birthday 'do as i say, not as i do's'

we had a fun birthday weekend, but, i have again learned a few things over the course of this party planning, that i feel the need to share with you, in hopes of saving you a little grief.
so boys, listen up and pass this onto your wives...here are a few things that i don't recommend you doing:
1) after 12 months with two children, STILL be so scattered that you contstantly are missing something....like an earring, or a wallet, or you have peanutbutter on your face, or you left the credit card in the diaper bag that happens to be at home, or you forgot shoes for your child, or you maybe even forgot that you brought the second child with you until another mom says, "lauren, isn't that hayes heading toward the door?? only for you to reply, right, i thought about leaving him home to nap, but brought him with me instead. oops. let me grab him...... that's enough examples, you get the point! organized doesn't go in a sentence with my name in it. SO, one day this past week when i was "organizing myself" for hayes' birthday party, i realized that again, i didn't have any cash, left the credit card in the diaper bag in the laundry room, and i was NOT about to waste the fact that i'd loaded everyone up and loaded my cart, so, i scrounge around in my purse and come up with this check book. i'm like, great, this will work, have no idea where it came from or why it was at the bottom of my purse, but whatever. so i'm writing checks, writing checks, getting things done, we're in and out in and out, and i'm telling myself, see it's okay, you've got it together.................proud of my successful day, i go on, and then the phone starts ringing. and ringing. ringing some more. returned check from lauren clark at jd's chippery. returned check from lauren clark at kroger. returned check from lauren clark to the babysitter. returned check. returned check. returned check. oh, and, they all come with a fee. rrrrright, that checkbook i magically found......closed account. my returned check hung on the wall at jd's chippery until we took care of the situation on friday. special.
2) eat a sausage roll, doughnut, and cupcake for breakfast. followed by a little side dish of puppy chow. really???? refer back to that post where husband mentions my frumpy 9 months pregnant sweater. maybe this "breakfast of champions" might have something to do with why i'm still wearing it 12 months later........
3) have a birthday friday. a party saturday. and your children's portraits done on sunday. okay, a) don't ever take your 2 year old and 1 year old for portraits. period. and if you rediculously decide not to listen to that advice, at least don't take them on the heels of such a weekend. and b) if you eat the same breakfast i did this morning, doing anything but laying in bed for the rest of the day will make you miserable and exhausted! .... kind of just kidding about this one. the boys actually did great, all things considered. but will and i both were spent. we've never jumped, sang, chased, farmed out food albeit doughnuts, so much in our entire lives. now, let's just hope the check i wrote for the sitting fee clears so that we actually see a few photos of this captured phase in our life!
so there you have it, just a few words of wisdom from dear old mom.

feeling like a million bucks....

