Life Lately

Haynes is 9 months old and on the go! He is a fast walker who loves to say momma. He can say no, dada, and hey, but his favorite word is definitely momma. You’d think I’d be all excited except most of the time he says it all sad when he’s walking to me hungry or tired. He rarely uses it excitedly like he does dada. He wants to eat EVERYTHING in site. So I pretty much spend all of my outside time during the day while he naps. He does love to just sit and ride on the golf cart, and swing at the playground, but that’s about it without risking choking on a thousand leaves. This weekend we travelled to the farm, where I gave up and let him munch on grass and leaves, thinking that he might say yuck, but he just kept shoving it in. It really is confusing how they want to eat every leaf in site, but when you put a salad leaf on their meal plate, they taste it, then immediately spit it out.  Haynes officially took his first solo step on March 2^nd! So he matched his early bird sister. Most people told me boys are slower and all kids are so different, but at this point, I feel like Lane and Haynes are the same kid. There are some differences of course, but overall they are pretty much the same in temperament, sleeping, and milestones. I guess the biggest difference would be their stats. Lane was always off the charts tall and never dropped below the 50^th in weight. Haynes is tall (not crazy tall though), and he’s only 8^th percentile in weight. The doc is not worried though because he is gaining weight, he’s just very active and… have you seen his daddy?! Haynes has 7 teeth that he’s had for a long while now, but still no sign of the 8^th.  Every morning when I get him out of his bed he leans in and gives me a hug (a bit more snuggly than his sister). His favorite person is definitely his sister, who he follows around everywhere. Most of the time she handles her lack of personal space well, but sometimes she’s OVER it. His only defense is pulling her hair, which he has mastered quite well. Our house is well baby proofed, so our days are pretty fun wondering around playing chase/hide and seek, and Haynes attempting to munch on everything.

Lane is a wonderful big sister and growing up very quickly. I know everything thinks their child is a genius, but this girl really does amaze me. She knows all of her letters, the sounds they make, can recognize some site words, and is starting to sound out words for reading. She can count to 20, and count to 100 in tens; she can identify all of her numbers as well. She is currently obsessed with Spanish. She can count to ten in Spanish, but ask daily what other words are. She was asking me so much that I borrowed my dads learn to speak Spanish CD for the car, and we have been driving down the road listening to it. Haynes is probably going to be fluent just by forced listening. Lane also loves golf cart rides and the feeling of freedom our neighborhood gives her. She is allowed to roam our street and take a cut through to the next street over where she has a 4-year-old little girl friend. The 5-year-old little girl that lives one house away on our street has become her best friend. They are ALWAYS together and we allow them to just run from house to house without supervision (and LANE feels like she’s 15). All of our neighbors are wonderful and Lane loves to visit with all of them. She makes herself at home with our neighbors Mr. Don and Mrs. Gloria. who frequently provide a cookie, and spend countless hours a week on our driveway with sidewalk chalk.

Luke is busy working on a boutique hotel in downtown Savannah, and I have now started selling custom closets for Coastal Closet Solutions! My friend Christy owns the franchise and was telling me what a wonderful business it is, but she doesn’t have any time to run it because she is working so much with her husband, a custom homebuilder. So, I told her I would run it! I love organizing, and this is something that will allow me to still put being a mother first.  Once I drop the kids off at school (Lane is starting this fall), and days I need to put Haynes in mother’s morning out or to my Mother in Laws, I’ll do that. It’s really more of a side business, but when both kids are in school full time, I hope to ramp it up. So call me if you need some custom closets in your life, and who doesn’t?????

Overall, life lately has been flying by, and full of fun. I hope summer brings a slowness to savor my last days with Lane here all of the time. She’s only going to school for three days a week in the fall, but this will be our last time with her here 100%, and I’m already sad thinking of how quickly this time is going by; but thankful to see her grow, learn, and become a beautiful person. Whew that was a long update, thanks for listening!