Ups and Downs

    Today was a day of ups and downs for me as a mom. Hudson is very fickle in his love for me during the morning hours. He prefers Daniel over me every single morning. If Daniel is holding him and I talk to him, he gets very upset and likes to tell me no. Basically, he is telling me to get lost! Today was no different. He wanted nothing to do with me. He cuddled with Daddy, but then Daddy left for work and Hudson lost it.

    He eventually calmed down and since I was the only one around, I guess he figured I would do for a playing partner. We played cars for a while and played on my phone taking pictures. This is where the morning took a turn. We were on my iPhone playing with the camera and he could see himself and we were making silly faces and he loved it. He giggled and pointed to himself and had a great time. Until...my mom called. Once he couldn't see his face anymore he was furious! I picked up the phone and told him it was Momo and to tell her hi. (I thought this would make him happy since he loves Momo!) He continued to scream so I just began talking to my mom. I hadn't made it 20 seconds into the conversation when he grabs my hand and bites the fire out of my thumb. I am not exaggerating when I say I have never been bit this hard. There was a little blood and lots of throbbing. I was sooo angry! I couldn't believe that my precious baby would do such a thing to his mom out of anger. He, of course, was disciplined and made to tell me he was sorry. I made him kiss my thumb too. I then asked if he was going to be my sweet boy. His response? "No, no, no, no!" haha At least he is honest!

    About 20 minutes later I am still thinking about the incident and feeling like a horrible mother. I would be lying if I said I had a perfect child.  He can be so hard. He can test my patience and make me want to pull my hair out. He loves to disobey and test his limits, as most toddlers do. He is definitely a little stinker! I was crying thinking I am failing as a mom because Hudson doesn't like me (not dramatic at all!). I was thinking that I wasn't disciplining him the right way because he is still acting out. I was just feeling very sorry for myself and wondering how I was going to help make him a sweeter, more obedient child. As I am feeling all of these things, Hudson begins spinning in circles about 15 feet in front of me. He suddenly stops, looks at me for a few moments, and then runs right over to me, gives me a big hug and lays his head on my shoulder for a few seconds. He gets up, gives me a kiss, and runs back to start spinning again. Now if I wasn't crying before, I really was now! He stops spinning and runs over and does it again! It was such a sweet moment. 

    This isn't one of those blog posts that talks about how perfect our day was and how perfect my child is. He is definitely not perfect! He is perfect for me though. Apparently I was lacking in patience before I had Hudson because I am having to work on having more every single day! Even though today started out really ugly, Hudson was able to show me in his own little way that he was sorry for his actions. The rest of the day was so much better and I didn't even get bit again!

My little stinker...disobeying!

  

Queso Lover

The other day my family went to a Mexican restaurant for lunch. As I mentioned before, Hudson loves to dip things. He had his own little plate of queso for him to dip some chips in. Apparently, the queso was so good, he decided to forego the chips and just dig in. I will let the pictures speak for themselves.

18 Months!

Hudson,
    How in the world has 18 months already passed?! It seems like yesterday that I found out I was pregnant with you! The time is definitely passing too quickly for me. I love how fun and independent you are and I wouldn't trade where you are now, but I also miss my tiny baby!

    You have made a lot of changes this month and you are learning so many things each day. You wake up each day around 8 a.m. and go to bed about 8:30p.m. Your naps are not so great. We are working on it though. You will take 1-2 naps each day. Lately you have decided that you are good taking 40 minute naps! You are so sweet for about an hour after your nap, but you quickly melt down because you are still tired! You are a great breakfast eater. You eat scrambled eggs, cereal bars, or waffles for breakfast. You like two of everything for breakfast: 2 eggs, 2 cereal bars, 2 waffles. When you finish one, you always say "baah" (more) while signing more. It is pretty cute! You eat lunch and dinner with mommy and daddy and have a few snacks in between the meals.
    Your new words this month are snack, egg, star, Matt, no (this is you answer for EVERYTHING now!), star, help, outside, go, waffle (wawa), stuck, and trash. You still babble a lot. You tell us a lot of things (very emphatically!) so I can't wait until I understand everything you are trying to say.
    You have started doing a new smile this month. You mainly do it while you are in your car seat but it is just about the cutest thing ever. You try to show all of your teeth!

You like to "help" a lot. You are mommy's sweet little helper. You love to help with laundry. You like taking clothes out of the dryer and putting clothes into the dryer. You like to dust, sweep, and wipe up messes.

