Three in Tennessee

Well, the day finally arrived - Haircut Day! Tatum got her first haircut on Friday, June 18, also the same day as Toy Story 3 came out. But more about that later. Tatum did an amazing job during her washing, combing and cutting and was rewarded with a sucker. Miss Andrea also did an amazing job - Tatum's hair is not easy to comb through and Andrea did a fantastic job. There were absolutely no tears, no whimpering - just smiles and some not sitting still. :) We were super pleased with our first haircutting experience. I have informed Tatum that ONLY Miss Andrea is allowed to cut our hair. She is also the only one allowed to color my hair as there is a self-imposed ban on any at-home hair coloring for myself. Just not okay anymore. Anyway...

Friday evening we took Tatum to see Toy Story 3. We've been pumping it up for several months. Toy Story 2 is absolutely her favorite movie so far. It's been months of loving TS2. Tatum did an excellent job during the movie. We came armed with Fruit Loops and yogurt snacks. Totally forgot her drink in the van, but I think that worked to our advantage since she never had to go potty during the movie. My funny little memory from the movie is that she kept leaning over, getting right in my face and whispered, "I want to go upstairs." Too funny! She was loud whispering it, actually. We were about 4 rows from the back of the theater and she wanted to walk all the way up to the back. She sat really well and as soon as the movie was over we walked the rest of the way up the stairs so she could get a "look see". Great movie, by the way. Matt cried. I probably would have except for all the loud whispering/whisper shouting going on in my face. :) Awesome, awesome day!

Wow, I can't believe that our Goose just completed her third day at Dotson's Parents Day Out. The first Monday was a bit rough...mostly on me. Matt and I dropped her off and she looked terrified. Ms. Janie befriended Tatum and tried to help pry her off of me - we call it the "monkey death grip" - parents of toddlers know what I'm talking about. :) I had to get out of the room as quickly as possible. Matt stayed behind to give some instructions and then came out into the hall with me crying and other mom's consoling me. I would have been okay if Tatum hadn't looked so fearful. I knew she'd be ok so we left and went to work. I returned to pick her up, she saw me walk in and said, "MOMMY! Treasure box, Mommy?!". She was very excited for me to get there because that meant she got a "treasure" from the special treasure box. So Day 1 was a success! Days 2 and 3 have also been great! So now Tatum is at Dotson one day (soon to be two) and with Nikki at the church the other days. T was so ready for some new challenges and we are already seeing how much she enjoys school. Yay!

Creativity is just connecting things.

When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That's because they were able to connect experiences they've had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they've had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people.

Unfortunately, that's too rare a commodity. A lot of pope in our industry haven't had very diverse experiences. So they don't have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem.

The broader one's understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have.

- Steve Jobs

One more thing to add to our fun weekend...Matt and I purchased Tatum's big girl bed from a very nice lady on Craigslist. It's a white, iron bed. Seems so mature, but so sweet. We will be getting the mattress soon and I've been on a hunt for big girl bedding. We have no idea what to expect as far as Tatum sleeping in a normal bed. Besides pack and plays, she really hasn't slept anywhere but her crib. She's such a good girl and her friend, Bryce will be in his big boy bed soon. So, we'll have some very positive peer pressure. :) We'll post pics once the new stuff comes together.

Tatum is growing up so much. In two days we'll be celebrating our 3rd adoption day! Time just flies.

This past weekend we had a "staycation" as Matt took Sunday off to rest up. We had such a lovely weekend together. However, before Friday and the staycation we had a bit of a crazy Thursday afternoon/evening.

I was watching the kiddos at church on Thursday and put Tatum to bed like normal. A few minutes later I heard terrible screaming and crying coming from her room. I went in there and she was screaming about something - I thought she was saying that spiders were in her pack and play. She was actually talking about shadows. I couldn't calm her down so Matt came up and talked to her. After some words from Daddy, all was well and nap ensued. When she woke up a few hours later she was crying and talking about the shadows. I asked her if Daddy had made shadow puppets - she said yes. Then for the next 4 hours every other sentence was about shadows, shadow puppets, puppet shows, etc...It was INSANITY. Poor girl! She was beside herself and very concerned that she would see more shadows. I tried demonstrating the shadow puppets, which just made it worse. I finally resorted to telling her we needed to stop talking about it and she could talk to Daddy the next morning since he had practice that night. She was so tired from our long day and all the awful shadows that she went to bed without being upset about any type of puppet. ;) I went in to get her the next morning and she said, "hi Mommy - Daddy has the puppet show?" I burst out laughing and scooped her up, looked in her sweet, little face and hugged the daylights out of her. Good grief, she's funny. She just kills us with the stuff she comes up with. Thankfully, we didn't hear much about the shadows until our drive to church/work this morning.

