As an eleven-week old baby boy he is:

• 13 pounds, 6 ounces: 67th percentile
• 23″ long: 24th percentile
• 16.5″ head: 32nd percentile

As for weight he has jumped from the 22nd percentile at birth to the 67th percentile…little big man likes to EAT!  He’s still maxing out at 32 ounces of formula a day.

As for length he has jumped from the 5th percentile at birth–mommy’s little peanut–to the 24th percentile.

The doctor says the average baby at this age gains a pound a month and grows an inch.  Of course Moseby is an over-acheiving smarty pants so he gained 3.5 pounds and grew two inches last month.  Duh.

The doctor was also impressed with his head strength, his ability to roll around, his love of smiling/cooing/chuckling that bring us so much joy, and his sleep. 

Did I tell you he is a fabulous sleeper?  Goodness gracious, YES.  Last night he slept….wait for it….wait for it….11 hours straight.  Told you you’d be jealous.  Our doctor said that is unheard of with two month olds.  He obviously doesn’t know our Moseby is a smarty pants yet.  {I think the hum of his fan and drifting off to the sound of waves from his Sleep Sheep doesn’t hurt either!}

Our little guy is absolutely perfect and thriving.  Which makes me one happy mama.  Love you, sweet boy!

Some of us chose to stand–Mimi.  Some of us chose to sit–MM.  Either way we left we buckets of gorgeous, super delicious strawberries {after MM taste tested a few of course!}.

MM is on the far right…that bob was tough getting into a bun!

It was a mighty big deal for a three year old, let me tell you.

She and three of her classmates danced to Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear Turn Around and it was precious.

She’s on the far left.

MM did such a good job watching her teacher and doing the moves.  So proud of my little ballerina!

Nothing like a celebratory snow cone to end a great day!

And Moseby?  Well, he spent the performance watching it from under his daddy’s hat ’cause it was so sunny {love his reaction to that} and relaxing in the car.

Moseby can’t wait for cake next year…but this year he just showed off his new skill–chuckling!

On Friday night we hosted a small birthday party.

By small I mean 200 people came. Whatevs! {That’s how we roll in the south.}

We put out at least a hundred pictures of Mamaw through the years as table centerpieces, as well as flower arrangements made from flowers on the farm, and votive candles. I loved how almost every person walked around the room looking at the pictures.

For food I convinced my mom and uncle to go with a whole “Ruth’s favorite foods” theme and I thought it turned out really cute. Chicken nuggets, meatballs, little quiches, cheese ring with strawberry jam, Snickers bars, Moon Pies, cut-up strawberries with sugar, peanut butter crackers, lime sherbet punch, RC Colas, and Orange Crush. The only thing we didn’t include was the poke salad  {ack!}, cornbread, and buttermilk.

We had the guests write down a fond memory they had with Mamaw and add it to our “Memory Tree”.  We’re going to put all the memories in a book so she can keep them.  {MM’s said, “I like to watch TV at Mamaw’s.  I like to ride bikes with her too.”  Hmm…I get the TV part–they love watching ‘Little Bear’ everyday, but the bikes?  Uhm, MM, there are no bikes at Mamaw’s house! …silly three year olds!}

Mamaw enjoyed getting to see people she sees every week and ones she hadn’t seen in years.

Happy Birthday, Mamaw!  We are blessed to have you in our lives and hope you have eighty more!

It’s about race.  And how we {I say “we” loosely of course, meaning specifically me and my immediate family} say we are “color blind”.  That we don’t notice the differences in the people around us.

If you had asked me at the start of our adoption journey about race I would have likely said in a ridiculously chipper voice, ‘Race doesn’t matter to us!  We’re color blind and we’re going to raise our children color blind too!’

What I meant is that to me…to my family…race doesn’t specifically mean anything.  Whatever your skin color, whatever your culture–we want to know the person first.

But are we “color blind”?

Uhm, most definitely no.  And since our Moseby has come along it is even more apparent to me about how much I notice race.  {I would like to add that I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing to “notice race”…I am not saying this with any negative connotation associated with “noticing race”.}

I notice race at church.  Our parrish is, if I had to take a guess, 45% African American, and during the service each week I look around the congregation noticing the families.  Looking at them.  Wondering their stories.  Wondering if they would be friends with us if I approached them.  Wondering if Moseby will have an African American friend at our church his own age one day.  Praying that it is so.

I notice race at the mall.  On Facebook.  On TV and magazine covers.  In Walmart.

I am, in fact, decidedly not color blind.  I am, in fact, very color aware.

And I don’t think that is a bad thing at all. 

