a Day at Dollywood with DaDDy

Brandon went with us to Dollywood last weekend & it was pretty epic. Anderson definitely benefited as he did some things that he doesn't normally do with me! First, Brandon's friend came with his twins-here they all are riding the duck ride!

Then, the 2 of them rode the roller coaster that Anderson technically was not tall enough for, but Brandon snuck him on. Anderson LOVED it!

They are in the green car...

Mini ropes course. Brandon rapels (spell?) sometimes at SWAT stuff so, again, one day this boy will rock out with his daddy.

Thank goodness someone else is paying for the water for a change.

Playing "store". He is selling me watermelon and chicken nuggets.

It is fitting that he has a monkey on his shirt since he is a ridiculous climber.

Ice cream snack.

Anderson even was entertained while we waited for the train. Which, ahem, his Daddy managed to score us the very front seat.

Bobble was there, too.

The train!

the library & the weekends

I heart the library. I have always hearted the library since we were little and Mom would take us every week. We would literally check out the maximum number of books each and just read our lives away. I am thankful every day that I was given the gift of loving to read. Truly, truly loving nothing more than reading a good book. Now, I am  loving getting Anderson hooked on the awesomeness that is the world of words (and videos of garbage trucks).

*speaking of books, read Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson. The man is amazing. Huge crush. Big. Huge.  (imagine me in a dress holding shopping bags sort of like Pretty Woman when I say that)

Because I am an obsessive planner/doer, I (we) are constantly on the move. My response to people who think I take Anderson too many places is this-He is 2. He requires very little sleep. He requires an eyepatch for the many, many (many, many) hours that he is awake. This requires CONSTANT distraction/business on my part. I like taking advantage of free activities and exposing my kid to fun stuff. Whatever. Here we are at the ChickFilA Family day a few weeks ago complete with the barrel train, moon bounces and cookies!

Is it in my genes that I MUST find a bounce house every. single. weekend?Yes, yes it is.

This is really the only playground he can do completely by himself. And by "do" I mean climb it, slide down it & poop in it. That was fun.

After ChickFilA fest we visited Brandon at the "Let's Move" event & it was pretty fun. I cannot stand am not a huge fan of Obama, but I will shout out to Michelle Obama with her fight against childhood obesity. This event had all kinds of fun stuff for kids like worm bins to dig through, samples of strawberries (see above) and FREE tomato plants from Home Depot (back to my theme of "How can I make money off of this?") And, it was our second moon bonce/playground of the day! (Yes, there was a third one of each of these later that day, too when we visited Bop at a school fair)

Check out Brandon in the corner informing everyone about the pros of CrossFit. He is a Cross Fit instructor for KPD & is always impressing me with his tales of burpees, squats & push ups. I feel like listening to the description is sort of close to actually doing it. And, check out the little orange eyepatch that we left behind, as usual. I cannot imagine how many of our patches are spread around Knoxville. 

This is the free helmet from the YMCA day! It is seriously brand new. He thinks he is so official. 

 Two eyes!

 Our ice cream van is so sketch, but there is nothing more fun than the idea of just getting some ice cream in the middle of the summer. Plus, it gives us a chance to teach important lessons about never approaching white vans alone.

 Anderson has had a really rough time at my parents' lately.

See what I mean? The last I heard they took him to the zoo, to buy a new bobcat and swimming at the YMCA. It gets rougher by the day.

 Love the hair.

We spend massive amounts of time outside. We walk, play with his bike, look for bugs. He found a snail here. Pumped.

 The green patches have been on backorder and FINALLY arrived. Happy day in the Glover house.

A few of Anderson's crafts from Mother's Day Out. I can't keep everything, so I figure pics will serve the purpose!

"I need some owives".

 This boy is so loved by his GG. His wardrobe is basically 90% GG, 10% consignment sales, so it works out pretty well for us! He loves spending time with her & always wants to "See GG. Get some orange juice. Play with BIG garbage truck!"

Work.

I would love to see in Anderson's mind just a bit to determine his interpretation of words. For example, what he associates with "work" would be interesting.

1. Bobble  A pretty big chunk of our lives is spent at Farragut related events & Anderson knows I work at a school. Last week at the soccer game he found the "soon to be concession stand" area, which was a construction site to him. Since we don't leave our house without some form of construction, he was set.

 One of my cheerleaders  who I "work" with lives a few streets behind us & she has an actual Bobcat in her backyard from a construction project last winter. If this is not a perk of spending 12 months of the year as the cheer sponsor, I don't know what is. (Yes, I realize 12 months is the entire year, but the SPORT of cheerleading does not get a break since we cheer year round)

Playing hide & seek at theFarragut track meet. This was after he played "stick my hands in the sewer grate and attempt to eat the orange peels I found there" game.  I didn't get a pic of that one.