so, i think i'm that mom. that mom. shoot.
though there are many reasons that have led me to this conclusion, here are a few of the recents:
1. the teachers at MDO tell me that the next two weeks are "sports days". dress your child in his favorite sports team's color or jersey. great! i write it on my hand. i write it on my calendar once i'm home. the following tuesday rolls around, and i drop hayes off in his freshly pressed, precious baby blue smocked romper with his cute little lace-up walking shoes. sinking feeling inside. oh no!! i forgot!! all of the other kids are wearing their sports paraphanelia (or however you spell it...stuff) and then there's hayes. what to do? do i go home and bring him clothes?? wait, he's 11 months, he won't remember. BUT, i'm his mom, I AM supposed to remember. shoot, i'm that mom.
2. the parent/teacher conference sign-up sheet is posted outside of hayes' classroom door. kind of crazy that i'll be conferencing for my 11 month old, but sure, i'll sign up. what kinds of questions will i bring in to discuss with the teacher?? anyway, write the time down on my hand. again, i write it on a piece of paper and post it to the fridge once i'm home. okay, i''m ready. ready for the conference. change plans, rearrange a few things, make new plans, all because i have this 15 minute conference on friday. friday comes. i get up and actually shower. i go to target and buy starbucks cards for all three of his teachers to take with me. i'm ready. pull up to school and again, a sinking feeling sets in. shoot!!! is my conference today or was it yesterday??? oh no!! yesterday!!! the director of MDO now takes my gift cards from me and assures me that she'll tell the teacher that i got confused and missed my conference. shoot, i'm that mom.....and I KNOW how we teachers talk about that mom!!!
3. okay, so i'm showered, dressed, and missed my conference all on the same day. so i go home for a bit to get a few things done before returning to school for hudson's fall party. will happens to be home. he doesn't say anything directly when i walk in, but he has this funny look on his face and starts kind of giggling. i'm like, what??! what's wrong with my clothes?! he hem-haws around for a bit and then finally says, 'nothing really, but they're, it's just kind of frumpy. well, it looks better from the side than the front.' sweet. not only am i a total flake up at school, but now i'm a total frump at home. so what, i had on the same sweater i wore when i was 9 months pregnant. so what, i was comfortable. so what, without my money tree blooming in the backyard, what was i supposed to do?! shoot, i'm that mom.....who's about to clean the toilet with her husband's toothbrush. just kidding!! :)
4. today, 1 year old birthday party. halloween costumes. me and the kids attend the party by ourselves. having fun, having fun, i'm a little distracted trying to carry on conversations, keep an eye on hayes, check on hudson etc. then wham... all of a sudden i feel like the party just got really loud, and i realize that is because:
out of one corner of my eye, i see hayes is screaming-so i go grab him, try to calm him, but can't. meanwhile, out of the corner of my other eye, i see hudson chasing the poor kid who wanted his trains back screaming at him, kid is crying and looked to be running for dear life away from hudson. so i scoop hayes up. he continues to scream. sweat beads are pouring down my back. i feel people beginning to look at me. i'm trying to figure out if hudson actually hit the kid that he's chasing. i get to hudson, he starts screaming and starts to melt down. hayes is still cying. nothing says "time to go" better than both of your kids screaming and everyone else staring at you. shoot, i'm that mom.
man... lately, my mom skills have me feeling like a million bucks! ;)

a few things i don't want to forget

dear hudson,
you are 2 years and 4 months old now and amaze me with something new each and every day. your dad and i laugh about something you said or did each night after you go to bed and often sit and wonder how your funny personality will continue to grow. i wanted to take a minute and jot down a few of the sweet or funny things that you're doing now, as you change so quickly!!
right now, you:
-you recognize us as the Clark Family (pronounced: "Clock Fameeee") and when asked who is in our family you say,"mommy clark. daddy clark. hayesie. and hussson"
-you switch from "mommy" to "mom" depending on your need at the time. when you're really serious about something, i'm always "mom". but Daddy is always "daddy" and Hayes is always "hayesie".
-you have several favorite questions: what's that? did you hear that? what's that noise? what you doin'? what you talkin' bout? WHY??
-you are finally (the teacher in me has been waiting for this for 2 years and 4 months :) ) taking an interest in learning letters, shapes and numbers.
-you recognize yours and hayes' letter as H, mommy's letter as M and now spot them on road signs, daddy's Old High t-shirt, billboards, magazines etc.
-you like counting...to 3. and then you pick up again at 7.
-you're very particular about how fast i drive and how many bumps i hit along the way. at least several times a week you will say things like, "mommy slow down" "toooooo fast, mommy!" or "no do those bumps mommy"
-you are fascinated, and by fascinated i mean OBCESSED, with cars, trucks, trains, cranes, etc.
-you now have an ever-changing imagination and you love bringing us coffee (though we don't drink coffee in this house, so sometimes you'll bring me a diet coke), making muffins, pretending you're a fireman and climbing trees to save the cats (you must get that from your dad, because anybody that knows me knows i DEFINITELY DON'T DO cats...much less any other animal for that matter...if it was up to me, i'd certainly leave the cat in the tree!) when we're playing, i've grown tired of "saving the [useless] cats", so now i tell you that my ladder broke and that "Duggers", the name that you give the cat EVERY time, will have to make a happy home up in the tree forever. you follow that with, "why mommy?!"
-every Friday on our way to school, without fail, you tell me, "Mac goin' school today mommy. Mac pay (play) Hussson". then, when i pick you up you say, "No Mac school today??!!" .... i've tried every way possible to help you understand that you and Mac are in different classes this year. it breaks my heart to see the look on your face in the afternoons when, again, Mac didn't show up. so i've started going along with you and saying, hmmm, i wonder what Mac did today instead of coming to school??!
-you like to tell me which way to go and you always tell me to go find the Tollway...you even recognize our route to the Tollway and know when i'm going the "wong waaaaaay!!!"
-you enjoy drinking lemondades from "Donalds", and unfortunately fries usually accompany the drink in an attempt to keep your brother quiet.
-you are quick to tell us when we're talking to loud and that our voices "hurt husson's ears"
-you have a generally loving relationship with your brother. you love him too harshly some times and might have banged him on the head more than once. you really dislike it when hayes comes near a toy that you're playing with and are quick to tell him "NO, MIIIIIIIIIIINE," in the LOUDEST voice one could imagine.
-you're beginning to understand time, in the sense that when asked to do something you'll respond, "no, hud do ____ for one more minute mommy. just one minute"
-you will walk outside and say, "so nice out here!" when the weather is sunny and not 100 degrees.
-you love telling us the story of Noah's Arc and include the animals going "two by" into the arc. when we ask you what bible story you read about at Bible Study or School, you say, "God."
...i could go on and on. you are teaching more about LOVE than i ever realized and as a result of living these 2 years and 4 motnhs with you, i now realize more than ever that,
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it ise not easily angered, it kieeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.
I love you Hudson Bradley Clark past the last number...you are my favorite huddy-buddy!
love, mommy