We played outside for a long time on Saturday. Tatum found her "missing" magnetic LeapFrog letters in the seat of her pink bike - "Mommy, my letters!". They'd been missing and presumed thrown away for at least 3 weeks. :) She must have stuck them in there while riding her bike around the house. :) We went on a fun bike ride Saturday afternoon. Just around out neighborhood. She's so sweet on the back of Matt's bike with her big fro sticking out of the bike helmet. Matt and I enjoyed a nice date night while my mom took care of her Saturday night.

On Sunday, my mom, Tatum and I ran errands while Matt slept in. Tatum is very proactive about letting us know that she wants to walk around Target by herself. That is only allowed for short runs into the store right now. Otherwise, it's toddler madness - no matter how well behaved she is. Then at Kroger, she usually wants a "car cart" for the first 4 minutes of the excursion. We have to move fast before she's ready to transfer herself to the front of the cart that is loaded down with groceries by that point.

It's so funny how exhausting and hilarious a trip to Target and Kroger is for us. Tatum loves going to Target. She can seriously spot their logo from a mile away. We usually have no less than 2 trips to the bathroom per store. One trip is legit and the second trip is because she thinks the bathroom is cool. Come to think of it, we have less potty trips in Target because she thinks the flushing is "too loud". :)

I love these days. Some days my ears kind of hurt from the constant loudness, talking and Toy Story 2 sounds in the background, but I certainly do not take it all for granted. These days are so precious to us and much longed for.

So Tenn3ssee has been pretty quiet recently. I've been developing several other websites and generating lots of content for them, but haven't spent much time here.

I cannot believe how fast Tatum is growing! Her vocabulary is quite extensive. She knows lots of peoples names and dozens of animals (sounds included). She speaks in sentences - can you hold this? Mommy, I'm hungey. Spelled phonetically, of course. :) I want doggie in here (usually meaning her crib). I hold it (usually meaning Libby). Anyway, lately anytime she sees a fly or any other insect she yells "beet, beet." It's hilarious! She's somehow combined bees and beetles and just says beet. It's great! We try to tell her that they are flies, but she still likes alerting us to the beets.

We have always laughed so much at how silly Tatum is with her eyes. All the squinting when we ask her where her eyes are is so funny to us. Another thing she does is close her eyes when we're trying to get her to finish eating. For example, if we hold up a bite for her she closes her eyes and turns away...like if she can't see it, then it's not there. The last couple of days she has started doing that when I ask her to look at me. Usually post time-out. So, I'm trying to be serious and follow through with the discipline and she's looking away from me with her eyes, nose and lips all scrunched up. It's just about too much. :)

Today was an especially hilarious and fun Tatum day. For starters, we went to Tadpole Tales at the library. I really enjoy watching her interact with other children. She's very used to being with other kids and as social as she is, she really likes to take her time and "take it all in" when we are around a big group. It not quite shyness...just non-chattyness.

Today we sat on the big lilypads (picture giant green ottomans) and she watched and listened with anticipation as the stories were read. She even whisper-talked to me, which is one of my favorite things ever and kind of hard to explain unless we're in person. I hope to always, always remember the whisper-talking and in fact, I hope she always does it somehow.

After Tadpole Tales we headed to Chick-Fil-A with our friends. She sat in the high chair and was happy as a lark to be amongst her good friends (and ours), the Dentons. As Niki displayed some supermom characteristics by divvying out chicken nuggets and waffle fries to four kids, all the time carrying on a conversation with me, Tatum and Jonas chatted, shared some food and thankfully kept their lips to themselves today. Although it's not technically in the book, we think that food is Jonas' love language...he always, always shares with Tatum. The boy is smitten!

After the food consumption we headed to the play area. Tatum started out by kneeling down and licking the floor...she looked up at me like "that's disgusting"...umm yep, that's pretty much right. I had to shake that one off and try not to think about it. About that time a Toby Mac song came on and the dancing began. Bryce shook his little hiney and Tatum started, too. The elbow out thing just kills me. Elbow out, twisting action, some hip and hiney shaking...and some kind of spine rolling motion, too. It's GREAT! You really can't beat dancing toddlers. I love how Tatum dances! She has proven to have decent rhythm. I imagine some of that comes naturally and then Matt practicing drum beats on her tummy since she was a teeny tiny thing has probably helped a lot! :)

I have no segue for this, but just wanted to mention...I feel like Tatum has started to form sentences a little more in the last few days...."I want to _________" is a little clearer each time. :) Man, I love talking with her. I love that we know much of what she is trying to communicate. She knows how to get us to help her walk up the stairs like a big girl. She knows how to say "outside" and if we don't happen to hear her, then it's pretty obvious when she's at the back door turning the knob. This girl has got a lot to say...my ears are open, Goose! So are Daddy's! Always!

What a great day!