   

















    You have discovered two new loves this month: The Lion King and dipping food in sauces. If there is a dip you can dip your food into, you are all about it. You barely get anything on it, I think you just like the idea of getting to do something with your food. You ask for a movie every single day. If we would let you, you would watch The Lion King 3 times a day. If you want a movie, you say "ba" (movie) and will roar if you want to watch The Lion King. You love Simba. You especially like the part where Simba sings. We were a little concerned when you started cheering for Scar after his song. Hopefully that just means you liked his vocal performance and not the plan he was singing about! ;) j/k

    The big things that happened this month were you got tubes in your ear and you celebrated Halloween and Thanksgiving. You got tubes because you had gotten your 7th ear infection in a year and we were tired of watching you hurt and putting you on antibiotics. You are currently suffering through another ear infection after your tubes, but hopefully this is the LAST one.

On our way home from the hospital. The medicine hasn't worn off yet so you were still loopy.

   You currently weigh 22.8 lbs and are 31 inches tall. You are so tiny! People are always surprised when they find out your age because you are so little. You have 6 teeth right now: 3 on top and 3 on bottom. You are working on cutting another top tooth and a molar. Those molars are no fun at all!
   Some of your favorite things to do lately are playing ball. If you can throw it, you are having fun. You like to sit with your back against something and play catch with mommy or daddy.

    You love to play on your train and jet ski. You love Kinley! She is so sweet to you and I know one day you will be the best of friends. You love playing with Presleigh too. You two fight a lot over toys, but you also like to hold hands when walking together and y'all give each other hugs and kisses.

Goofy Wal-Mart kids! Y'all had to wear your hats!

    You have definitely showed me lately how strong-willed you are! At times it is the most frustrating thing to deal with because you know exactly what you want and you are going to do it, even if it gets you in trouble. (Example: getting into Kinley's dog bowl, throwing your food, standing up on a piece of furniture) I know that one day it will be your best quality. God is going to use your strong-willed personality to do great things for Him. You make me laugh every single day. You are so much fun to be around. You bring so much joy and laughter to this house. There isn't a day that goes by that I am not filled with gratitude that I was chosen to be your mom. I love you so much Hudson Porter!
-Mommy

NO!

Well, Hudson has officially learned to say "no!". The first time it just kind of came by accident. He yelled the two sounds together but he didn't really realize what he had said. I told Daniel that it wouldn't be long before he did it intentionally. Two days later, NO! was all he was saying. I asked Hudson if he was bored and he said "Nooooo." He smiled like that was the greatest thing he had ever said and continued to say it the rest of the afternoon. Right now, it is so stinkin' cute. I do realize that it will later be annoying, but I just want to enjoy the cuteness while it is still cute!

Here he is in action!

Halloween 2011

I have been looking forward to this Halloween for a few months now. Last year, Hudson was only 5 months old, so he didn't really know what was going on. He couldn't eat any candy, didn't even know what candy was, and he didn't really mind being in his costume.  SO CUTE!

This year I knew would be so much better. He knows what candy is and he can eat some of it. I wasn't sure whether he would like wearing his costume. (It took him a while to get used to it, but he eventually warmed up to it.) This year I decided to dress him up as Mickey Mouse since he loves watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. His cousin Presleigh was going to be Minnie Mouse and since we knew we were doing Halloween together this year, we decided to let them match. They were oh so cute. Friday night we took them to Haunt the Zoo. We showed up at the zoo and the place was packed. It took about an hour before we could even get in. Once we were in the kiddos LOVED it. They walked from place to place getting candy. It was so cute.

Not loving his costume at the moment!

Saturday night we took both babies to a church event. This event wasn't quite as successful as I had hoped. Hudson decided it would be a good idea to take a 45 minute nap and that was all he was going to need for the day. He was not in the best mood this night. He screamed and cried for no reason. He didn't want to walk, didn't want to be held, and didn't want to get in line for candy. He got especially mad when he picked out a sucker and the sweet little lady told him to put it in his bucket. Apparently, she didn't read his mind correctly. He wanted to eat it! So that is what he eventually did. This was the only thing that he wanted to do. He stood in the same spot eating his sucker until he calmed down a bit. Even with the meltdowns, we still had fun.