let the planning begin...better yet, skip the planning and go straight to celebrating!

hayes, honey, when you're old enough to read these posts on your own and you come across this one....please come talk to me about the first year of your life, and i can guarantee that no matter how old i am, i will never forget the important details that will help better explain this post.

so, here we are...a few weeks away from your first birthday. while most will say, wow, has it already been a year?! i'm sitting here thinking, good heavens people, yes it's been a year!!! .... a very crazy, interesting, soul-searching, full of love, inspiring, down right dirty, awful, funny, stressful, amazing, growing, changing, gray hair inducing year. one year. we're almost there. and in my mind, i keep thinking about your first birthday and the planning that i need to begin in order to "pull it off" to meet my own expectations. yet, when thinking about this past year and the amazing struggles that we've overcome together, i think, why waste time planning....let's just celebrate!! let's celebrate your precious life and the joy that you bring to ours. let's celebrate that you've out grown your refux and colic. let's celebrate that your "swallowing mechanism" has matured. let's celebrate that your daddy and i are still married, and actually still love each other, despite the intenese year that we've had. let's celebrate the fact that i have nothing, NOT ONE THING, filled out in your baby book. i can't tell you AT ALL when you started sleeping through the night, rolling over, eating rice cereal, crawling, sitting up, smiling, jabbering, got your first tooth, or if i even witnessed any of the above when they were developing...but low and behold, you seem to be turning out okay. let's celebrate the fact that with much help and prayer, i have come out of my "fog" and am able to enjoy you every second of every day and actually thank god that there is so much about this year that i don't remember. and, yes, let's celebrate the fact that you are a thriving, generally happy, well fed "hayesie-poop" with eyes that melt my heart.

so, back to planning your party.....with the help of two of my friends who have gone through just about every struggle with you (or really, me) we've come up with this grand party idea....

a celebration of hayes' first year:

cake: one GIANT re-creation of your three times as expensive as most formulas, Allimentum

snacks for kid guests: personal bottles of compounded prevacid, that took exactly 72 hours to mix (regardless of our urgant need) and will expire in exactly 15 days, resulting in your friends having to spend another $250 per new bottle. so drink up quickly kids!!

snacks for adult guests: mcdonalds dr peppers, canned diet cokes, and package after package after package after package of store bought cookies....oreos, chocolate chip, peanut butter, etc. because these three things, dr pepper diet coke and cookies, have been necessary staples for me this year.

