Neighborhood Ambassador

2 years, 3 months

Since this summer has been unseasonably nice here, we've been outside almost every night. Walking, coloring on the driveway with sidewalk chalk, riding bikes, or even just sitting on the front porch. It has become one of my favorite hobbies and makes me just fall in love with our neighborhood every time we are out there. Our house looks so pretty, the views are beautiful with the lush green trees and still green grass thanks to lots of rain and not as much heat. Our house sits just up from not only a bend that curves around to part of the neighborhood, but also from the corner of one of our thru streets. So we have lots of activity with people walking, riding bikes, driving by etc.

Ever since Brock was born, people will say 'Brock looks JUST like Nick' (or your husband or his daddy or whatever form they choose to describe Nick in). While yes, they do look quite a bit alike, I've found that Brock's personality is more and more like me. Sadly that means he has my temper and impatience, but on the flip side, he also has my easily excitable nature and outgoing spirit.

With all the activity going on in the neighborhood after dinner, Brock LOVES going outside too. He has to say hi or wave to EVERY SINGLE PERSON who walks by. If they have kids he'll yell 'friends!' and start running towards them. If they have a dog he'll get excited and run their direction too. Everyone in our neighborhood waves when they drive by, so if he sees us waving at someone, he puts his little arm up and waves as hard as he can. He just loves saying hi to people. He likes to show off his bike or his car or his new shoes. He wants to see the dogs and mayyyybe pet them (sometimes he just wants to get close and look and laugh at them). It is one of my favorite 'mommy joys' so far. To see him being so friendly and outgoing, just melts my heart!

He's in general a pretty funny kid, but last night, he was just on a roll. The highlight was after bath time, after pj's were on, he came in our bedroom where I was washing my face. He told Nick 'daddy, I wanna watch the tv'. Daddy, not wanting to say 'no' (probably because he wanted to go watch football and baseball on tv) said, 'You gotta ask mommy'. Sometimes that response bugs me, because then I have to be the bad guy that says 'no'. And at first, I did. I had a million reasons why he should go to bed: it was after bed time, he wouldn't want to wake up this morning, he'd think that every night he needs to watch tv in our bed.

And then finally I just thought 'screw it. Let him'. I am constantly struggling with myself to stop being so rigid and just stop and smell the roses. Brock NEVER asks to watch tv in our room. Why not let him this one night? So, he got the Mommy Stamp of Approval to watch tv. Nick put him up in our bed and he was soooo excited. He said 'Dad, I'm happy!'. I've never really heard him say 'happy' and use it correctly and I'd be lying if I said I didn't get a little choked up about it. Hearing how just that little act of letting him sneak in some extra time with us made him so happy was worth any negative consequence it could possibly have.

Now, in all honesty, it didn't last long. He didn't want to watch Mommy's beloved Project Runway and I didn't want to put on any cartoons because I knew he'd never fall asleep if one of those was on. It was my compromise. So after about 5 minutes he said 'I don't want to watch the tv Mom' and off we went to bed. We said our prayers, sang our song and re-capped our day. I laid him in bed and tucked him and all his stuffed animals in and never heard another peep out of him. All that worrying about starting some unbreakable habit all for nothing!

The summer is flying by and it'll be fall before we know it! We are all really looking forward to it at our house. Nick is ready for football games in the mancave, I'm looking forward to decorating for the holidays and Brock is just happy to have so much room to play inside AND outside the house. We are all feeling very blessed these days!