Sunday evening my other sister invited the babies to go to her church event. Hudson had another terrible nap that day (this seems to be happening a lot lately, causing this momma to be very frustrated), so we had a few meltdowns! He did seem to have a lot of fun. This church rented a little bounce house for toddlers and he had so much fun in it. He had no idea what to do at first but then he decided to "jump." Hudson's idea of jumping is just bending his knees and popping up quickly! He was pretty upset to leave the bouncy house.

All in all, this Halloween was a lot of fun. Hudson did not like getting his costume on, but once it was on, he seemed to forget about it. He loved getting candy and is enjoying getting to taste a bit of it here and there. While it didn't go perfectly like I thought it should (few things seem to go that way), I enjoyed spending time with my little man and I think he was pretty excited about the loot he came away with. 

Being a Mom

    I have only been a mom for 17 months, but I feel like this is what I have been preparing for my whole life. This is the best job in the entire world. I always knew I wanted to be a stay at home mom. When Daniel and I first started dating we had numerous conversations about how our life would be when we had children. We both shared the same dream to have me stay at home with our kiddos. I worked for three years and we saved so that our dream would be a reality.  I am beyond thankful that Daniel shared this dream with me and that he works so hard so that I am able to stay at home. I have an incredible husband!

    I longed for the day where I would be able to have my own baby and spend all day long with him/her. I thought each day would be filled with hugs, kisses, smiles, and magical moments. Well, for the most part, it truly is. There are days that are filled with tears (not just from Hudson!), screams, tantrums, and just full out battles of the will. The hard days just make the good one even better, so I am not complaining!

One of the first fits he threw. This should have clued me in to his temperament! 

This fit was over wanting more medicine!                           

    I know in today's time being a stay at home mom isn't very glamorous. Some women might look at me like I am giving up my own dreams to just stay at home and wipe snotty noses, change yucky diapers, and completely "let myself go." Others might think that I am so lucky because I just get to sit around all day doing nothing and napping. Well, I am lucky, but I can assure you I don't sit around and twiddle my thumbs all day. I have never worked so hard at any other job in my life! 

    I feel like I have a huge responsibility to raise my son to love the Lord with all of his heart. I do not take that lightly. Some days it is so overwhelming to think about the impact I have on my child. I am the first picture of unconditional love, patience, kindness, compassion, grace, etc, that my son will see. I sure do not want him to get the wrong picture. I am the first example that he should see of how to love the Lord. It is my responsibility to protect him from the evils of this world. It is my responsibility to discipline him and teach him right from wrong. It is my responsibility to show him grace when he does something wrong so that one day he understands the ultimate act of grace and love. These are just a few of my responsibilities. I am always thankful that God chose me to carry out these responsibilities. I will forever try to be worthy of this calling. I in no way am capable of doing these things without his help. Some days I just fail miserably. Thankfully, Hudson has that unconditional love thing down. He still loves his momma even when I wasn't so patient or kind that day. With all of these responsibilities that I have as a parent, I don't want to waste that time not being home with my child. Please know, I do NOT think it is wrong if you are not a stay at home mom. Some women can't, some women do not want to, and that is their choice. Staying at home with my son was a decision that Daniel and I made together for what seemed best for OUR family. I in no way think that our decision is the only decision. Just wanted to clear that up!

Little cutie spaghetti face!

    Being a mom has changed my whole life, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Hudson is the best blessing. I truly try to cherish each day. These last 17 months have seemed to fly by. I wish I could figure out a way to slow time! Even though there are days that I wish Hudson were potty trained (like the days that changing his diaper results in a HUGE meltdown with kicking and screaming), I also know that being potty trained means he is older and needs me less, so I don't really mind the meltdowns. These days are so few that I have him at home with me, I just want to make the most of them and remember every single second. I hope Hudson and I can look back at our times together and think these are some of the best memories we have.

Why Blog?

    I have decided to start blogging so that I will be more diligent in recording things that happen in Hudson's life. This is such a precious time in my life and I never want to forget the sweet memories. Hudson has developed quite the personality and I thought that blogging would be a great way to record those moments that make me laugh, smile, sometimes cry, and feel completely blessed to be his momma. 

    Why the title trial and error? Well, I would be lying if I said I was the best mom in the world. On a day to day basis I feel like I am just winging it. Each day is different and I learn as I go. What worked one day may not work the next day with my little man. I work each day to be the best mom I can be for him, but some days I just fail miserably. Trial and error just seemed to fit!