Three.

Today, my Sawbug is 3. In the time between him turning 2 and today, he has grown and developed so much. He is opinionated (like his mother) and super accident-prone (also like me), but has his daddy's temper and patience. He is caring and silly and never fails to brighten my mood with his crazy dances and singing.

I am shocked every day by his vocabulary and in awe of how much his little brain understands. His favorite words lately are "probably", "also", and "actually". He is not scared to correct someone either (hence the use of the word "actually").

He is also very stubborn. He tries my and Josh's patience on a daily basis and seems to think he can get away with anything by saying "Please forgive me, mommy". The other day he said, "I am actually very sorry," and I could do nothing but laugh, even though I was about to spank him for eating his playdoh, something I've told him not to do a thousand times.

Stories at bedtime are his favorite, but he wants you to make up the stories and he also enjoys adding little details to them as you are telling them. For example: if you are telling a story about a Curious George helping you decorate for his birthday party, Sawyer will add that Curious George also helped blow up balloons along with hanging up a banner. And yes, he is still sleeping in his pirate ship bed but in our room (we're working on moving it back to his room soon).

Sookie and him have become even closer lately, and he loves to tell her what to do.

just hanging out in the hallway...

I am not going to pretend like this past year hasn't been difficult. Having a toddler is trying and can be extraordinarily tough, but it is also rewarding when they finally start to listen or when I see the little light bulb in his head light up when he learns something new. He makes messes like its his job and can be such a smart mouth sometimes (he literally said, "Watch me!" the other night when I said, "Don't you touch that paint!"). But he can also be the sweetest little human around.

I am so thankful for Sawyer and all that he taught me. Come by tomorrow to see how we celebrated his birthday, Paw Patrol style.

walking disaster

I am what most people would call clumsy or accident prone. Things happen to me that I can't explain. But today I present to you the top Lauren hurt herself (or someone else) stories...

1. I once almost chopped my finger off in a fan.
The only bone I've ever broken (besides some toes), was my pinkie finger. Not from anything fun like playing flag football, but from trying to move a box fan.

I was moving the fan (that was turned on) while working at the drug store and my pinky finger slipped inside and got twisted, cut open and broken. And this is all I have to show for it:

I refused to get stitches (which I needed terribly) and walked around with a mangled pinky for a good 4 weeks.


2. I fell on an oven door.
I was in my mema's kitchen when I was around 3 and fell onto the open oven door. You can read the whole story here, but basically it is just proof that my clumsiness started at a young age.

how cute is my little netting/bandage though?

3. I almost ruined a free trip to Europe by severely spraining my ankle
I had the chance of a lifetime to chaperon a group of high school juniors and seniors on a 7-day trip to Paris, Florence & Rome. A week before the trip I was walking in my Clark Wallabees and rolled my ankle so hard that the bone touched the pavement.

yum.

You can read the whole story here, but thanks to a giant boot (and a hefty dose of pain meds), I was able to enjoy my trip!

the boot touring the Piazza

4. I dropped a weight on my face.
There are thankfully no pictures from this adventure, but when I was a sophomore in college, I was laying on the floor doing ab exercises. I was holding a twelve pound weight and had my legs in the air, reaching for my toes while laying on my back. I dropped the weight onto my face, blacked my eye and most of my nose/cheek bone and knocked myself out. Tons of fun.
It basically looked like this for 3 weeks, try explaining that injury to random people.

5. I broke someone else's ankle by tripping over them
During a soccer game in high school against our arch nemesis, Tarboro High School, I tripped over a girl while we were both running after the ball and fell so hard and awkwardly on top of her, it broke her ankle. The worst part? My mom used to work with the other girl's mom. So when we were walking to the car after the game, the mom (who had stayed behind while the girl's dad took her to the ER since the girl's sister was playing soccer too) was talking to MY mom about the "klutz" that broke her daughter's ankle. My mom was so embarrassed she pretended like she didn't know me. Kill me.

What about you? Ever trip over your own feet (or someone else's) or injure yourself in a crazy way?

February Goals

I am linking up with Kaitlyn @ Put a Bow On it to keep myself accountable for my monthly goals!

You can read my full post on my January goals here and I must admit that I am pretty proud of the goals I did manage to accomplish.

January Goals
1. Refill my water three times...this happened, along with a lot more bathroom trips (TMI, I know). 
2. No bagels from downstairs.... yes, except this morning when I realized my yogurt was three weeks out of date, oops. 
3. Take the stairs every morning.... this didn't happen and might not ever. I have been taking them on mornings when I am not dragging a giant bag of work stuff to the office and not wearing heals, but I am just too accident prone to tackle those 6 flights in 4 inch heels and a 5 lb. bag. 
4. TWO cups of coffee... I did cut back to two cups, except on a couple of days when the heat in the office was out and I needed a warm beverage.
5. Do my daily devotion in the mornings... yes! 
6. Go to the gym 4 days a week... didn't happen. mainly because of an onslaught of sickness but still, no excuse.

1. Clean out Mema's Closet & Vanity. 
My Mema Kay died five years ago and yet some of her things are still in the closet at my Papa's house and ALL of her makeup is still in her vanity. While I by no means want to forget she ever existed, it is past time for her things to not be everywhere in the house. 

2. Eat two raw meals a day
When I did the raw week diet last April (read here), I loved how much more energy I had and how quickly I lost weight. While I am not ready to commit to raw every day, all day again, I do think I could manage two raw meals a day!

3. Cut down coffee to ONE cup a day
If I can do two, I can do one, right?

4. Actually eat at our kitchen table.
We have (once again) gotten really bad about eating on the couch in front of the TV so we can catch up on TiVo while Sawyer eats at his little table in front of the TV in his playroom. Yes, mom of the year award right here.

5. Read a Classic Novel
While reading the amazing Mortal Instruments books by Cassandra Clare (read about that here), I loved all the classic quotes from literary works she included and it has inspired me to re-read some classics, this time for pleasure instead of for homework. I believe I will start with A Tale of Two Cities, mainly because of this quote:

Here's hoping I stick to my February goals even better than I did to my January ones!