Kids Say the Sweetest/Funniest/Most Heart-Wrenching/Creative Things

We have a Christmas post coming, I promise. We just have to go through pictures and all that good stuff. But, I thought I'd do this post because it basically writes itself and there were getting to be too many to remember. This is a post of notable things Patrick has said recently. He's always been chatty but lately he's been saying more and more things that are completely unprompted or more mature than we're used to him being and it's catching us off guard. These are some of the quotes from the last couple weeks:

• While staring at the Christmas tree we just brought in the house: "When we go to God's house we should say thank you for this beautiful tree."
  
• While getting ready to go upstairs for bath, stories and bed: Hugs the tree (as best he can) and says, "Good night tree. Your branches are so lovely. I'll see you in the morning."
  
• After a very busy and present-filled Christmas day, I laid Patrick down in his bed and said "Merry Christmas sweet boy", to which he whispered back, "Merry Christmas Dad. Now go to sleep so Santa can come again." I then told Angie and we prepared ourselves for a very disappointed little boy in the morning.
  
• First time he picked up his new guitar at home he yelled "Let's rock this room!" Let it be known that we have never said "Let's rock this room" in front of him (or possibly at all, but I can't commit to that level of certainty). He'll also sometimes say "I'm ready to rumble" lately and we don't know where that came from either.
  
  
  
• Debilitating conversation while getting Patrick dressed today:
  Patrick: Dad, who gave me my train set?
  Me: Grandma and Grandpa did buddy.
  Patrick: Who gave me this house?
  Me: Um, Mommy and Daddy.
  Patrick: Who gave me you, Dad?
  Me: Well...ummm...(stammering for an easy answer)
  Patrick: Maybe God.
  Me: That's exactly right. God did.
  Patrick: Yea, He brought you to me.
  Me: That's right, Patrick. He brought me to you and you to me.
  Patrick: I'm glad He did. I love you.
  Me: ...
  
• Disclaimer: This one is probably only funny if you were there, seeing his furrowed brow and his head shake slowly back and forth; but I was there and I want to remember being there, so I'm putting it here.The other night Angie and I had some banana pudding for dessert while Patrick had some Jell-O. He wanted to try the pudding though so we tossed a spoonful on top of his Jell-O. After a few minutes, I looked over at him and noticed he was just staring at it and then he mumbled to himself, "I'm not sure about this. This...pudding in my Jell-O cup...*long pause*...I don't know about this."
  
• This last one really isn't a quote but just makes me happy. After lunch today, while cleaning up the dishes and hosing Maddy off, I kept hearing Patrick in the other room say things like "And that bump made us jump!" He would come into the kitchen every once in a while and say "Why are you sitting there like that?!" then walk out. After I had cleaned up, I walked to the front hall to see what he was doing and found him like this...
  
  
  
  Now that I was close enough to hear him, I realized he was reciting and reenacting the entire The Cat in the Hat book. He had dragged his chair from the other room to set it up by the front door just like Sally and Dick in the book and was staring out the window saying "Sun did not shine...too wet to play...we sat in the house the cold cold wet day."
  
  

Cabin Christmas

This last weekend we headed up to the cabin to celebrate Christmas with the Suskays. As always, we had a blast. I don't think I ever stopped eating. I tell myself that I was just making up for not eating at Thanksgiving, but really, I would have eaten just as much even if I stuffed myself last month.

Watching Patrick and Madelyn was super fun this trip. It's the first time at the cabin that Madelyn's been old enough and mobile enough to really move around and enjoy it. Now that she's starting to walk a little (video to come, I promise) she felt even more independent. Everywhere she went she seemed happy to be there and ready to smile at or cuddle with the closest person. She loved looking at the tree, touching all the ornaments, watching the fire, rocking in the chairs, bundling up to go outside, chasing Beau and, of course, playing with her new toys.

Patrick had a great time as well. He was so excited the whole weekend about every detail of Christmas that was happening. It took him five minutes to even start opening his first present because he was so excited and couldn't stop bouncing around. You'll notice in the picture gallery that there are a few pictures where his feet aren't even on the ground because he's jumping up and down. Ang and I are really having so much fun watching Patrick experience Christmas this year. He loves every bit of it and we can't help but love the season that much more because of it.

