Triple Crown

Caroline is Three!!!!    Bells peal throughout the land!!!!!    Princesses gather in celebration!!!!!

Princesses and fairies and ponies - oh my! - all descended on Gray Man Quarters II this weekend to celebrate the third birthday of our beautiful Caroline Grace. And our little pony princess was the fairest of all, darting around handing out hugs and kisses and wand slaps with reckless abandon. Somebody - I won't say who - is very very proud to be three. 

Caroline woke up and immediately donned her purple fairy wings, crown and purple wand, and was treated to her breakfast of choice - chocolate Cheerios. We corralled everyone over to Granny's house, where Nana broke out princess gowns for all the girls. Caroline chose the purple one - her favorite color - to go with the crown and wings and wand. Doc had pulled out all the stops and the house was covered floor to vaulted ceiling with balloons, streamers, banners, cupcakes, ponies. Cousins Sidney and Audrey were ladies in waiting, and Spartanburg friends Laney and Louisa Palmer spiced things up as Snow White and Cinderella. Everything a little three year old desires.

Caroline handled all the attention with the grace and panache she is increasingly beginning to show, not too prideful but not too shy, happy to enjoy the attention and the celebration but neither arrogant nor clingy. She is growing into a beautiful little girl with a super sweet smile.

It is hard to believe that three years have passed since that magical August night in 2010, just days after the bar exam and Kim's residency graduation, when Caroline popped into this world at 12:02 am. What is even more exciting to see is the transformation and metamorphosis that this young princess continues to undertake, from little smiling helmet head, to honey badger, to pony princess. She is so incredibly talkative, espcially when not around Jackson, and is so excited to tell you about all of the things going on in her world. She loved to take care of her baby dolls and the animals that live at her "office" - Polly is the latest addition (he's a parrot). She takes extra special care of her little brother Sam, and he repays her kindness with a special kind of big sister love. She loves to sing, especially when no one is watching.

This little girl boggles my mind in all them many ways she has woven her special little magic into our family. She will romp and play with Jack, turn and wrestle with Sam, come give me a hug and then sit on Doc's lap and watch over her little kingdom. She is a little sponge of knowledge and the only reason she has to be told something more than once is because she is choosing to be stubborn, in which case it doesn't matter if you tell her a hundred times. She follows Jackson around, learning everything he does, and then teaching it to Sam. She really is a clever girl. And she will not hesitate to let you know that she does in fact have her own opinion of things, especially when her view is the contrarian one. Often accompanied by a stern glare, which inexplicably she cannot maintain if you glare right back at her because then she will burst into smiling giggles. 

That is what is so special- that she has really started to come into her own, to display a measure of sweetness and charm that belies the stubborn strength and steely gaze. Princesses, dolls, hairbows, ponies - all of this too is her domain now, as is the turn of the head or a sweet glance. Looking back over some pictures, I guess this side of her has been there all along. But it sure is fun to see - she's quite a charmer.

Its a fact, Jack - this Princess has the Triple Crown: Smart. Sassy. Sweet. Just like her momma.

My beautiful chaotic kairos

Cooking with Gigi

So GiGi has been gracious enough to start coming up on Sundays with food in hand to help pass along some of her amazing cooking talents.  So far, we've had ginger glazed salmon, pork tenderloin, and ribs along with various interesting sides and desserts including her chocolate birthday cake with 7 minute frosting.  Today's menu was just as delicious.  (Forgive me for the details but this blog will be serving as a repository of things learned from my fabulous Momma.)

It actually started with a mini-party for Sissy as her 3rd birthday is next week. Let's just say her new light-up purple cowgirl hat was a hit.

Then, for the food....we had a butterflied chicken (cut down the spine and splayed awkwardly belly up) with a paste of grated fresh ginger, salt / pepper, and butter paste up under his skin baked at 400 for about an hour.  We threw in a few sweet and russet potatoes as a starch.  Since we had yummy veggie-healthy salads for lunch, we opted for a side of fried okra.  She taught me to throw in some cut up potatoes when frying up the okra to keep them from gumming up (which Sam loves as hashbrowns).  The okra was tossed with a little bisquick to bread them and then fried slowly in hot oil for approx 30min.

Did someone say chicken?!?

For dessert, Jack and Gigi made Lime Pie with a crushed white oreo cookie crust (baked for about 10min with a little butter) filled with 1 can sweetened condensed milk, juice of 2 limes and zest of one, 1 tub of cool whip, and 1 package of unsweetened lemon-lime koolaid.  Froze it for 4 hours and then just pulled it out to sit on the counter while we ate dinner.  It was fairly sweet for my blood, although Jackson devoured it.  

GiGi is also a whizz-bang gardener so we're pulling her expertise into our yard.  Last week we planted beets, lettuce, tomato plants, and rosemary in pots around the back patio since apparently they will grow and last until first frost (and maybe longer if we can protect them from the elements).  

We also added some lettuce, carrots, and beets to our little garden that houses some frustratingly prolific strawberries.  We have yet to harvest a single delicious berry because just as the green ones turn pink, a family of bunnies plucks them delicately from the plant (or that is at least our running theory).



 With GiGi's encouragement, we trucked off to the hardware store and came home with enough wire, wood, and staples to enclose a small country.  Since Matilda is down to 50% in the upper extremity department, I was in charge of most of the manual labor including hammering, stapling, wire cutting, and also *gasp* using the circular saw.

Three hours, $40, and a good blister and shoulder sunburn later and we had success.

I'm starting to see why men get so addicted to power tools.  After my day in the sun sawing wood, I tackled hanging the blinds in the den / playroom and the last of the kids art-display frames.

















