January Birthday

January was a month of house projects, room cleaning, getting busier at work (going well) trying to make time for me such as exercise (not going well).  It is also a month of a birthday--our middle son who turned 14.  Fourteen!  I'm a mom of many traits but taking many photos of my kids is not one of them and for that I am disappointed in myself--not one photo was taken on Christmas Day.  But hey--our middle son loves to film his friends at the skatepark every weekend and they took a photo of him and so I have snagged it:

I found that ever since I got an Iphone last March (the 3g for $49) I just use it for photos and have barely used my digital camera.  But on our son's birthday last week I took pictures of him blowing out his candles and opening his presents with my digital camera.  In fact I took several photos of him and the bros all night.  And then when I looked for the cord to use to get my camera hooked up to the "downstairs" computer, the cord is nowhere to be found.

That kind of sideline distraction always happens to me.  Yesterday morning I asked my middle son to show me step-by-step how to use the PS3 as a dvd player so that I can play Jillian's Shred dvd which has not been touched in 18 months.  The PS3 is in the basement which has carpeting. I had the dvd jacket in hand and he patiently showed me every step.  We then opened the dvd jacket and inside was some Ice Age 2 dvd.  Alrighty then.  I spent 20 minutes opening and closing about 100 dvds to find Jillian and she was nowhere to be found.  I decided at lunch I would go to Target and buy a new dvd because Jillian and the way she spoke to her two employees bugged me anyway.  That never happened.  But I did go grocery shopping for the third time in a week and fill the fridge and cupboards during my lunch hour.

The prior Friday, the day that we celebrated Middle Son's birthday, I did have everything I needed to make him a homemade cake with love during the day and that brought me much joy and thankfulness that I work from home and am able to cross some things off of my to-do list. 

(choc cake with peanut buttercream frosting with crushed Reeses Cups on the outside and crushed Butterfingers on top--idea taken from Piece of Cake).

Before we had cake at home we all went out to eat to a restaurant of Son's choice where you pick out all your meat or seafood and veggies and spices and sauce and they grill it for you Mongolian BBQ style.  The table next to us had three girls and when we left that Dad commented to my Hubs how maybe they should "mix it up a little."  To myself I thought about how much more I'd be spending on clothes and accessories if my boys were girls but lately I don't know--you should see the food bill.

Back to the January boy's birthday.  I never thought I'd have a January baby.  Our first son was born in June and his tried-for conception took six months.  When he was seven or eight months old we knew we wanted to try for baby #2 and it only took a few months.  He was conceived toward the end of April, but the prior month I didn't try.  I told Hubs I wanted to avoid a December b-day.  He thought I was nuts but I was a chart person and knew my dates.  When I was in my last two months of my 2nd pregnancy I'd talk to baby #2 and say, "Stay in a long as possible so you have a birthday as late in January as possible"--and he did.  He likes how it works out because he considers what he'd like for Christmas gifts in December and then he is on a roll and knows what he'd still like for his birthday in January.

When he was 2.8 years old he became a big brother:

These two share a room and clash a lot so I sure am glad that we took many old fashioned FILM photos when they were little.  When we had baby #3 at home we talked to the boys ahead of time about the birth and told them about cutting the cord and we assumed that oldest--who was 4.3 years old-- would be the one.  As it turns out, oldest took a hike to the playroom at that time so the newly "middled" son all nonchalantly said he'd cut the cord with Dad:

 I began my blog three years ago with my first post being about my middle son.  All week long I have thought about a blog post stating what is special about him.  And now they are all in the kitchen area and it is getting louder and all my chores need to begin.  When Hubs and I were expecting our first baby I remember telling him a fear was what if this new person in our family got on my nerves--there'd be no escape.  I remember that fear the most.  I can say my boys are some of my favorite people and I love being around them and it is even more so as they get older.

Oldest son goes to bed last because he has to wake up last for school.  So he dvrs shows per my request and we watch many together.  He is my buddy watching The Bachelor--we have perfected the eye rolling and head-shaking in tandem, and we have enjoyed Celebrity Wife Swap immensely.  When he was much younger I'd tease that I was going to do that show and it would only be for a week that another mom would be here and he'd strongly protest saying he did not want another mom here.  I feel that same way about him.