Rather than bore you with typing every second of the weekend, I'll let the pictures do the talking...because, I think we may have taken a picture of pretty much every second of the weekend. You can check out the slideshow below or go view the whole gallery here.

Songs in the Key of Patrick

Tuesdays are the worst. I know conventional wisdom teaches us that Mondays are the day of the week to dread, but honestly, I disagree. Monday? I see that comin'. I've had the whole weekend to rest up. I've usually had a bunch of family time so I'm in a great mood too. I wake up Monday and I'm ready for it. It's a fresh start to a new week, and I like that. But Tuesday? Ugh. The worst. When it comes to Tuesday, well, I've just been through a Monday. Not only that, but it's still so early in the week that it feels like an eternity till the weekend; not like Wednesday with its "You're halfway there! Just keep going!" kind of feel. Tuesdays can take Thursdays* and go walk off a bridge as far as I'm concerned.

But for me, this Tuesday will be a little better. I've got the video below to make me smile any time I need it. It's a video of Patrick singing some of his favorite Christmas songs after dinner one night. There's one short clip at the end of him singing as he was waking up from his nap, too. I just thought it was cute that he woke up and started singing right away so I filmed the monitor :) Here's the video:



We've been trying to get a video of Patrick singing Christmas songs for a month now. He sings them ALL the time...except when the camera is on. So when he started singing at dinner last night, I didn't care that he had both spaghetti sauce from dinner and whipped cream from dessert on his face. I just pulled out my phone and started filming. When he's looking off to the side in the video, it's because we said "sing and see if it makes Madelyn smile." Then he watched Madelyn's face the whole song to see if she was smiling. Luckily, she was. 

I really only included the first take of Jingle Bells because of his strange "woffee kwoffee" thing at the end of it. It's his new phrase that he made up and uses it usually where you or I would say "blah blah blah." He also just says it when he has nothing else to say but HAS to keep talking by the very nature of being Patrick. I also love the kiss for Mommy at the end of Holly Jolly Christmas. Every time he sings that song he won't consider it complete unless he kisses somebody. Madelyn has been tracked down, tackled and kissed on more than one occasion due to this. Lucky for Maddy, Angie jumped in and took the bullet on this one. Something tells me she didn't mind :)

*Yes, Thursdays. What with its "Oh, you wanna get to Friday so bad do ya? Well ya gotta go through me first!" attitude. Dear Tuesday and Thursday: please get married. Then drive over a cliff together. Thanks, The World.

Smooth Operator

In Patrick’s short life he’s already proven to be partial to smart, talented, attractive women. Below is a list of his top five crushes in the order they occurred:

Name: Betsy E. Bowers
Occupation: Paramedic
How it began: She bribed him with candy the day after he was born, rides on an ambulance every day for work and even gets to sleep at a fire station sometimes.

Name: India Arie
Occupation: Singer/Songwriter

Where it Began Hello, she’s INDIA ARIE. We have this song clip DVR’d and he would request to see it at least once a day from 10 months old to somewhere around a 1 ½ years old. At first I thought he liked it because of Elmo but then I noticed every time Elmo would sing Patrick would furrow his eyebrows and shake his head. Quiet Elmo, he wants to hear India!

Name: Sophia (last name unknown)
Occupation: Friend. First friend when Patrick started school two days a week at 12 months old, to be exact.
Where it Began: Phia, as Patrick affectionately calls her, smiles and giggles whenever Patrick talks to her. They remain close to this day and enjoy playing on the playground and exploring in the toy kitchen together.

Name: Alicia Márquez
Occupation: Diego’s older sister, animal scientist (in training) and dinosaur expert.
Where it Began: She’s the first girl he’s ever “met” that loves dinosaurs as much as he does. Alicia and her brother introduced Patrick to some of his most favorite animals- pumas, pygmy marmosets, sloths, coatis, etc. The fact that she has a jeep, submarine, kayak, snowmobile and other things of the like doesn’t hurt either ;)

Name: Chelsea Hopkins (pictured here on left)

Occupation: Student at UGA

Where it Began: Now, I wasn’t at Thanksgiving dinner to witness the event but I was told by a reliable (kind of) source that Patrick was totally smitten with Toby’s cousin, Chelsea. He followed her around, gave her goofy grins and even faked having his leg stuck in the sofa so she could rescue him! The kid's smooth.