{You don’t know how hard it was for me to just admit that.  I wonder why myself.  Why do I think it is wrong to notice race?  I’m not sure.  I’m still working on that one.}

And then I realized MM notices race too–in a sometimes not so subtle way.  See, we were sitting in church Sunday morning waiting for church to start and she was looking around–nothing big there as she is always looking for her teachers and her friends–when she exclaims, ‘They’re brown! And they’re brown! And they’re brown!’ as she looks at all the different families sitting nearby.

They all heard her.  I could feel them looking at me.  I don’t know what they thought.  Or even if they thought anything about it all.  But I do know it embarrassed me.  It made me uncomfortable and my face turn bright red. 

Then she sweetly looked over at her baby brother and whispered, ‘I’m peach and you’re brown.  And you’re sooo cute!’

Something about that teeny tiny part of our day has stuck with me.  It has made me think about my philosophy on parenting in this “color blind” way now that we are a transracial family. 

Because when the four of us are out together it is clear we are different races.  Even in the ten short weeks that Moseby has been in our family we’ve been asked several times if he was adopted or had comments on his “pretty olive skin” by random people.

And so I can’t teach my children to be “color blind”…they need to be aware of their both equally beautiful skin shades.  And I have to teach my son–that gorgeous little brown boy with dark black hair that he is–that he is beautiful.  And unique.  And special.

I do feel like I am doing at least something right with the multicultural doll collection MM already has and all the books we have that showcase many skin colors and cultures.  I know I have a long way to go, I do, but I feel like I am on the right start. 

And I’m not sure why I was so uncomfortable posting this.  In fact, I feel much better now.  Thank you for listening.

Something starts out relatively simple…painless…and then once you start grows and grows ’til you just have to keep plowing away at it until it’s finished or you might kick yourself for giving up?

Maybe it’s just me.  I don’t know.

Since Christmas we’ve been talking about getting MM {and Moseby when he gets older} a play-set for our house.  We looked at the ones we liked online and they were four or five…thousand.  No offense, but who in their right mind would pay five thousand dollars for a play-set?  Riddle me that.

We looked at Costco and Sams and their smaller versions were still pushing $1000.

So we tabled the idea and said we would come back to it in the spring.  Imagine my surprise when a few weeks ago C. said he had been looking at them on Craigs List for a few months now and found us a good used one for literally five percent of the original cost.

The only problem was that WE had to take it down, WE had to move it to our house, WE had to set it up in our backyard, and WE had to repair/add things to it.  {I say ‘we’ loosely, of course.  I just planted a pot of flowers and held a couple of posts up.}

We couldn’t turn a deal like that up so last Saturday we went and bought it.  And it took basically a whole day to take it down and move it to our backyard.

Our backyard looked like a graveyard full of old swingset bones.

Pretty daunting, huh? {Thankfully they labeled the pieces and took tons of pictures before they took it apart.}

But MM loved “sliding” already.   She stood around “helping” {see that screwdriver in her hand?} all afternoon.

Late that afternoon they had the first tower thingy put together.

And right before dark the first slide got added so MM could take a quick ride down {because, come on, it’s hard for a three year old to be that patient and we had to reward her!}.

The next day the second tower was added, but the twisty slide {MM. calls it the “curly slide”…so cute} and the swings proved to be much more difficult.

The men met again on Wednesday evening to come up with a list of more materials they needed {four trips to Home Depot and one trip to Ace for this project, I might add}. And on Friday afternoon as the rain was trying to close in on us they got the swing and slide added.

Moseby’s vantage point:

My laidback baby of course fell asleep while lying in the shade and took a little nap while everyone worked.

And while he snoozed MM and I planted some marigolds and catnip {her choice}.

And Vivi barked. And drank water. And barked. And drank water.

And then it was time to swing so MM practiced a bit with her baby first.

And had a little snack on the stairs {you’ll probably notice that the swingset has a picnic table built in, but of course that meant that MM wanted to eat on the stairs, haha!}.

And by Friday evening it was fully functional though still a little rough looking.

Saturday we bought accessories {handles, a ship’s wheel, etc.} because a plastic telephone brings the swingset to a whole ‘nother level, you know?

And then on Sunday the men added decking to cover the old sandbox {sorry, I don’t do sandboxes} and a new roof.

Grand total of time spend on this thing: 28 hours.

All I gotta say is those kiddos better play on that thing everyday! …but so far Moseby is not impressed. HA!

Right?

If I have, just indulge me, because I honestly don’t remember doing so.

And if I haven’t shown you yet?  Sweet!  I remembered!

