8 months

I wish I had more time to keep up with this blog - cute things happen on a daily basis that I know I'm not going to remember. Here are a few highlights from the past few weeks though...


Tate - 2 yrs, 8 months


Me: Tate, did you know that God made the mountains and the trees and the oceans and the sky? He made everything!
Tate: WOW!!!! Good job do all that, God!

I noticed that he was scratching his face the other day and asked what he was doing. His response, "getting all of these freckles off!"

Says "yours" and "mines"

Knows his left and right and speaks in complete sentences, such as.. "Daddy, see that bridge out my window to the left, way over there?"

Can recite lines from "Beauty and the Beast", his baseball movie "Everybody's Hero", "How the Grinch Stole Christmas", and "Follow that Bird".

Stayed at my parents house in SSI for 4 nights all by himself and did great! He was very happy to see me, Keith and Brady when we got down there for Thanksgiving. Told me that night while I was putting him to bed..."Mommy, I missed you sooooo much."

After I read him a book, he'll tell me it's his turn and he'll try to repeat the story. I usually like his version better.

He's pretty much potty trained. Wears underwear most of the time and only has the occasional accident. If it's just pee-pee, he can do the whole thing himself...lights, potty, pants, washing hands, etc.

Still loves to get his hair cut. We go to Great Clips now instead of Pigtails and Crewcuts (closer and cheaper) and he does fine sitting in a normal chair rather than a airplane or fire truck. I'm pretty sure he just endures the whole experience for the 2 lollipops that he gets at the end. And they have to be orange. All candy, vitamins, ice cream have to be orange.

Remembers everything. Like, walking by a park in SSI in November, he remembered that he ate hot dogs there back in February. "That's the hot dog place." Knows and recognizes places around town, too, as we are driving...his school, our ice cream place, my gym, our neighborhood, Chick-fil-a, etc.

When he sees a cell tower, he always tells me "Mommy, airplanes land on those."

He says his l's funny. (tutorial: pretend you are sticking your tongue out at someone. Now open your mouth just slightly and say "l".) It's hysterical. The other day we were driving and a yellow leaf fell onto our windshield. From the back seat, Tate says: "Did you see that little yellow firefly?" Not normally funny, but VERY funny when he says it.

During Thanksgiving dinner, the conversation turned to football and Keith said something to Dan related to a potential scenario if a team scored a certain number of points. Tate immediately starting laughing and said "Daddy said the wrong words!!!"

Keith and I joined Peachtree Road UMC back when Tate was a baby and attended fairly regularly up until Tate was 15-18 months and would scream when we would leave him in the nursery. Not wanting to put him through that trauma, we stopped going for a while. The other night, we were watching a movie and he accidentally hit the remote and changed it to the church channel. I reached for the remote to change it back and he stopped me. Said he wanted to watch church...and so we did. For an hour. He sang, he repeated back what the preacher said, he stood up when the congregation stood up...and so, I decided maybe we were ready to try again. This past Sunday, I dropped Brady off in the nursery and Tate and I went in to "big church" together. He was perfect! Sat the entire time - listened a little, colored a little, played on the iPhone a little, but barely made a peep. We got several compliments from people around us afterwards. I'm so proud of my boy, and happy that we can get back into a church routine again!

Brady - 8 months

Brady is crawling, pulling up and cruising and is thisclose to walking. He's mastered the walker at school and paces back and forth across his room all day. When he's cruising, he'll let go and stand on his own for a few seconds before holding on again or falling down. He has taken a few steps...but I'm not sure whether I'm ready to call them his "first steps" yet. He's close though.

He's also climbing. This started in SSI when he learned he could climb into this plastic Toy Story chair that my mom has for Tate. He now likes climbing our stairs (with me right behind him). We never used gates with Tate, but we'll have to see with Brady. It was easier to corral one kid. I may have to get the gates this time around just for peace of mind.

Brady has 2 bottom teeth, and his two top teeth are growing in slowly and painfully. He can now eat finger foods...we've tried puffs, cheerios, and yogurt melts. Had a scary yogurt melt incident a few weeks ago where Brady started choking. I did a finger swipe (bad idea) and pushed it further down, but fortunately he recovered after a few seconds. The next day I noticed he was wheezing pretty badly and took him to the pediatrician, who referred us to Scottish Rite for x-rays. Everything turned out fine and clear, and although it was a whole day ordeal, I was glad to know for sure that he was ok.

Sits up in the tub by himself now and likes to splash and make a big mess.

He thinks everything Tate does is funny. I love listening to them in the back seat. Tate loves an audience and Brady loves him. It works out perfectly and makes for the best laughter.


That's all I can think of for now. Definitely enjoying our 2 little guys more and more each day!

School Halloween Parade

the fair

The North GA State Fair is in town. We went last year and had a great time, even though Tate was too small to ride any of the rides. I mentioned it to him...asked if he remembered going ("yes")and told him he'd probably be big enough to ride some of the rides this year. He said some stuff and then I said some stuff, which eventually led to me telling him that he was going to grow up to be big, just like his Daddy. His excited response:

"I know!! And, then I can dress up just like Mommy!!"

