Mr. Clean, Mr. Clean

I never used to be a neat freak. Thinking back to my days at IU, I often chuckle at the filth we lived in and it never bothered me one bit.

I always heard of the "nesting stage" of pregnancy. That period of time when you are cleaning and organizing and washing and scrubbing your days away. I waited and waited for that to kick in when I was pregnant because I couldn't believe I would ever behave that way. The moment that I realized my nesting stage was in full force was when I was about 8 1/2 months pregnant and everything was ready for our little boy. Everything was washed and cleaned and organized and put away. Yet one Saturday I had Luke, my mom, and myself all down on our hands and knees scrubbing the kitchen floor grout with toothbrushes and bleach. No kidding. I looked at the scene and said "Well if this isn't nesting I don't know what is." Now days I'm far from obsessive, but I do try to keep our home as clean as possible.

Tonight I was in the kitchen doing who knows what when I heard Will say "mmmm!" I thought that was a strange thing to say when I hadn't given him anything to eat or drink. I turned around to see him licking day-old, dried up peanut butter off the armrest of his high chair. My first instinct was to stop him, but then I just started laughing instead. It was a nice reminder that you just do your best and then go with the flow. Ahhh, it's these unexpected moments that make being a parent so priceless!!

Ouchee!

Will got a pretty bad cut on his face a couple of weeks ago. This picture was taken almost a week after. I had gone into the office and my dad and Sharon were watching him for the day. (sorry Dad!) They were marching around banging on drums and Will either banged on the dog instead of the drum or stepped on her, because she yelped and scrambled to get away and in the chaos of the moment, scratched him. It was completely innocent and neither Will or Cleo (the dog) seemed to be affected by the incident. It was odd because it wasn't bleeding that badly but it was pretty deep and a "separated" cut. We were all fairly indecisive about whether it needed to be looked at. I figured that I would never regret taking him, but that I might end up regretting not taking him. So I took him. And it was a good thing, because his pediatrician took one look at it and said "Yep! That needs to be closed up." Two nurses came and cleaned it after which one of the nurses came back with Dr. Moore to close the wound. After some confusion about whether this was his first injury from a dog (which it was), we got down to business. The nurse held poor Will's head down, I held his hand and one side of his body and my mom held the other side of him. Will proceeded to scream so hard that he did the "silent scream". He was bright red, sweating, and trying to buck his way off the table. It was awful and soon I was crying along with him. Just then, the nurse decides to ask me about the scar above his eye. I was so upset I couldn't even remember how he had gotten it. I realized I needed to pull it together and remember how my son got that scar, so I remembered it was from a coffee table incident. Then my mom chimes in that he has a chipped tooth, too. (thanks Mom... :) So the nurse says: Oh, is the chipped tooth from the coffee table fall as well? No, I said. That was a DIFFERENT fall. After what seemed like an endless amount of time, it was finally over. It was awful - for everyone. By the end we were all sweating and exhausted.

Dr. Moore ended up "gluing" Will's cut. He applied pressure to get rid of the swelling and then pulled the skin together and glued it. The glue stayed on for about a week and then fell off. Now the cut looks so much better. Unfortunately there will be a scar though.

Will never seemed to be bothered by it or in any pain. Obviously he was upset when it happened, but after that the only time it seemed like it hurt was when it was cleaned and closed up. I know the whole thing was definitely hardest on my poor Dad!!

Being questioned about Will's injuries was a horrible feeling. The next morning at breakfast I was pretty sure that at any moment child protective services was going to knock on our door and come to examine our home and observe my parenting.

Where in the world is Martinsville Indiana

If you would have asked me 10 years ago where I thought I would be at 30, I guarantee I wouldn't have said "living in the country outside of Martinsville." I have gone through many ups and downs coming to terms with "where" I am now. Sometimes I have found myself thinking "what the hell am I doing living here?" but those thoughts seem to be fading away with the years and now I usually find myself being thankful to live on this beautiful land. I have come to accept that the city you write down with your mailing address certainly doesn't define who you are and is less important than the bigger picture. The bigger picture is that I am with my wonderful husband and our healthy, precious son and we live on hundreds of acres of beautiful land. Land that my son will be able to run around on until his little heart is content. He has woods that he can play in, pastures that he can run through, endless trees that he can climb and farm land where he will be able to see crops grow each year. There are many wonderful things about living here and one of them is the unique and exciting opportunities that my son will have.

The Cragen Family farms part of the land here on the Payton property. Last weekend Luke offered to help them get some of the fields ready for planting this spring. Therefore, Luke spent the day in a tractor and guess who wanted to help. Will absolutely loved riding in the tractor with Luke. He ended up falling asleep after about an hour and a half, so I went to pick him up. Once we got home all he said was "dada tractor" over and over. Finally I asked him if he wanted to go back and ride with Daddy again and of course the answer was yes. He ended up spending about 3 hours in the tractor with Luke. He likes talking about the "tractor bump bump". Apparently it's a bumpy ride. :)

Will, the fashion plate

Lately Will has enjoyed bringing shoes to us and insisting he put them on us. Sometimes he tries to put my shoes on Luke, Luke's shoes on me, or his own shoes on Luke. Any way it goes, it's pretty cute. Recently he was being quiet in the kitchen and of course I got worried. When I went in to check on him he had put on my new (partly pink) running shoes. I hurried to get my camera and immediately wished he didn't have on his Christmas jammies (in March). In the end I think it made for an even more precious picture with his pink tennies and Christmas jammies. Luke is probably rolling his eyes. :) Here he is trying to tie them.