The Deadly Lion King

Despite being connected 24/7 and having a video camera available on my iPhone at every moment of the day, it always seems that there are moments that I would love to capture for all of eternity yet they sneak by.  Man, what I would give to have this moment on video to watch over and over again...

Let me set the scene.  Hudson is taking piano lessons at school and has been since February.  He's not a big fan of piano and getting him to practice at home is liking pulling teeth.  He has a recital coming up and we've been working on Ode to Joy with him.

The school had an informal showing for the parents.  I totally messed up and forgot to mark my calendar so I get a call at 5:37p asking if we are coming (the showing started at 5:30).  I hurry up, tell Hudson put on nicer clothes, throw Hayes in the stroller and make Hudson and Hadley run with me to school (only a block away).  We rush in and the other students have just finished their pieces, so Hudson is up.  In the rush to leave, I grabbed my camcorder (is that what they're still called?) since I knew my phone would run out of space.  Hudson stands up, says his name and the title of his pieces, plays, bows, and sit back down with the other students.  I got it all on tape right before the battery dies. At this point, the piano teacher asks the students if they have any other pieces they would like to share.  Three students raise their hands.  One of them is Hudson.  HUH??? My mind is racing to think what other pieces he might remember.  Since he hates to practice, nothing really comes to mind.  So....

The first student walks to the piano and introduces her piece.  She said she will now play Fur Elise and busts it out.  With no sheet music.  Beethoven.  I look over at the mom and smile.  She smiles back and said "I taught her that at home."

Okay, now I'm panicking a bit because what the F*&# is Hudson going to play.

Ms. Cassie, the teacher, asks for volunteers again, and again, Hudson raises his hand.  Another student is asked to come up.

The second student walks up and my mind is racing so I'm not sure what she says she's going to play. She sits there, with no sheet music, and plays this long, beautiful piece.  I watch her focus and count beats by nodding her head, pausing when appropriate.  Everyone claps.

Once again, Ms. Cassie asks if anyone has a piece they want to share.  Hudson walks up.  "Oh man, this is going to be epic" is what goes through my head.

Hudson says "My piece is called the Deadly Lion King". Ummmm, what is about to happen?

He sits down and starts to play on the low end of the piano and then the high.  Then a few notes on the low end and a few more on the high.  This goes on for what feels like 10 mins.   It's taking everything I have to not bust at the seams.

People clap, I'm cracking up, and Hudson is proud.

As we walk home, I ask him about his piece.  He tells me that the low notes were for the Daddy (he was Mufasa in the school play) and the high notes were for the Mommy. I complement him on his creativity and kick myself for not having this performance on video.  I still crack up every time I replay it in my mind. "My piece is called the Deadly Lion King". OMG, I love this kid.

#DeadlyLionKing
#epickidmoment

Full of gummy smiles!

Hadley Grace has been full of smiles lately. She seems to have kicked the cold and is back to her happy self. She LOVES to be on her changing table and just cracks up at her name on the wall. Here are some of the pics:






And all of those smiles are because she was looking up at this:

Hudson updates

Since my little guy turned 22 months (sniff!) I thought I'd post some updates on what he's getting into these days....

He LOVES to kick. He will just kick a ball for hours. (During which time he'll also usually "Run. Fast!"). He loves to kick it really hard and say "BIIIIIIIG KICK!", while sticking his tongue out:
He's grown found of Sesame Street. He'll just sit on the couch and watch an entire episode:
One of his favorite things to do on the deck is to use chalk. Sometimes, he gets carried away:He has learned to completely milk every boo boo. In his best old lady voice, he'll say "Oooooooooooh........boo boo.......kiss". Sometimes he also says "Fall. Sorry." (He knows that he's supposed to say sorry if he hurts someone, so he says sorry every time he hurts himself too - it's so freakin' cute!). Here's him complaining about a boo boo:

While I don't have a picture, I think this is still deserving of some blog time - Hudson used the potty yesterday! I was changing him and he started to pee a little. I asked him if he wanted to go on the potty and he said "potty". So I took him in the bathroom and sat him down on the big potty and he went! We did alot of cheering and dancing, so I think he was pretty excited too. He went again before bed.