And that's how I knew we weren't talking about roller coasters anymore.



In unrelated news, I found an iPhone app that puts mustaches on people when you take their picture. Two-year-olds (and their mother) find this to be hysterical.

lately

Two cute videos of my boys captured over the past few days. Tate has finally mastered "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" and Brady is very close to crawling...

guitar lessons

Tate had his first guitar lesson with Uncle Dan last night where he learned how to strum the strings with a pick, and then fetch a dropped pick from the middle hole-thingy.

A quick Google search reveals that the middle hole-thingy is actually called a sound hole. So there's your guitar lesson. (you're welcome!)

the lake

We had a great time at lake Oconee with our friends Allison/Torsten and Jin/Jason this past weekend. Tate and BeBe (10 months apart) are now old enough to play together, and had the best time riding in boat, running around the house, bouncing in the blow-up water park, driving their electric cars, etc. Allison's twins, James and Isabella, and Brady (6 weeks apart) enjoyed sleeping and looking at each other.

I took a lot of pictures - hopefully, I'll get motivated to upload all of them soon. Until then, here's a few highlights...

mommy confession

So, I forgot to pick up the kids from school yesterday. Completely. Forgot. I'm still a little in shock over it myself.

I worked from home like usual. Keith came home around 4:30pm and went upstairs to take a nap, and I jumped in the shower around 5:15pm so that we could meet friends in downtown Roswell at 6:30pm for the monthly Alive After Five event.

After my shower, I remembered that I needed to send one "quick" email. The "quick" email involved a complicated subject and I totally lost track of time.

I remember looking down at the time on my computer. And I remember thinking... "oh wow, it's 6:20pm. Let me run back upstairs and change clothes so that we can go."

I went upstairs, Keith was still laying in bed... and that's when it hit me: HOLY @%^#!! I FORGOT ABOUT THE BOYS!!! (Keith thought I had already gone to get them - didn't realize I was still downstairs. He was lying there waiting for me to get home.)

Keith dashed out the door like a madman and I called the school to let them know that we were, um, running a little late. He got there at 6:40pm (10 minutes after they closed) and retrieved our poor, forgotten babies who were standing by the front door with the teacher who was ready to lock the building and turn out the lights.


My guilt and self-loathing were somewhat eased when two little happy faces came through our front door. Tate ran and gave me a big hug, and Brady was all smiles, so I suppose all was forgiven.

But, seriously, what kind of mother forgets about these two?? A tired one, is my only explanation. I think the weeks of sleep deprivation are finally getting to me!!!!!!

look what I can do

I told Tate this week that I wanted him to just stay little forever. His response:

"No Mommy. I get big and play baseball. I hit the ball, and run, and slide, and ride on the bus, and you say 'goooo Tate!' I not stay little."

Me: "Well, ok then. But, you'll always be my baby no matter how big you get. Ok?"
Tate: "Ok. And you be MY baby, too."

And, since we got all of that figured out, he decided to do a lot of growing up this week. New accomplishments include:

• Going to the potty at school! He's been going 3-4 times per day at school and going regularly at home now, too. I take off his diaper at home and put on his Toy Story underwear. I told Keith that this is it and I'm not buying any more diapers (except for nighttime) once we run out. Wish us luck!


• Somersaults. We showed him how to do one a few weeks ago and helped him over a few times. Randomly last night, he said, "watch me!" and did it perfectly by himself.


• Brushing with toothpaste. For 2 nights in a row, we've had a spitting lesson at the kitchen sink and then I've let him have just a dot of toothpaste for brushing. He likes the spitting part and asked me this morning when he woke up if he could come spit in the kitchen. Hopefully, he's not spitting everywhere at school today.

I'm enjoying my little boys more than I ever could have imagined. Too bad they refuse to stay little....

little people

One of the perks of our zoo membership is special, members-only events throughout the year. This weekend, the Fisher-Price Little People musical was in town. Tate has several of the LP toys and movies so we thought it would be fun to take the boys. Tate was a little nervous during the show, but told us later that he really liked it....

real names

Lately, Tate has been very interested in our "real names". This is the conversation that we have over and over again.

Mommy, what's your name? Whitney
What's daddy's name? Keith
Keith? Yes.
What's Tate's name? Tate
What's Brady's name? Brady
What's your name? Whitney
(laughing)
What's daddy's name? Keith
Keith?
and on and on it goes...

Poor guy is already so confused. Just wait until I have to explain to these two that their names are actually William and James!

perspective

when I'm tired...

when the house is a mess...

when I'm stressed out at work...

when I'm feeling fat...

when I can't be in 10 places at once...

when I haven't been to the grocery store and there's no food in the house...

when I have nothing to wear...

when I need a vacation...

I can look at this picture...

and smile.

And, suddenly, nothing else seems to matter.

the family bed

"Keep your words soft and sweet in case you have to eat them."

