Finishing Up March

The following week was alright. I continued to be tired more so than the last time and I came to the conclusion that it’s because this time I’m pregnant and chasing a 2 year old which makes me double tired. I was able to officially boycott Pizza Hut by round two of another Pizza acid episode. Not sure how long it will be before I can do pizza again. I will say that this baby is a carnivore. It wants to eat steak and hamburger meat 24-7. Specifically beef enchiladas from the Mexican restaurant.

Just so you know - - you cannot call Child Protective Services on an unborn child. Therefore I proceed to tell you that Saturday we were doing yard work and decided to till up the yard and plant new grass. So Chip went and got the disk that hooks up to the 4-wheeler and drove it around the back yard a bit. It wasn’t digging into the ground because it was too light. So he put a big concrete block on it. That didn’t help either. So he put his pregnant wife on it and it worked! I stood on the disk and held on to the 4-wheeler rack and it worked beautifully. Dangerous yes, productive - - absolutely. Productivity in the Hawkins household is priority #1.

Continuing on...Sunday the 25th of March we let the boys play at the country club again. So fun to watch the three of them do their thing. They all have their own little personalities and they are all so very different. Hill has become a bit of a dare devil and runs into the water to about his thighs then has this look of “whoa! What am I doing?” and turns around and comes back to the sand. I think he forgets he’s so tiny.

The week of the 26th was a doosie. I wasn’t prepared for my charming little Hill deciding to hit his terrible twos this week. Monday his teacher said that he was a little grumpy. He’d sure had a Monday. Me too, I think I had my pjs on by 5:30 that evening. Then Tuesday it was, well Hill had a bad Monday on a Tuesday.

Once he got home though he was amused because they came and put the top soil down in the back yard so we could plant grass. This meant that there were tractors at my house. Hill LOVES tractors. I do have to mention that it is zero fun having to wash the dogs feet every time they go outside from the mud. It’s not easy cleaning 12 paws to prevent sand and mud coming into every crevice in your house.

Then on Wednesday before 7:45 am Hill had two spankings and a time out. We usually don’t dish out spankings and for him to be so completely disobedient simply because he couldn’t “play” with Daddy’s contacts was just absurd. Chip and I had both had our limit of his snotty brat attitude. I have to admit that I was a little shaken because Chip never loses his cool and he was very unhappy. I’m always the pissy one and he’s never really been the spanker. After I dropped Hill off at school Chip and I regrouped and tried to figure out what in the world has happened to this demonic angel child. Chip figured it out. He said what have we done different lately? For a week or two before Hill started sleeping in his big boy bed. It started with my being so tired that Hill and I got ready for bed then we’d go lay in my bed to watch TV and go to sleep. Hill is an awful bed mate and usually ends up sleeping on top of your head or with a foot in your rib cage. I’d decided that we could move this sleeping party to his big boy bed and that way I can get up and go to my bed once he jabs me in neck with his size 6 foot. Chip hooked up the TV in Hill’s room and we’d go to bed in Hill’s big boy bed then usually anytime between 2:00 am – 4:30 am Hill would take his tiny self out of his bed and walk across the house to our room where we were very tired and grouchy and just stuck him in bed with us. NO ONE was getting a good night sleep. Therefore Hill’s demonic behavior MUST be due to change in routine and not getting a good night sleep.

Wednesday night we were so ready to put Hill in his crib and see if our theory was correct. He fussed a little bit about getting in his crib again because he liked the big boy bed it made him feel grown and independent (which was a bit of the problem too, I’m sure.) But the kid slept like a dream. I had to go wake him up the next morning for school he was sleeping like a rock!

I’m not a psychologist but I think maybe I have decoded the terrible twos from happening. It’s only one word. Routine. Don’t break routine. Any change of pace or surrounding will cause bad bad evil mutant things to come out and embed in your toddlers being. It’s awful so we’ve decided to let Hill sleep in his crib until the 8th grade.

