Daily Nolan

Three years ago, I was feeling pretty sure of myself. Troy was 2 1/2, had finally learned to walk, and was so easygoing and quiet. My two girls were in school, and life was easy. Too easy, in fact. I told Travis, "So I feel like my life is pretty easy right now. And I'm thinking, we can't have that!" We clearly needed a new baby. You know, just to shake things up.

Almost two years ago, Nolan joined us, and immediately jumped into his role of shaking things up with both feet. Our life was already shaking pretty well on its own, with a new job and a new move, followed by another new both of those a year later. But I am not lying when I say Nolan rocked my world... in every way there was to rock it!

Not really sure what's wrong with me, especially lately, but I am NOT killing it as a mom of four like I was as a mom of three. I can't lay a finger on the difference, except maybe because three different things was the max capacity of my attention span, and adding a fourth caused internal combustion somewhere.

 [Today he laid out his oranges neatly in a row, because he is Troy's little brother.]

 I am using him as a scapegoat, I guess, because truthfully today, which was a doozy of a day, was not his fault at all. He was the least of my worries! He was happy and good all day. The other three gave me a run for my money, though, and by the end of the day I am just feeling discouraged. This is hard stuff.

[Most pictures of him look like this. Because when he sees the camera come out, he wants to see himself, and so he freaks out while I try to take pictures of him so he can see them...] 

But this accurately captures my view of Nolan most days. Arms outstretched toward me and yelling for something!

Here he is with his little friend, and they both wanted to see themselves in the camera.

He sure is a cutie though! Nothing is cuter than a baby in a bathtub, right?

This is how he does his hair - sticks his hand in his mouth and slicks it through his hair. HA! I have no idea where he got that.

He spilled oatmeal and I made him sweep it up. He actually did a little better job than it looks like here. He was losing interest by this point.

I will say being a mom to these four is truly a humbling experience, but one I definitely needed and certainly would never trade! I love them like crazy and every day am mortally afraid for their well-being. I pray for them every day that they'll turn out all right, given and maybe even in spite of my best efforts!