He's OBSESSED with sharing. While that sounds like a good thing, his idea of sharing isn't what you may have had in mind. He'll say "share" and try to give the other kid what ever he has just so that he can get what the kid has. In other words, he means "share...with me!". In addition, he says "share" over and over and over again....

He is becoming a Mama's boy. He constantly says "Mama hold" and wants me to pick him up and cuddle. He's always kissing me and hugging me. His favorite is a "BIIIIIG HUG" (as he calls it), when he comes running at me with open arms.

As for his sleep, well, let's just say that it's old news. Still takes forever to get him down at night and still wakes up throughout the night. We've gotten into the habit of bringing him into our bed since we're just so tired, but that has to stop before baby #2 comes! We used to be able to hold his hand until he fell asleep, but now he stands up and asks "Momma, hold baby" and he wants me to hold him like a baby and rock him. How could I deny that?!?!

Too cute to not post!

I've really been wanting to have a long post with pictures of the last couple of months. We've had some great things to blog about (our trip to Maine, our friends coming to visit, all of Hudson's new words, etc), but I just haven't found the time to upload pictures. But, I HAD to post about his newest phrase because it's beyond cute. I'm warning you....you might pass out from cuteness overload!

On Sunday, Ryan and I hung out around the house with Hudson all day. It was raining in the morning, so it was a great lazy Sunday (after we went to get these donuts in our pajamas). Hudson was just playing around the house and anytime he would drop something or bump something he would say "Oh Dear!". Ryan and I were hysterical! In fact, I can't stop from laughing as I type this. Neither of us use this phrase, so we can only assume that he picked it up from Joyce (our nanny).

While I'm typing, I'll just add a few more cute things he did yesterday. For about the last week, he has started to say "pee-pee" and "poop" while pointing to his diaper. Most of the time, we noticed he was saying it after he did the deed, but we were happy to see him putting words with the action. We weren't planning on potty-training until after the baby is born, but he is starting to show signs of readiness, so we bought a potty yesterday. Sometimes he says "poop" and then farts, so I think he's getting there!

Lastly, I have this obsession with Fall right now. I just love the comfort of warm sweaters in the crisp Fall air, anything and everything pumpkin, yummy flavored lattes, and, of course, Steeler football!! The rainy weather yesterday had me particularly wishful that it were Fall, so as soon as we got back from getting donuts, I put on the NFL network. All day, we watched NFL highlights from last year (including the AFC championship game twice, the NFC championship game, and Superbowl XLIII). Hudson was so into it! He just sat on my lap and watched as we schooled him in Steeler football. He explained to him who Ben was and who the "bad guys" were (i.e. The Ravens). He kept saying "Kick!", but we tried to explain that punting wasn't good while we were on offense. He loves to cheer, although we have to make sure he doesn't cheer when the other team scores. He learned to shout "Dee-fense!" and most importantly, "HEEEEAAAAATTTTHHHH!".

A quick update

I know, I know... I'm a slacker blogger. At first I had a good excuse (working on my dissertation), but now my reasons for not blogging are not quite as convincing (watching SYTYCD, reading the Twilight series of book at any free moment, sleeping, etc.). Anyways, since Hudson is upstairs screaming his lungs out with Ryan, I thought I would try to do a quick update. (BTW - the screaming is due to our second round of sleep training. You may have followed our experience with the first round. We made progress, but then plateaued, and ultimately, regressed back to our starting point. This time around Hudson is on to us and REFUSES to go to sleep without us and continues to wake all through the night.)

