Friday I made banana muffins for breakfast, after we all ate, there were 5 muffins left sitting on the stove.
Later that afternoon the kids were playing outside with the dog (I think you see where this is going). Awhile later Honor came in from outside to tell me, “Dog. Ate. My. Muffin.”

Little did he tell me that the dog ate ALL of the muffins. Now I wonder how the dog could have climbed up onto the stove and ate all the muffing?

So Saturday morning when we were thinking about breakfast I said, “We could be having muffins for breakfast if Honor wouldn’t have fed them all to the dog.”

And Honor said, “Dog. Ate. My. Food.” I asked him why the dog ate his food, “Betause.”

The birthday party was a success, although, I must say, I learned that it’s not the best idea to have a birthday party on the day that you work. Holey moley.

I was especially proud of the cupcakes. Not to mention that they were very tasty. I bet you can’t guess which ones Jim made?

Honor made off with a load of great goodies, his favorite being Batman. He couldn’t go to bed without being able to sleep with Batman.

Click this picture to see a slide show of the party.

On another note, after many closeups of my cleavage, Jim still didn’t get a good picture of my hair. Boys…

I had a miserable pregnancy with Honor. I wasn’t thrilled about being pregnant in the first place, Eden was only 11 months old when we found out. And I was so sick, my morning sickness lasted way past the first trimester and would pop up off and on the whole pregnancy. Not to mention that I was pregnant through the whole, entire summer, the hottest summer ever. I was so, so, so ready to have Honor.

The contractions started about a month before he was born. They were nothing painful, just enough to get my hopes up and then crush them into teeny tiny pieces. I finally got used to them. But I was SO ready to have this baby! I walked around dilated for who knows how long. The day before he was born, still two weeks before his due date, I woke up with real contractions. They weren’t anything too bad, but they actually hurt, when the others didn’t. I laid there for two hours breathing through the contractions and watching the clock. They started to subside. So I got out of bed to walk around and try to get them going again. Nothing. At all. I was so devastated. I wanted to go into labor SO BAD. Nothing could get my mind off it. Not even a movie, a game of foxy or scrabble, or a great book. I could only think about giving birth and wishing it would happen right then!

I should have taken those two hours of contractions as a warning sign, but I didn’t. Instead it made me really depressed. I spent a lot of the day doing a combination of laying in bed and doing EVERY thing that’s supposed to induce labor. I even resorted to doing jumping jacks, hoping I’d bounce him out. I finally gave in and took some castor oil. Just a little bit in orange juice. I should have started cleaning like mad, just to be sure the house would be ready in case I did finally have him. But I didn’t. We went to bed with nothing happening.

I woke up around 3:30 with a real contraction and what I can only describe as the baby slamming down. I had been worried that I wouldn’t know when I went into labor (since I was induced with Eden), and everyone kept telling me, “you’ll know.” I got up to sit on the toilet, and the contractions kept hammering down. When I could finally get up, I went back into the bedroom to tell Jim that I was pretty sure this was the real thing. He got up and gave me a hug and another contraction came along with lots and lots of water.

I went back to sit on the toilet (seems the castor oil was doing it’s job) and the contractions kept getting closer and worse. They started out about a minute apart, so they were coming down pretty fast. Jim had to pee really bad and the contractions were so bad that I couldn’t get off the toilet, he finally had to go out side to pee. We decided this was the real thing and called the midwife, she told us to come to the hospital to get checked out because my water broke. Jim decided to call my Aunt Ann, who was going to keep Eden while I was at the hospital. She had called me two times that day, checking in. It seems that she had such a strong feeling that I was going to have the baby that day or night that she even made a bed for Eden.

I filled the bath tub, and sat in there until my Aunt came. All the while, shouting instructions to Jim about what to pack for Eden and the hospital. My Aunt came and I slowly crawled out of the bath tub. The contractions were getting worse and worse – so intense. We barely made it to the car, stopping every time to breath through the contractions. I sat down in the car and remembered that we forgot the Boppy, so Jim ran in to get it. And off we were to the hospital.

Luckily it was the middle of the night, because I made Jim stop the car every time I had a contraction. The movement of the car made them So. Much. Worse. We arrived at the hospital, and Jim ran in to get me a wheel chair. By that point I was soaked with amniotic fluid, it just kept pouring out with every contraction, luckily I had brought a towel to cover me up. The wheel chair was so comfortable, I could have labored the whole time in it. When we got to Labor and Delivery, the night clerk asked us if this was our first baby. Jim later marveled at how she moved so quickly when she found out that it was our second. Like she knew we meant business. She got us a room right away and went to call the midwife.

