Erin Akin Carroll

1. Not only is Hayes’s birthday this week, but it’s also our anniversary week. I can’t believe how quickly the years have passed! We will celebrate with a yummy dinner at one of our favorite restaurants.

2. My mom gets here tomorrow to celebrate Hayes’s birthday with us. I’m SO excited to see her!

3. We went to the zoo on Sunday afternoon. We have zoo passes so we like to go as often as possible. I think it was about 95 degrees, but it was worth it just to be outside. I get really excited for the weekends. I love getting out and doing things with the boys when Todd is around. It’s nice to have an extra set of hands, but it’s just more fun when Todd is with us! Hudson loves the zoo and gets really really sad when we leave.

4. Insurgent by Veronica Roth came out today. I finished Divergent a few weeks ago and I’m so excited about the follow up book. I’m hoping for long naps from the boys today so I can get a good chunk of it finished!

5. I started week 1, day 1 of Couch to 5K today. Maybe I can stick with it? Who decides to start running when the summer comes? This girl, apparently. But it really is amazing how much better you feel after spending some time outside.

6. Still no updates on the house selling process. Fingers crossed!

7. Hudson loves to sing. And he loves to talk. And I’m pretty sure that there is constant noise in our house when he’s awake. About 90% of the time he is making a joyful noise and it just makes us laugh so much!

His latest thing when we drive somewhere and arrive at our destination is to say, “Here we are! We made it!”

I really need to do a new “Hudsonisms” update because I am constantly typing funny things he says into the Notes app on my iPhone.

8. Our meal planning had gotten a little bit boring, so Crist came to the rescue again. She has a really great food blog and she shared a bunch of her marinade recipes with me. Last night we had mashed potatoes, roasted asparagus and this chicken marinade recipe. It was so good!

What exciting things do y’all have to share this week?

It’s interesting how babies can be so different. With Hudson, I finally got things “figured out” in the baby department, so I decided we were ready to try again for a second child. I knew what I was doing so I was ready.

And then sweet Hayes came along and rocked our world again. In an amazing way.

It was like being a new mom all over again. Babies just keep us on our toes. Their differences are a nice little reminder that they know what they need and what they want, and we need to start figuring it out.

Hayes has come with some fun little challenges we didn’t experience with Hudson. He rarely cries, but when he does–it’s over. He gets worked up so quickly and needs immediate comfort.

He is content to just lie in one spot while he sleeps, so now we’re going through doc band treatment to correct his head shape, and he experienced ear infections at a much earlier age than Hudson did. So we got tubes for Hayes at a much earlier age than Hudson got them.

But getting the opportunity to “learn” a new baby is one of my favorite things about motherhood. I get to figure out what makes him laugh. I know where his tickle spots are. I know when he’s going to be more sensitive, and I know what makes him cry that “hurry up and pick me up mom” cry. No one else knows those things about my baby.

I have had so many great special moments with Hayes. He’s my mini-me. And there is nothing like the very first moment when your baby smiles at you. If it’s your first baby or your fifth baby, that first smile is absolutely priceless.

My favorite moment with him, though, was when he tried grilled cheese for the first time. It was just a couple of weeks ago. He is absolutely in love with grilled cheese. He screamed with delight after every tiny little bite. He was practically begging for more. And I just laughed along with him. And I thought, “What a wonderful thing to get to taste grilled cheese for the first time!”

One of the ways that Hayes has been so different from Hudson is with teething. Hudson was a silent teether. He gave us absolutely no sign he was teething; we’d just come in to get him in the morning and we’d see a new tooth.

I had no clue teething was so awful!

Sweet little Hayes is a bear when he’s teething! He drools buckets all over his outfits every day. We have been known to go through three outfits per day just because of the drool. He starts showing signs of teething- drool, dirty diapers, fussiness- and then three months later he gets a tooth. It’s a process!

We had been losing sleep because of teething, too. He was waking up in the night and just crying out. I knew it had to be his teeth. When I got the opportunity to review Baby Orajel® Natural Teething Tablets I was so excited! This couldn’t have come at a better time.

I was excited to find out Baby Orajel Naturals Teething Tablets are belladonna-free, benzocaine-free, dye-free, alcohol-free and paraben-free. Baby Orajel Naturals Teething Tablets is the first and only homeopathic offering from the #1 teething brand, Baby Orajel.

We gave him three little tablets right before bed time the first night, and they dissolved in about ten seconds. And Hayes looked like he was getting to try some candy! He loved them!

And that night? He slept and slept and slept. It was the first night in two weeks he didn’t wake up at all. He has slept all night every night since then, too. The teeth still haven’t popped through, but I feel like his little gums aren’t in nearly as much pain as they were. The drooling has gone way down, too. My washing machine is so thankful!

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Last week, I was feeling anxious and frankly just a little bit blue. I wasn’t totally sure why. There was a small feeling of boredom, yet I was busy. But when the boys would nap I would feel overwhelmingly anxious and restless.