So, before I get into the update, I just wanted to give another excuse (I know, I'm full of them!) for my lack of blogging. I guess I don't fully understand what the best blogging etiquette is. I know that I enjoy reading blogs when the updates include pictures, but uploading and adding pictures is the time consuming part that I dread. So I end up putting off posts (like Hudson's first airplane trip that was almost a month ago!). If blogging without pictures is appropriate, I'm sure I would do it more often. That said, I have absolutely no idea who reads this blog. My guess is that it is mainly just Hudson's grandparents, a few girls from the Nest with toddlers, and a few friends from high school and/or college. And since our parents and most of my friends receive monthly pictures (which I'm also slacking on...I promise that I'll be better once Edward and Bella are out of my life!), maybe pictures aren't necessary?

Anyways, I wanted to give a quick update about our crazy little monkey. Everyday I am just shocked by the things that he is doing. He pretty much will repeat any word you say to him and most of them sound like they should. I would try to post some the words that he actually knows, but there are just way too many now. There must be at least 100! It seemed to happen overnight! Some of my favorites are "sit" and "ice" which sound JUST like "shit" and "ass". He's obsessed with the color purple - you can point to any color and he'll say it's purple. But yet when he is pointing things out in his books, he'll point to something that's actually purple and say it correctly. So I think he knows his colors, but is just playing with us. Similarly, he's obsessed with the number 8...he treats it the same as purple. But yet if you count and pause between numbers he can sometimes fill in with the correct number. He knows a bunch of animal noises (our favorite is cat because he says "meeee" in a really high pitched voice), but over the last few days everything says "MOOOOOO!" because he knows you'll tickle him and say "nooooo!" He's started saying and signing "please" and "thank you" a bunch. He usually says it when prompting like "How do you ask?" or "What do you say now?", but just today he started to say thank you without a prompt. And, my favorite current trick, if you ask him where the baby is, he picks up my shirt and knocks on my stomach and says "Knock, knock baby".

And here's a runway pose in case posting pictures is a must.....

Full of tricks

I went to feed Hudson dinner the other night. I opened the refrigerator and asked him what he wanted. He threw his hands up as if to say "I don't know". Now, whenever I say "I don't know", he puts his hands like this. There's a short video at the bottom that shows him in action :)

"How strong is Hudson?"

Joyce, our nanny, taught Hudson a new trick today and Ryan and I can't get enough of it! When you ask him "How strong is Hudson?", he clenches all of his muscles. It started because he was playing with one of my resistance bands and Joyce was showing him how to pull it to work his muscles.

Here's a video of him showing his strength: (at the end of the video we also tried to get him to do another one of his tricks - his evil laugh (Mwah-ha-ha-ha)).




Here's a picture of him showing us how strong he is...Ryan and I were literally in tears from laughing so hard.

Where's Hudson???

Has anyone seen him?????
:)

Much to Daddy's dismay....

...Hudson shares his mother's love for jewelry. Thanks to Megan, I have more jewelry than I can house. My wonderful husband bought me a big jewelry armoire (although I need about 2 more to fit everything that I have!). I was going through all of my old stuff, trying to figure out what to get rid of and how to organize what I was keeping. Hudson decided that he wanted in on the action.

Please forgive me!

Okay, so I've been reprimanded by many readers for my lack of posts lately. The holidays combined with Hudson's refusal to sleep, holiday travel, that pesky dissertation, and (currently) new TV shows have kept me from my computer at night. Alright, so you don't want to hear my excuses? I know a way to make you forgive me....

There! How can you be upset after seeing that adorable smile?!?

So time to catch everyone up...

Child abuse?

My good friend Jodi saw these pictures and called them child abuse. I guess I could have emotionally scarred my son with these pics, but they're too cute for me to care!

"Uhhhh, Mom, the snowman is on BACKWARDS!"

"These pictures are going to come back and haunt me one day, I just know it!"

"Let me just smile and get this over with"

Hudson walking and conversing with Achilles

I thought I should post a new video of Hudson walking (he's even better now and this was only a few days ago). If you watch long enough (about a minute in) you'll also see him having a conversation with Achilles. He gets so excited when the cats walk by him (as you'll see).