decorations: hospital bill receipts, pediatric co-pay receipts, band aids, saline spray, tylenol, thermometers, ear monitors, teething tablets, breathing treatment machines and masks, a sign that says "RSV: rediculously severe virus that will make you miserable for at least one month out of the year and then, guess what, as a result of catching it at such a young age, you get severe colds and possible asthma with each illness." (see again, pediatric co-pay receipts), and pictures...wait, ooops, those were never taken...so instead, we'll use drawings of our happy little family of four.

activities: cry. cry loud. cry for long periods of time. don't stop crying. oh, and eat. eat everything in sight, and in sight of your brother's plate, and in sight of the serving table, and....

party favors: each guest will leave with a play doctor kit, a bottle of hand sanitizer, gripe water, ear plugs and the name and number of the sweet pharmacist at the CVS drive-through who knows us pretty much by name.

what a party i have to plan! regardless of the theme that actually is chosen, we'll have MUCH to celebrate!!

the power of a positive mom

this week we attended our first mops group. little did i know the speaker was karol ladd, a friend of my family's. (i think i'm doing good to get all three of us up, fed, dressed and out the door by 8:45 on a monday morning, much less pay attention to that days topic!!) anyway, she is the author of the book, the power of a positive mom. she did a fabulous job, was very encouraging, and i walked away with several good thoughts and ideas. one thing that she encouraged us to do was start our days by listing 5 things that we're thankful for. so today, i'm thankful for:
1. the cooler weather that allowed us to get outside and exercise, even though my boys were either throwing things out of the stroller or at each other and screaming for the entire hour....oh right, we're being positive! thank you lord, for this cooler weather!
2. will's hard work and dedication to our family.
3. god's immeasureable love for me and wonderful gift of grace.
4. the chance to hold and rock hayes while he curled up on my chest and fell asleep, meanwhile maintaining his death grip on the tylenol bottle, his new teething toy.
5. hudson's new name for me that has cracked me up with every sentence today, "mom". ... thank you, mom. what's that, mom? hayesie crying, mom. what you doin', mom?

now, let me really tell you about today. from 12:00-12:30pm it looked a little less joyous around here.....

B is for big brother and broken glass. hudson was trying to get the boo-boo frog for hayes (see "O") and as he pulled it out of the freezer, the plate came with it and shattered all over the floor in a million pieces....great when you have a new crawler who is everywhere and picking up everything!
O is for OUCH! hayes is crying because while i was sweeping the floors after lunch (our vacuum conveniently isn't working correctly because the filter needs to be replaced and i've been to three different stores and back to the same store all in hopes of finding our filter....nope, don't carry it. i knew i should have just bought the nice dyson a long time ago!!!) and so now he has a big goose-egg above his eye, just in time for our upcoming portraits....will be changing that to a later time. in addition, hayes' knees, feet, and hands are covered with a dark film of black as a result of crawling on our "clean" floors....another reason, i should have bought the dyson!!
Y is for YES, that is pencil ALL over hayes' crib and end table. and YES, i see that you have colored in hayesie's room. and YES, "hudson need paper. be right back, mom."
S is for smeared desitin diaper cream all over areas of the body that don't require any cream, all in a two year old effort to "bug bites hurt mom. no bugs bite hudson's leg. this make all better, mom." ...to keep the bugs away.

good thing i started my day with positive thinking because those thirty minutes might have sent me over the edge....but instead, i'm so thankful for these busy busy BOYS!