Landscape day at Bobble's work. The cheerleaders cleaned out this entire bed-25 garbage bags full of weeds, leaves, trash & dead stuff. Love them, of course.

 The Blue/Gray football scrimmage.

 One of my cheerleaders' little sisters played with him in the long jump pit.

I love making him pose by this eye. It will never get old. I made him pose last year, too.

So, basically Bobble works at a place where this is dirt, sand and a bunch of kids to play with at games & digging.

2. Daddy. We usually visit Brandon when he is working on the weekends at various functions & last weekend was the "Let's Move" event. As you can see, Daddy's work has moon bounces...

and a fire truck! Let's just say that the perk of your dad being a police officer is that the fire fighters let you do whatever you want with their truck. Turn on lights/sirens, press all of the buttons, lower the ladder,etc.

3. Bop. That same day we visited Bop at work at an elementary school carnival. Bop is ridiculously talented at balloon art and was the hit of the carnival.

Besides balloon animals, Bop's work had games like digging in the sand, snake tattoos and fun goodies. It also had the third playground of our day and a Noni who came along and paid for the tickets:)

4. Noni has the hardest job of all and is awesome at it! 

** If Anderson's life was a want ad, I would describe it something like this:

-2 year old needed to supply lots of talking, construction sounds and question asking. You must provide your own energy and not require snack, meal or rest breaks. The hours will be 5am-9pm and you will be expected to wear an eyepatch most of the day. Perks include spending most days in a camp like atmosphere complete with field trips, sand, jumping on one or both feet at all times & construction. For the weekends and evenings, you will be provided with 2 very furry assistants to harass as you please. Together, the 3 of you will serve the ultimate purpose of your job, which clearly is to always be standing in the exact same spot that your Bobble is. 

the day to day.

I was going to do the thing where you take a pic every hour at the same time & I kept forgetting, but here are a few of my attempts to capture the random (consistent) things over a period of a few days last week. I started this post & never finished it apparently. But, here it is.

My son, my dad, construction. 

My mother is always there, just letting me hand her my stuff to hold, making sure I filled everything out right, hovering to get the free helmet, waiting 2 hours in the heat so I can get some free pull ups. Seriously, I am so grateful to have her down the street from us!

Somehow my attempt to capture our random life events turned to patches. I know, I was also shocked.

It's stuck to his bike wheel...

Chloe is like a magnet for them.

This video pretty much sums up my life.

imoms for a chance.

my cousin, shannon, left this as a comment one day on a blog post & it really stuck with me.  It's a nice reminder of why I am tired with this patching business. It's hard, but so worth it. I saved his patches for a few days (literally, we go through more than this amount in 2 days, but these were the ones that I could salvage) & wrote the quote in it, so I can have it as a reminder. 




Two things in this post.

First, I was talking at lunch, I can't remember what about, and I said something about, "One of my eye moms..." And, a friend said, "Oh, EYE moms. I thought you meant imoms, like ipad or ipod."

Excellent.

I realized that is such a better name! Think about it, all of Apple products are designed to make people's lives better, just like the imoms! I am reading Steve Jobs' biography and he said, "The consumer doesn't know what they want until we show them." (possible paraphrasing there) and I think even that is relevant. I had no idea when I started this blog that Anderson was going to be diagnosed with a cataract or that I was going to spend the next years of my life chasing around a very active boy with a bandaid. But, I also didn't know I was going to find such support in all of the imoms out there! I didn't even know I needed you guys :)        I love it. 




So, my next thing is that I am (yet again) in the acceptance stage of the Eye. Or, at least back to somewhere on the outskirts of it. I have realized that I am so, so, so much luckier than so many moms out there. What on earth do I have to complain about? While this patching all day thing is the Hardest. Thing. I've. Ever. Done. In.My. Life,  my kid has a "situation" that requires constant attention, but is not fatal and will not drastically impair his ability to live a normal life even in the worst case scenario. 


But, even better, we have a chance. I realized how many moms in awful situations, where they are really watching their kids struggle or be in pain, would love to just have a chance to make it better. I think the best attempt at putting into words what being a mom is on airplanes where the emergency info says, "You must put your oxygen on first or you will be unable to help your child!" There is even a little picture of it to demonstrate. I love this because it clearly recognizes that helping yourself first goes against every single speck of instinct that makes up being a mom. The airline basically has to tell you it will hurt your kid if you don't do this. My point is all moms love their kids beyond anything imaginable. Many moms who are struggling with things way worse than I am would love to be in this situation where I have a chance to fix it. 


 I am so thankful for this, even on the days when I complain a lot, I promise I realize how lucky I am . 


I will take my chance and run with it. 


And, kick it's butt. 


:)