My mom got there shortly after, and made some phone calls for us. The nurse came in to check me and I wasn’t quite dilated to a 6. At that point I was sure I had several hours to go. That’s when it started getting really bad. All I could do was grip the arm rails of the hospital bed and make it through. I decided that there was no way I could do that for several more hours, it was just SO BAD. My mom was back from making her phone calls at that point and I decided that I wanted an epidural. I hadn’t had one with Eden and had been very opposed to having one. But there was no way I could do that for several more hours. Jim tried to talk me out of it, all the while my mom was vigorously shaking her head in agreement with me. Jim knew there was no arguing with a pregnant woman, and my mom went to tell the nurse. They came back in with the paper work and told that it would be a little while because the anesthesiologist was down the hall giving someone else an epidural. They offered me an IV drug called Nubain. I had it with Eden, and I remember it knocking me out. I thank God that I didn’t get it, I know it would have slowed the labor down, and later when I was pushing, I remember thinking that I missed so much with Eden.

I could literally feel myself dilating. And then is when it hit me. I had to push. I had to push right then. My mom and Jim didn’t believe me, but I was so insistent, that my mom went to get the nurse. By the time she arrived with the nurse, it was pretty evident that I was pushing. My sister showed up about then, in shock that I was already pushing. Things started to go wild around the delivery room. The tech went to call the midwife again and they sent in a midwife who was there from another office, just in case. As the nurses got everything ready, I shouted out instructions between pushes, “Camera!” I also remember saying between pushes, “I love this kid!” I couldn’t believe that I was already having the baby! At some point, the anesthesiologist poked his head in – I’m so thankful that I didn’t need him.

The midwife rushed in, just as I was starting to crown. I was only a few pushes away from delivery. That is when my friend Brooke arrived (with only one contact, she was later thankful that she didn’t go back for it). Another two minutes, and she would have missed it. Jim went to wash his hands and I started yelling at him, “What are you doing? You’re going to miss it!” He was hoping to deliver Honor, like he did Eden, but there just wasn’t time. The next push and Honor was out.

He was born at 5:51am, just 2.5 hours after my first contraction, 45 minutes after our arrival at the hospital. In the split second between the time he was out and the time they put him on my chest, I hollered, “What is it? What is it?” It’s a boy!! We were so excited. We wanted a boy so bad (little did we know what we were getting into!) I held him while Jim cut the umbilical cord, and the nurses wiped him down. They took him to weigh him and clean him up better and the midwife started to sew me up.

My uterus wasn’t contracting fast enough, so she gave me an iv of pitocin. That’s when I started shaking really badly. My friend Brooke was so great, she stayed by me the whole time, making sure I was ok, while everyone else got to hold the baby. I finally got all stitched up and the shaking subsided and I nursed Honor for the first time. Nursing is so much easier when you know what you’re doing. When we were finished, Jim took Honor to get a bath. The nurse helped me into my clothes and I walked (walked!) over to my hospital room. I felt so great, totally energized, like I hadn’t had a baby at all.

Introducing him to Eden was great. She didn’t really know what was going on, nor did she really care, but there’s something about seeing the two people you made, together….

It was the best experience I could have had. I’d do it again in a second. Plus look what it got me?

Honor went to his two year check up yesterday. He’s getting so big. He weighed 24.5 lbs and was 35 inches long. I can’t believe that tomorrow is his second birthday. He has changed so much in the last year.

Well, maybe not that much…

We’ve been through quite a lot in the past year, trips to the hospital, countless items thrown in and recovered from the the toilet, lots and lots of cereal poured all over the floor.

I think Jim said it best, “We’ve already been through the terrible ones, what could be next?”

But whatever is next, we’ll get through it. And we’ll love it, because whatever he brings, it’s easier to deal with when we look at his crooked smile and chubby cheeks and hear him whisper back, “I. Wove. You.”

Lately Honor has taken to dragging his cars everywhere. First he was keeping them in an old wipe box, and then my mom gave him a lime green bag to keep them in. The bag goes everywhere. He had quite the broken heart the other night when his daddy didn’t let him sleep with Every. Single. Car. He. Owns. He’s even taken to stashing some in his pillow case, on the off chance we don’t find them.