I wasn’t sure if it was a sign that I wanted to go back to work. When I stopped and really thought about it, I realized that I’m not ready to go back to work. And where would I go if I did?

But I realized that I was feeling down about the way our days were going. Butting heads. Stressing about Hayes’s speech and spending lots of time working with him. Getting screamed at by a toddler and an hour later watching him sleep and crying silent tears because I just love him so much.

I frequently hear this Steven Curtis Chapman song when we’re heading to school in the mornings and it always speaks to me. Mainly the first verse. It reminds me of my life.

My life isn’t glamorous, but I happen to love it. Even when I don’t always appreciate it, I do love it. I look like a wreck most of the time, but I don’t really care. There are times when I think, “is this significant?” I’m spending my day correcting and disciplining and cleaning and cleaning again and taking deep breaths and counting to 10. And then I’m also cuddling and reading and rocking and feeding and tickling and chasing and laughing and bathing and wrestling and giggling.

There’s just one thing I have to remember to maintain focus and perspective.

I’m doing all of this for His glory. It’s not about me. None of it is. Sometimes that just plain sucks. But it’s for God’s glory and it’s for my kids. And if I can keep that in my heart and mind every single day (maybe not every second of every day), I can refocus and regroup.

I need to see myself the way He sees me. And I need to see my kids the way He sees them. I have an amazing opportunity to do great things and make an impact on their little lives. It’s a big responsibility and sometimes it just overwhelms me, but I can only do the best that I can do.

So moms, listen to the song and take a look at the lyrics that really touched my heart this week.

You’re picking up toys on the living room floor for the 15th time today
Matching up socks
Sweeping up lost cheerios that got away

You put a baby on your hip
Color on your lips and head out the door

While I may not know you,
I bet I know you
Wonder sometimes, does it matter at all?

Well let me remind you, it all matters just as long
As you do everything you do to the glory of the One who made you,
Cause he made you,
To do
Every little thing that you do
To bring a smile to His face
Tell the story of grace
With every move that you make
And every little thing you do

(from Steven Curtis Chapman’s “Do Everything”)

After a rather sad post earlier this week, I wanted to end the week with some happy stuff. My week turned a corner on Wednesday thanks to lots of laughs with my family and good conversations with friends. And I did have a great night out with my friend, Anna. It’s so nice to have friends in the same stage of life as you.

But here’s some stuff I’m loving this week!

1. There a new bakery in town (technically it’s in Forest Acres) called Ally & Eloise. I had heard great things from my friend Crist, so I stopped in yesterday to visit the bakery, meet Ally, and ask her about doing some goodies for Hayes’s birthday party. I ended up picking up a few little sweets to bring home. Ally makes the best cream cheese frosting I have ever tasted. And I had a delicious “chocolatti” cookie. I could have eaten 20 of them.

By the way, Eloise is Ally’s adorable French Bulldog. So cute!

2. I received this color block tank from Piperlime yesterday and I am so excited about it! I love the colors and can’t wait to wear it with white jeans.

3. We’re still loving our Keurig. One of my favorite times during the day is just when I’m able to read and sip a cup of Starbucks Breakfast Blend. I like my coffee really strong and this blend is absolute perfection. In the morning, I usually have to drink my coffee on the go when I’m taking Hudson to school. Bu I like to sneak in a second cup in the afternoon.

4. Hudson doesn’t have school on Fridays and we typically try to keep an open calendar on Fridays. He’ll have school 5 days per week in the fall, but I love our Friday pajama parties. The boys play and watch Sesame Street or Baby Einstein. It’s just nice to have at least one day where none of us are rushing around to get somewhere. We’ve stopped going to The Little Gym because it was just too much to have something extra on Fridays. But I love our Friday mornings of bed head and pajamas.

(And Hudson did color on his face with dry erase marker.)

5. Our doc band clinic is opening up a new satellite office very close to us! I am so excited that Hayes can still receive the best care but we won’t have to make the long(ish) drive to Charlotte every time. We’ll still go to Charlotte for scans, but our same therapist will be coming down here for his regular check ups. I guess there are a lot of patients in our area! I’m very excited about this!

6. Is there anything that says “summer” quite like a Drumstick? Yum. The best part is obviously the very tip of the cone that has all the chocolate in it. Love!

7. I received some gorgeous “thank you” flowers from my friend Lulu this week and I just love them! They have brightened up our family room so much and I love being reminded of her friendship every time I look at them.

8. Finally, have y’all checked out Bridier Baubles? I absolutely love all of their stuff. You can’t beat the price for such stylish jewelry. I have my eye on about 15 different things. Aren’t these cluster earrings just so great? Be sure to “like” Bridier Baubles on Facebook.

And speaking of Facebook, Blue-Eyed Bride is finally on Facebook. I know, I resisted it for long enough. But I would love it if you all would “like” Blue-Eyed Bride on Facebook!