I know I’ve shared my love for Anna Maria Horner fabrics on here before.  In fact, I went to her sewing workshop back in ’10 {Don’t click on that link unless you want to see an 18 month old MM who looks soooooo tiny and precious and adorable.  Swoon.}.  I love her crazy bold designs in bright colors.  They speak to me.

So I knew I wanted to make my parents a quilt in her fabrics but that I had to add in some red since that’s my mom’s favorite color…hence, the borders and binding.

I chose a ‘plus’ design for their quilt.   I used lots of different tutorials, but really liked the one I found here.  For quilting I chose to quilt 1/4″ along either side of the seams.

On the back I used my favorite fabric from her Loulouthi collection.  I did one more plus sign block with some hand embroidery.  And my favorite thing?  MM’s art project that I put on a piece of fabric and incorporated to the back.

So, it only took me four months to post about it….not bad.  HA!!

And for my records:

Eating.  Oh, he LOVES to eat!  At his one month appointment we told the doctor he was consistently eating 32 ounces of formula per day…or more.  The doc cautioned us about going over 32 ounces since it can lead to an electrolyte imbalance.  So under his guidance we feed him by spoon {soooo messy!} three tablespoons of cereal mixed with formula each day.  He loves it.  He also loves Gripe Water–if I ever give him some he just smacks those little lips and smiles.

Playing.  He loves eye contact and will turn his head wherever his sister goes.  He recogonizes voices in his sleep.  He can reach out and grab things.  He has rolled from his tummy to back countless times {twice yesterday} and back to tummy occassionally {once yesterday}.

Trying to reach up and grab the elephant on his mobile. He LOVES that elepant.

Pooping.  ‘Cause I know you wanted to know, right?!  HA!  Every single day for the last month he poops between 4-6pm.  It’s a beautiful thing because I make sure he has on a disposable diaper then and I don’t have to worry about cloth diapers and poop.  Hip hip hooray!

Sleeping.  On average he gets up 1-2 times per night.  Some nights he’ll have an eight hour strech {like last night} and then a four hour stretch, other nights he has three four hour stretches.  He gets comfy in C.’s lap every night around 8 and we’ll look over and he’ll be asleep in a few minutes.  He’s a total self soother so no rocking needed…though I do it just for kicks before I put him to bed because I love hearing him breathe in his sleep. hehe 

I know we said it with MM, but we feel like we’ve won the baby jackpot.  Moseby is just so sweet, cuddly, and soooo laidback.  I can’t believe we’ve been blessed to have TWO kids like that!

A little comparison from the past two months:

He has the same onesie on so you can really tell he’s “filled out”.

I did it back in ’05 right after we returned from our honeymoon and was going to cut it again on our anniversary.

But I woke up yesterday feeling like that kid in Napoleon Dynamite who shaved his head because he was hot. I feared that I might just start hacking away at it with scissors myself! So on the way home from work I called my salon and asked if *anyone* was available right that second to cut my hair.

Thankfully there was.

I went in like this.

Had four pony tails snipped right off.

And left with hair that was a little over twelve inches shorter than when I walked in.

When I picked MM up from preschool her eyes got as big as saucers. She touched my new {straight} hair and declared us “hair twins”.

I thought it was funny when later she asked me if she could touch my cut-off hair–I think she might miss rubbing on it…what do you think? haha

It feels good to have all that weight gone AND to be able to sit down in a chair and not get my hair stuck between my back and the chair anymore. That was getting a little frustrating.

The stylist did tell me that you can only donate if less than 5% of your hair is gray. {They basically bleach all the hair in batches and then re-color it for a wig. Gray hair apparently doesn’t color as well.} She said that right now I’m about 5% gray {more so around my face and hairline}–looks like this will be my last donation. Just another sign I’m getting older, I guess. Ick. Boo. Hiss.

I was {ahem, AM} so so so tired as Moseby got up at 1:30, 3, 4, 5, and 6:30.

During the night it started to rain and at the 4am feeding I realized the drip-drip-drip I heard was coming from his closet ceiling.  More water problems at our house it seems.

So I was tired and stressed and not feeling too chipper or too loving by any means this morning.

And that’s when I saw Butterball, the neighborhood cat, who gave birth to some kittens a few weeks ago.  {No worries, in a few weeks we’re spaying her and have good homes for her kittens…if we can find them.}  She moves her kittens around every couple of days and it appears that not only was she up all night nursing them, she was also protecting them from the rain because she was soaked.

I know it sounds stupid, but when I looked at Butterball–who was tired, wet, and cold–I connected with her.  Because being a mama and taking care of our babies is just what we do even if we’re dog tired and don’t feel like it.