Really this is a good thing. We bought him most of these cars a year ago in hopes that we could find some sort of toy he’d play with. He sure plays with them now. Plus I told Jim to look on the bright side, at least he’s not wanting to sleep with Edens baby any more.

So, this weekend when we were watching a tivo’d episode of Star Trek the Next Generation (NERDS!), Eden was sweetly coloring on a coloring book and Honor was sweetly coloring the ENTIRE HOUSE. I knew when we picked up that pack of crayons at evil Walmart for $.10 that I should spend the extra money and buy washable crayons. But they were ten cents, I figured it would be ok. A calculated risk. A stupid risk.

So we were watching Star Trek, learning about things like subspace fields and deflector dishes when we realized that Honor was strangely quiet. Jim went to investigate. The pictures didn’t turn out, but he found the entire surface of the kitchen decorated in hues of blue and green artistic scribbles. We’re talking, everything at Honor height, the stove, the fridge, the dishwasher, the walls, the cabinets. Later we found that he took a trip down stairs and decorated on his way down. He even got Eden’s turd computer monitor.

It was SO our fault. See, I think the problem is that we’re expecting him to be like Eden, and he’s just not. It would be nice, but he’s just not. It is absolutely against he nature to stay out of trouble. Honor will just always be… ornery. I need to just keep that in mind and come running whenever he’s not in my sight.

All I have to say is, I’m buying stock in the magic sponge. It got every speck of crayon off. That and I’m going to install a tracking beacon in Honor, so I can always locate him. Tracking beacon, another thing I learned from Star Trek.

Honor usually wakes up and yells “WAKE.” But this morning I was a little slow to get him out of bed and instead of yelling “WAKE” he was crying, “No want night night, no want night night.”

*Remember, we’re still pretending that posting about Honor’s messes isn’t getting old.*

Yesterday after reading Looloo’s post I remembered that Honor had spilled clear nail polish on the bedroom carpet this weekend. This was entirely my fault, even though he knows he’s not supposed to be in there, because I left the polish on my night stand.

But very shortly after reading Loo’s post, just has I was getting my long awaited return phone call from Avon so I could chew them out for over charging me, I found that Honor, somehow, figured out how to get into the hall closet where my 500 bottles of fingernail polish are stored. I found a large puddle of metallic pink polish on the hallway carpet and this:

I didn’t bother to try to clean up the carpet, it needs to be ripped out anyway. And I worried that it wouldn’t be good to use fingernail polish remover so close to Honor’s eyes, so as much as I scrubbed in the bath tub, he still has a metallic pink nose. Serves him right I say.

Honor peed in the potty yesterday!!!

I can’t believe that Honor will be two at the end of September. Didn’t he just turn one? It’s really amazing how much he’s changed. I remember lamenting that he’d never speak and now he says everything. He gets his little baby point across in two word sentences.

Asking for more chicken: “More bock, bock?”
More soup: “Some. Soup. Please?”

Everything he can’t find is “hide.”

Many times you will ask him a question and he will answer, “yeah” in the deepest voice you’ve ever heard a 1 year old speak in.

At any mention of a nap or bed time he runs to the kitchen yelling, “meiowk! meiowk!” (milk)

Every morning after he gets his sippy cup of juice he says to me with the most serious face, “Boots.” He’s never once said “Dora” it’s always “Boots”

Perhaps his favorite thing to talk about is bugs. He will talk forever about a “yuck bug” and is braver than me when it comes to “yuck bugs.” In the evenings, our front steps are swarmed with cockroaches (disgusting I know!) and Honor will scramble to step on every one saying, “step. yuck. bug. YUCK!” He will also talk about a fly like it was the coolest thing in the world.

He thinks that he can get out of trouble by coming up to me, holding out his arms and saying, “Hug, mommy? Hug.” And, ahem, it’s not like it’s ever worked. No.. not at all….

But I think that the best thing he has ever said is the thing that is sure to melt my heart every time, even if he looks like this:

is, “Nuggle Mommy. Nuggle mommy.”

And then I scoop him up and hold him very tight and for a short moment, I forget that he’s covered in goo and that the playroom carpet is now blue and that I’ve got to order a whole new thing of eyeshadow and that he broke the arm off my glasses and that he just can’t stay in his bed.

My sister always reminds me that I’ve always wanted a son just like Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes. Somehow, God, in his infinite wisdom, decided to fulfill my wish. That’s what I call a sense of humor.