Thanksgiving in Barfsville

You can't say we're not consistent. This year, we kept with our tradition of getting sick on major holidays by all getting sick for Thanksgiving. We had a great weekend planned and were really looking forward to it. It was Madelyn's first Thanksgiving and, well, you only get one of those so we were pretty excited. The plan was to spend Thursday morning and afternoon at home as a family and just relax. Then we were going to go to Aunt Ellie and Uncle David's with the Flowers for Thanksgiving dinner. Friday, we were going to head up to the Suskay cabin for the weekend to have Thanksgiving dinner and time with Great Grandma and Grandpa Stuck.

All that changed when, mid-Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, Madelyn's breakfast came back up all over my lap and the floor. So, Madelyn's first Thanksgiving was also her first time being sick. She seriously handled it like a champ though. We didn't really even know she was sick sick till the afternoon. We just thought her reflux had come back with a vengeance. But by the afternoon, she was very tired and just laid on Angie's lap and tried to sleep. Patrick and I managed to make it over to Thanksgiving dinner though while Angie helped Madelyn rest at home. Patrick had an awesome time with the family and created a special bond with our cousins Chelsea and Lindsay and got to hear some great silly stories from Uncle David that still puzzled him the next day :)

However, Friday, the puke potato was passed to Patrick. Followed by Angie and me on Saturday and Sunday. Being sick is no fun. Having sick kids is even worse. But both of us being sick AND having sick kids was THE worst. In the spirit of  Thanksgiving though, we kept trying to remind ourselves of things we were thankful for over the weekend (in between our sprints to the bathroom). Here are a few we came up with:

• We're actually kind of thankful that it happened over a four day weekend. This way neither of us had to take off work to stay home or leave just one of us trying to handle both of our little geysers. 
• We're thankful for Pedialyte. Seriously, this stuff is like child re-animator. Once Patrick felt good enough to keep a little liquid down, we gave him some Pedialyte and his energy level skyrocketed.
• We're very thankful our kids are independent. It was so nice that while one of them was getting sick and Angie and I were focused on them, the other just kept on playing by themselves and self-entertaining.
• We're thankful our illness was spread out over the weekend (kind of). It really would have been terrible if we were all full-on sick on the same day. Ugh.
• We're thankful for Resolve carpet cleaner. I'll leave it at that.
• We're thankful for the Thanksgiving dinner Patrick and I got to eat with the family and all the food they sent home for Angie. We're also thankful for the wonderful Chicken Noodle Soup Meme sent over for us.
• Personally, I'm thankful for Angie, even though the word "thankful" doesn't begin to cover it. Saturday, when we were both sick, was our six year wedding anniversary. It's not really how we had envisioned spending it but we did vow "in sickness and in health" at the start of all this. Watching Angie this weekend take care of our children, fill their every need and still remain positive all while not feeling well herself reminded me again how blessed I am to have her in my life. And not just have her in my life, but get to spend it with her and experience every day by her side. That is truly something to be thankful for.
• We are thankful for our kids. The only upside to kids being sick - as any parent who's had sick kids will tell you - is that they're extra cuddly. Patrick would get sick every time he moved so to keep him still we put on a movie, which meant that I got to cuddle with him for the entire length of a movie. That is worlds better than any cranberry sauce out there. Our sweet Maddy would crawl over to one of our laps, smile at us and lay her head down on our legs when she wasn't feeling well. We would have been happy to stay like that the entire weekend if she had let us. Being sick also reminded us how much fun we have playing with the kids. After just four days of not playing, getting to tickle them and chase them and hear their giggles was the best thing in the world.
• We're thankful that this happened at Thanksgiving because hopefully that means we won't all be sick for Christmas this year :)

There were a lot more but this post is long enough already. Obviously, it wasn't the Thanksgiving we had planned but it was still four days in a row together, as a family and that doesn't happen all that often. We were even able to see Great Grandma and Grandpa Stuck on Monday at the Suskays when we went over for a great dinner. And now, we're all feeling much better. We hope everybody had an awesome Thanksgiving with tons of food and family!