I will always love your tender heart.

A couple days before we went to St. George to see Taylor, Samira, and William, Uncle Taylor send me this heart wrenching picture of Baby Will.

He was getting chest x-rays, and it wasn't as bad as it looks, but still pretty hard on his little body.  I was looking at the picture, and you walked over and pulled my phone towards you and excitedly said, "Me see phone!"  As soon as you saw who it was you calmed right down.  You just looked for a minute, then quietly said, "Baby Will."  I reassured you that he was ok and that it didn't hurt.  What you did next just about melted my heart.  We don't let you chew gum, hardly ever.  But this day you had a piece in your mouth.  You took the gum out of your mouth and carefully handed it to me.  Then, you leaned in and kissed the picture on my phone.  You smiled and me, slowly put your hand up, and said, "five?"  Then you lightly gave Baby Will's tiny hand a high-five.

On days when I question my parenting, on days when I wonder if I'm doing everything wrong, one days that I'm overly concerned about whether or not I'm raising you to be a good young man, I'll look back at this moment where I got to sit and watch you reach out in such a unique way to your cousin, and I'll remember, you've always been a good young man.

I love you so much, Garrett.  You make me proud every single day.  I'm so happy I'm your mom.

date night with my boy.

I just copied this post from the family blog, but I want it here, too.

A couple weeks ago we had a bad day at our house.  I actually spent a lot of the day giggling, but simultaneously feeling sorry for Garrett.  Addie would not leave him alone.  It was crazy!  And he wasn't provoking her at all, just minding his own business.  She'd climb on the couch and sit on him or steal him snacks.  One time I saw her grab his 'meow' by the leg, put all her weight into it, and pull, until Garrett almost fell over and finally had to let go.  When he was standing playing at the play kitchen, she'd stand right next to him so they were touching, then she'd side-step little baby steps to try and casually push him out of the way.  At one point she charged him and bear-hug tackled him, he fell on his back and hit his head on a chair.  It was the strangest day and I told Paul that if this is a new phase with her, we're going to be hiring a nanny because I can't handle her on my own.  Fortunately, we've been back to normal since, fingers crossed.

Anyway, by the time Paul got home, I knew Garrett needed some one on one time.  I needed to run to Party City to find a bowl for a party, so I took Garrett with me.  He was thrilled to get out of the house and not have Addie in the van with us.  Party City didn't have what I needed, but they did have a plastic truck for 59 cents that Garrett was really excited about.  Next we went to McDonald's for some ice cream.  Garrett was so cute and so happy the whole time.  I was quickly reminded how important date nights are with each child.  I need to do it way more often than I do.  We started racing the truck back and forth to each other.  Then he started driving it in the window seal.  He was cracking up.  And when it would fall onto the floor he'd let out a loud, "OOHHH!!" and laugh and laugh.  At one point he had me move to the next booth over so we could race it even further.  There weren't many people there, but the ones who were there, knew we were there too.  We finally ditched our ice cream and went to the outdoor seating, were no one was sitting.  He wanted to kneel on the ground and race it on a bench, so I knelt on one knee and he said, "no mom, two knees."  So I knelt all the way down and then he leaned in toward the bench, showing me the position I needed to be in to race.  So I leaned over and we started racing the truck at eye level on the bench.  I didn't know if I'd ever get him out of there, and I realized I needed that night as much as he did.  What a sweet kid he is.

A man started playing a saxophone near the exit and that got Garrett's attention.  We listened to him play for a couple of minutes, found all the quarters we could to give to him, and we were finally ready to go.  I was smiling to whole way home.  And I was reminded how easy and inexpensive (or free) it can be to find one on one time to make your children feel loved and important.

I only took a couple quick pictures because I didn't want to be on my phone during our date.