gets a little ahead of himself (see the above photo as evidence of such) and you have to lead him back to his room to show him where he may have missed a step or two. We end up with a lot of things on backwards, inside out or just all together wrong (like sweat pants in 90 degree weather). You may have noticed in recent blog posts that he chooses the same shirts over and over and he actually prefers pants to shorts even when it's sweltering outside (crazy kid!).

The above photo was taken today when he was going to his room to change to get ready for his nap...he wears underpants pretty much all day, but he wears a pull-up diaper for his nap, so he went in his room and changed out of the underpants and into his pull up diaper and came out looking like this...I try so hard not to laugh when he does this stuff, I don't want to make him feel bad for working so hard all by himself, but I couldn't help smile at this...and share it with all of you, of course. I'm pretty sure this is one of those photos that could be quite embarrassing somewhere down the road. 

On a separate but related note, I stumbled on this great video about Montessori a few days ago and wanted to post it to share with you as well. I'm always raving about Hudson's school and how much I love Montessori and this little clip may help explain why. 

(disclaimer: I realize Montessori isn't for everybody and I don't think all "conventional" schools are bad. I also think it's really, really important to mention that any school/daycare can call themselves "Montessori" as the word Montessori is not patented and anyone can use it, which is why when looking at schools you must make sure they are AMI or AMS accredited...just wanted to mention those few points)

Exhaustion

 

I'm in the final weeks of this pregnancy and the exhaustion has seriously set in. Real, true, never-felt-this-tired-before exhaustion. If I could sleep all day, every day from here until May 30th I would. 

One can dream, right? 

Well, there's no chance that's happening I can promise you that. I know that the next few weeks are going to fly by, but right now with the level of energy I have it feels like the days are just crawling by. No surprise at all, but Hudson has not slowed down one bit. In fact, he seems to have more energy than ever before at the current moment and I have no idea how I'm going to keep up with him.

The heat alone is really getting to me. I've had the air blowing on 68 most days until one of three things happens:

1.) Hudson says, "mama, I cold." 

2.) Scott says he's cold (he's NEVER cold)

3.) Willy Wonka buries himself under some blankets and looks at me as if to say, "I'm cold, too!" 

Meanwhile, I'm sweating! And it's only going to get worse as the temperatures continue to rise here in Big D. Yippee! (that's sarcasm there in case it wasn't obvious)

At this point, if I can just survive the next 22 days I'll be happy. If you don't see much on the blog in the coming weeks, don't be alarmed. I must reserve ALL energy for our daily park outings. 

The Hud has expectations after all.

Lovin' the Tub