That Thursday when I went to pick Hill up at lunch his teacher said he did MUCH better and that we hopefully had solved the issue. I don’t usually pick Hill up at noon but we had his follow up appointment with Dr. Shell to go to! Hill was so excited to go see Dr. Shell. He kept saying, “I go see Dotter Shell” all the way to Memphis. We walked in the office and Hill said to Penny the receptionist, “Where Dotter Shell? I see Dotter Shell.” I’m pretty sure that the people in that office love us just as much as we love them. Penny shows Hill off to all the other patients. She said to one lady, “This is our baby. We’ve had him from the beginning.” As if he was their poster child….which he is. This was the first time we’d seen them since October. They were still talking about Hill’s Christmas card and how precious it was. They always goo and gahh over Hill and he eats it up.

They called us back to the exam room and I stopped by the bathroom and by the time I walked into the exam room Dr. Shell had already examined Hill and was wrapping up! I only tt’d and was 4 doors down – it cracks me up that we are only there 3 ½ minutes. Maybe I should just send a photo of Hill? Just kidding I love those guys and don’t mind driving so far even for just a second. Dr. Shell said everything looked great. His lip was still swollen (yes even nearly a year later) and he expected it to be that way a few more months. Dr. Shell never commits to if we will need another surgery yet or not because the healing process takes so long. His lip changes monthly, it’s true. All the landmarks are lined up and the redness has gone almost away so now we just wait on the swelling to see how the lip lays. We go back in August. In the mean-time keep lots of sunscreen on his lip to protect the scar from the sun. Good Check Up for my Boy!

Friday rolled around and I was so ready for the weekend. We’d had resident evil living with us at the beginning of the week and then traveling to Memphis and working I was exhausted. I’m pretty sure I was in bed at like 8. I think people came over to my house, but I have no idea as I had no energy to see who Chip was talking to. I was a Debbie Downer….my back hurt and there was this funky rash on my chest. I was ready to sleep off the week and wake up to Saturday.

Saturday was supper club at the Pettit’s. I’m sure everyone knows I’m pregnant. If they don’t then I will give myself too much credit for thinking I’m sly like that….which I’m not. JJ is pregnant too, she told us at the February supper club. It’s so funny because Hill and Harvey are 6 days apart and now these babies will be a few weeks apart. At dinner Harvey announced he’s having a sister (which they haven’t found out yet) and so Hill said that he’s having a brother. Umm, that silly Hill what is he talking about? Why would he say that? Trying to cover it up. We still hadn’t told anyone! We hadn’t really even told Hill. We’d asked Hill if he wanted a baby and he said No, that he was the baby and crawled into my arms like a baby. I am not a good liar and I hate secrets. I guess I did a good job of hiding my secret? It’s not like I drink a whole lot anyway. Most of the time people never notice if I drink or not because I have to be in the mood. I’m usually chasing Hill around because I wish he lived in a bubble so I usually don’t have but one or two if I do drink. I may have given it away though by the amount of food I ate. They did a fish fry and I ate my weight in fish, French fries and hushpuppies.

The next afternoon we went to the country club to play with the Pettit’s and Warrington’s again. This seems to be our Sunday Spring/Summer thing and I LOVE IT. Although before we went to the C.C. I took a nap with Hill and was abruptly woken up by my heart beat. My whole body was a huge heartbeat that throbbed my whole being so strongly that it woke me up. I had Chip feel my heart and he said it was racing. If there is one thing that Chip doesn’t take for granted it is heart issues. He was ready to take me to the doctor but I decided to wait since I had an appointment coming up on Tuesday with Dr. North. It shook me up a little but I would seek medical attention if needed and I just didn’t think it was time yet.

Back to the grind, Monday we signed up for swim lessons. I am so excited that Hill is old enough to get lessons locally by one of my sweet friends, Chris. Chris actually used to teach for the swim school in Jackson that Hill went to last year. She taught there when it was in the owners’ back yard before it became a commercially owned swim school. So we are excited that we get the same caliber of lessons without having to drive 140 miles round trip for 30 minutes one day a week for 16 weeks. These lessons are for an hour for 5 consecutive days. I don’t have to get in the water and should we want Hill to have extra lessons then we can register for another class later on. Yay for Hill!
My next post will begin with April...and our sonogram appointment!