All in all, a wonderful and highly productive day with GiGi.

Current common phrases in the Shaw household as of late

"Mah!!" That's Sam's code for "more." 

"I have a lot of ______ at my office. You can come see it.  If you want to."

"Even when we are bad, you still love us."  (This usually follows up a stint in time out.)

"We never, ever, ever run away. Because the monsters and the strangers and the bears will get us."  

"When Dean-o runs away, we're going to get a kitty."

"I don't like bats."

 

A girl and her doggy..

Friends for life by @kimberleeshaw - http://instagram.com/p/bLueamwczQ/

Couch time

Aint that a handsome man? by @kimberleeshaw

Safety Guy

Photo by kimberleeshaw * Instagram by @kimberleeshaw

Fathers Day

While neither of us could spend the day with our own fathers, we were able to have a wonderful day with our little family hiking around Lake Brandt.  As I watched Matilda hoist our little ones over fallen limbs, rinse off sandy feet in the lake, and prop up our eldest as he pooped in the woods, I was yet again reminded at how blessed we are to have Matilda as our fearless leader.

 

 We all love you more than you'll ever know, Daddy Captain.

Big guy2

http://instagram.com/p/amlhggQc8l/

Gigi and her namesake

Caroline is a unique little girl. She loves fiercely and at times that can be almost abrasive. But there is something about when she is with my mother that calms her. Maybe she senses that Gigi created our line of Honeybadgers and must be the fiercest one of all...

Tiny Tim the Tiny Turtle

I have a little turtle, his name is Tiny Tim

I put him in the bathtub so he could take a little swim

He drank up all the water

He ate up all the soap

Now he's sitting in the bathtub with a bubble in his throat!

Bubble bubble bubble, bubble bubble bubble,

Bubble bubble bubble bubble bubble bubble Pop!

Sweet Caroline

Words to live by

Dancing Days

Fun trip to the S.C. Aquarium last weekend:

The Third Time's A Charm

When I found my baby book, still shrink-wrapped and neatly untouched in its pink paper box at the top of my closet one summer, I was crestfallen.  How could my mother love me so
little that she didn't even bother to write down those incredibly important firsts? Both of my brothers had entire novels written about their first poop or sprig of hair complete with lockets tied with ribbons and even envelopes of first teeth.  To this day, she can't tell me my first word, how old I was when I took my first steps, and the stories of the type of baby I was change depending on the need of the moment.  She never could seem to remember my birthdate and would often ask me, when filling out the paperwork at the pediatricians office, "Hey, you, when is your birthday again?"

When we had Jack, the shrink-wrapped baby book was even more appalling.  I was so enamored with my first born son, I had his pees, poops, and feeds graphed for a solid 4 months.  I couldn't imagine there would ever be a child born to me that didn't get every single milestone catalogued in both word and picture.   Then Caroline came along and while it was a bit more challenging to keep up with both of their milestones, I was excited about comparing the differences between them.  Every other month or so, I would get their baby books out together and compare and contrast and still chronicle as much as I could.  

Then we had Sam.  Sweet, nothing-really-bothers-him, just-feed-him-and-he'll-be-happy-so-his-nickname-is-"Snacks," Sam.  Thank God this was our third kid because he's just about perfect in every way and had I known babies could be like this, I would have returned his siblings back to the hospital in less than 24hrs from
discharge demanding a refund.  Sam is always smiling, loves to snuggle, falls asleep without a fight and wakes up laughing.  He has never met a food product he didn't like and generally is entertained by anything not attached to his own body.   He's rough and tumble and is fortunately around the 90% for his age, which puts him about the same size as his 2 1/2 year old sister helping tremendously with his ability to hold his own against her gremlin-like tendencies.  He has been slow to become mobile, thankfully.  He didn't really crawl until around 7 - 8 months and just only started cruising the furniture in the last month or so.  He still isn't really walking either, which is just peachy with us since the speed (and happy slapping-stomp sound) of his crawl is frightening.

We had Sam one year ago today.  I made it all the way to work this morning and into my first patient's exam room when I realized today's date and the importance of this day to my third-born.  There were no balloons, no cupcakes to daycare, not so much as a mention of it to him or the other kids this morning during the chaos of getting ready because we all simply just forgot.

Now, given my angst over my own baby book, I have made a concerted effort to chronicle these firsts of my third baby, but I have very quickly gotten over my aforementioned pissiness surrounding my mother's lack of records on my behalf.  There's just no damn time anymore.  I totally understand now, with three babes in tow, that it has nothing to do with how much love or adoration there is for my child.  Nor has the novelty of hearing him laugh or crawl or speak for the first time worn off (by the way, dear boy, your first word was da-da, following quickly by uh-oh and aah-choo and thank you).  It's just that those first words are said while Thing One and Thing Two are trying to see who can yell "penis" the loudest or color with permanent marker highest on the wall and so the moment to take serene focused videos and pore lovingly over a babybook just isn't possible anymore.

So, dear  Sam, there just aren't ever going to be the plenitudes of photos or videos or journal entries on you

that your elder siblings have.  And, there will come a day not too distant in the future when I will call you dooflotchy or dinglebat or whats-your-name and ask you when your birthday is at the pediatrician's office.  I hope, on that day, you do not take as much offense as I did.  But, if you do, I promise just to nod and hug you while praying that one day you have that third child that is as marvelous and spectacular and wonderful as you so you understand how I can love you so darn much and still not remember the date you were born.

Happy happy birthday, Samuel James.  

I love you.