the words i CAN say

***long winded warning!!***it's been a crazy couple of weeks for us. since our last post, we've been sick again, learned from my sweet friend becca how to fix my blog-but have yet to sit down and actually do it ;), eaten an over-abundance of cookies, finally got around to dropping hayes' bed down since he is 10 months now and i've seen him leaning over the edge on the video monitor, stayed up until 4 in the morning at a sleepover that didn't include babies, have started the preschool "process", have quit the preschool "process", and now have started the "process" again, have enjoyed hearing about hudson's first day of bible study and his first day of 'school', and have spent a lot of time just reflecting on this past year ......... school starting seems to be my "new year". it signifies a fresh start for me, a chance to get back to the things i love, ditch a few things that didn't work, and make the things that did work even better. in a lot of ways, each new day that i have the opportunity to parent is like a "new school year". i'm constantly tweaking, ditching, re-vamping, thinking, wondering, encouraging, etc. now that we seem to be past our really hard start to hayes' life and my difficulties with managing my health and both kids seem to have disappeared, i truly am seeing each day, each "new school year," as such a blessing and one to be so treasured. will and i have spent a lot of time talking about the kind of boys we want to raise to be strong, tender-hearted, joy filled, Lord loving men, husbands and fathers. a sermon that we heard at church not long ago added to this conversation and during the service a song was played. it's called The Words I Would Say. this song really resonated with me and my heart filled with joy at the fact that i have an opportunity to say these words to my precious sons, words that i hope will resonate with them as they are shaped and molded into the boys and men God has created them to be....

Three in the morning,
And I'm still awake,
So I picked up a pen and a page,
And I started writing,
Just what I'd say,
If we were face to face,
I'd tell you just what you mean to me,
I'd tell you these simple truths,


Be strong in the Lord and,
Never give up hope,
You're going to do great things,
I already know,
God's got His hand on you so,
Don't live life in fear,
Forgive and forget,
But don't forget why you're here,
Take your time and pray,
These are the words I would say,

Last time we spoke,
You said you were hurting,
And I felt your pain in my heart,
I want to tell you,
That I keep on praying,
Love will find you where you are,
I know cause I've already been there,
So please hear these simple truths,

Be strong in the Lord and,
Never give up hope,
You're going to do great things,
I already know,
God's got His hand on you so,
Don't live life in fear,
Forgive and forget,
But don't forget why you're here,
Take your time and pray,
These are the words I would say,

From one simple life to another,
I will say,
Come find peace in the Father,

Be strong in the Lord and,
Never give up hope,
You're going to do great things,
I already know,
God's got His hand on you so,
Don't live life in fear,
Forgive and forget,
But don't forget why you're here,
Take your time and pray,
Thank God for each day,
His love will find a way,
These are the words I would say

why can't i figure this out?!

okay, so as a mom, i've learned that i can do A LOT of things. for example, i can pour milk into a sippy cup while at the same time pouring and mixing formula into a bottle. i can walk uphill on a treadmill while managing a baby on my hip all in an effort to keep him from crying and waking up his brother while i "finish my workout". i can identify any and all diggers by name, and by name i mean, excavator, mechanical mole, backhoe, mini front loader, bull dozer, dump truck, etc...not simply just "digger", because that is not specific enough for someone. i can use a public restroom while holding a baby and managing a toddler, all of us being in one stall....(don't judge, you'd figure it out also if you were desperate!! so maybe we all picked up a few germs.) i can "drive", text daddy asking him when he'll be home, while reaching back, moving the j-u-n-k around on the floorboard to find the dropped pacifier, and reassure hudson that yes, i did in fact hear that noise, and yes, it was a fire truck.....repeat the fire truck scene about 50 times, accidentally cancel the text before sending it, and after over-straining both arms still not be able to find that silly paci! i can eventually search the car for that favorite paci, find it, and accidentally drop it on the grocery store floor while trying to put hudson back into the cart....give it to hayes anyway and then realize a few seconds later that he's quiet not because of the paci, but because he's happily chewing on the cart strap that has another child's food stuck to it!!!! oh my gosh, i can then about die, but i keep going. i can use crazy amounts of Oxy Clean in a weeks amount of time. i can sing along to wheels on the bus and B-I-B-L-E before realizing that i'm in the car by myself. i can carry 56lbs of pure, precious boys at the same time and then still ask myself, gosh, what did i do to my back today?! and the list goes on.....yet, i CAN NOT figure out how to work this blog. my sweet friend becca came over today and gave me a crash course in editing my text, hence this first post, and i've tried the template, but haven't had any luck yet. so hayley, yes, it will be a while longer before my title, layout, profile, and on and on will change!! :)