It's true. For those of you who have openly admitted that your child sleeps in your bed, I have scoffed. I have judged. I have peered down at my perfect and precious toddler while he slept soundly in his own bed from my very, very tall parenting pedestal and told myself that would never happen to me.

That is, until my perfect and precious toddler turned me into a liar. And a hypocrite.

Because, you see, the Golden household has been sharing a "family bed" now for weeks on end. Let me show you how it works.

This is our bed.





















This is our bed with it's usual occupants. Notice the human/cat surface area percentages.





















And this is what our bed now looks like. You may notice some variations in the surface area percentages.





















I'm sure this is just a temporary phase. I mean, I don't know any teenagers who still sleep in the same bed with their parents. (right?!?!?)

So, I guess in the meantime, I'll just be laying here...wide awake....eating my words...with a knee in my ribs and an elbow in my eye.

P.S. Dear Brady, don't get any ideas. Love, Mom

my boys

(Alternately titled, "Brady's one-finger salute")

"dansey"

In case you didn't know, Dansey is the new Brangelina. Aunt Lindsey and Uncle Dan are huge celebrities around our house...especially in the eyes of their #1 fan. They fall somewhere just behind Buzz Lightyear and Woody on Tate's list of really important people...so, they're kind of a big deal.

For Christmas last year, they custom-designed and printed an awesome coupon book for us. Our coupons include:

- 3 free weeknight babysits
- 3 free weekend babysits
- 2 free overnight babysits
- 3 free diaper changes by Dan
- 3 free feedings by Lindsey
- 1 Buckhead Life Restaurant gift card

AND, they gave all of this to us even knowing that we were having another baby! So, you are probably drawing the same conclusion that we did - that they are either really thoughtful and generous...or completely crazy!

Last week was Dan and Lindsey's first experience with both boys on their own and I left them with the special instruction to just keep everyone alive between the hours of 6:30- 10:30pm. Not surprisingly, they did a little more than that. They got Brady fed, pajama'ed and down for the night by 7pm, and then spent the rest of the evening taking orders from playing with Tate by inventing activities such as the "teddy-bear" (pictured below) and the robot dance.

Tate and Brady are lucky to grow up with such a fun aunt and uncle and I look forward to redeeming the rest of our coupons over the next five months. And the best part is that they no longer need to worry about what to get us for Christmas anymore... we'll gladly accept our annual coupon book for the next 10 years! :)

terms of endearment (part 2)

Me: "Good-night, sweet Tate."

Tate: "Good-night, big Mommy."

(Here we are earlier in the evening eating at Menchie's. He requested pink ice cream.)

"emmy"

Our sweet niece Emilee is going off to college in just two weeks...but lucky for us, she'll be nearby at Kennesaw State. Tate loves "Emmy" and we are all excited that she will be able to come over often to play.

pink!

This is what happens when I'm left in charge....

sunday funday

What a beautiful day! It was in the 70's and breezy this morning, so I loaded up the boys and off we went on an adventure in the double stroller. Brady enjoyed a peaceful nap, while Tate spent some quality time in the sandbox. A Sunday funday, indeed...

the tater head

Just wanted to share a few of Tate's latest phrases. He is a great little communicator and I still find myself amazed almost daily at things he says and does.

All a num (all of them)

I not (As in..."Tate, are you cleaning up your toys?" "I not")

All bodies (everybody)

That's enough (as in stop/knock it off)

Numbers!! (what he exclaims when he sees letters)

Just a minute

Wait for me

Let's go to the store, I want to buy something

Likes to eat "pops" (lollipops and popsicles)

He is getting better and better at keeping himself entertained and playing on his own. He likes to put out pretend fires, and pretend he's cooking and going to the store or going to work. His matchbox cars are his current favorite toy and there is one particular white ("wipe") one that he carries with him all the time and even sleeps with.

He likes to fix my hair, will ask if he can please get a haircut and he suddenly likes to have his fingernails and toenails clipped. He is very observant about what other people are wearing and will say things like "wow, mommy, are you wearing a dress?" He will also bring me the shoes from my closet that he thinks I should wear. It looks like I might have a future shopping and mani/pedi buddy in Tate. ha.

We've been having issues with him getting up several times during the night and coming into our room (after a year or more of him staying in bed through the night). Most times, one of us - lately Keith - will walk him back to his room and lay down with him until he falls back asleep. But sometimes, after a particularly rough night when all of us just want to sleep, we'll let him get in bed with us. I know it's not the best idea...but it's pretty hard to complain when he snuggles right up to me and wants to sleep with both arms around my neck.

We were also told today that he is the most polite, well-behaved kid in his class. You can't ask for much more than that! We're pretty proud of the person our little guy is turning out to be....

tate's room

Tate's big boy room is finally finished!! He moved out of his crib waaaaay back in November, but with Brady on the way, his room wasn't top priority. We've gradually done things here and there and most recently, I painted the room red, ordered the new curtains and had my friend Aubrey paint the train pictures to match the bedding. I think it turned out pretty cute!