My life as I know it

Overheard in the Robinson Household, volume 3 Me: I'm a terrible winker. Pat: You really are. Probably the worst I've ever met. Not that I go around asking people to wink at me...                                                                                                                                         ...

I can't believe that when the month of July started, Graham wasn't crawling at all. Now here it is, halfway through the month and not only has he perfected the crawl, but he's now pulling himself up on furniture and walking alongside of it. It is amazing how quickly these developmental milestones happen. Such a fun, scary and exciting time in our parenting quest. It's fun to see him mobile and to be able to call his name and have him crawl to you. In fact, it melts my heart every single time. Life in the Robinson household is very different, that's for sure. On Saturday, I was in the bathroom getting ready and Pat was in the kitchen. Graham spent his time crawling back and forth between the two of us (and seeing what trouble he could get into in between). We had to keep yelling to one another "He's coming your way." I love the new noise he makes when he crawls now. That is new just this week. You can kind of hear it in this video I made. Now i...

Emscapades, Volume 3 This Emscapade once again took place on the beach of Pawley's Island, South Carolina. Again, taking a stroll along the beach, only this time it was at night and the sky was pitch black. The beach was pretty empty with the exception of a group just next to the deck leading up to our beach house. Pat and I had just finished our walk along the beach and stopped to pause for a moment and listen to the roar of the ocean waves. After all, there are few better sounds in the world, right? We found ourselves both looking up and gazing at the stars when all of the sudden we hear someone from the group next to us start making bird sounds. "Ca caw, ca caw," he yelled. Pat and I looked at each other, chuckled a little and then went back to our star gazing and wave listening. The bird sound happened again. "Ca caw, ca caw." This time we completely ignored the noise and continued looking up at the stars when all of the sudden, there was a guy runn...

The ninth month mark in this parenting game has been the most interesting yet. In the beginning it took six weeks just to get a smirk, now I blink and Graham is crawling or pulling himself up or even standing on his own for a few seconds. Gone are the days when he laid still for diaper and wardrobe changes. Now it's more like wrestling an alligator just to get him changed. A screaming alligator at that. Although he has less teeth, he does bite. Oh yeah, that's another new development. Now that he has both top and bottom teeth, you have to be on high alert when his mouth is anywhere near your skin. He bit me for the first time at a funeral home when I was talking to the family and wasn't paying attention to him. And it wasn't a quick bite, his jaw was still clenched on my shoulder when I squealed and caused a scene. That wasn't the only scene he caused at the funeral home that night. He also pulled my shirt down, exposing the entire left half of my chest. Lucki...

This Emscapade took place on the beach of Pawley's Island, South Carolina. I was taking an innocent stroll along the ocean shore, Graham in tow, when I got caught in the middle, literally, of an exchange between a grandma (I assume) and her grandson. As Graham and I were walking by, the grandma to my right, the ocean to my left, the grandma started yelling toward the ocean in her deep southern draw (sounded more like a West Virginia accent than a South Carolina accent, but what do I know?) to "wipe your hands." The next thing I know, the boy she was yelling to is wiping his sand-covered hands all down my chest, belly and thighs. My jaw dropped to the ground as I looked down and saw the massive amount of sand that was now all over my black bathing suite and shorts. Next, I looked down at the boy, fully expecting to see a little three-year-old looking up at me and realizing I wasn't his mom or his Grandma or whoever he thought I was, and panicking. Instead, I...

I can't take credit for the witty title of this post - my SIL Traci coined the phrase. But what I can take credit for are the crazy shenanigans, also known as Emscapades, that seem to follow me wherever I go - especially the grocery store. Just ask Pat, who will tell you this is one of the many reasons he hates going to the grocery store with me. I am a magnet for strangers starting up conversations with me. And in my opinion, contrary to what Pat thinks, I don't believe I do anything to provoke it. It can be something as simple as me standing in the line at the grocery store checkout with burgers and hamburger buns in my shopping cart. The woman in front of me sees the ingredients and says, "looks like you're having a cookout..." and then proceeds to tell me all about the picnic in the park she just had in which a family of racoons came down from the tree and took away their food. Seriously. Other than the contents of my shopping cart, I did nothing to ...

Graham crawled for the first time tonight. He has taken a few forward motions here and there, one knee in front of the other, but for no more than three crawls at a time. Tonight, he went the distance. All he needed was a worthwhile prize at the finish line: His daddy. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly these milestones happen. All day today he was trying to crawl, would give up and then resort to the army crawl. Then all of the sudden, it just clicks and he's crawling. I was fortunate to get his first crawl on video, which I'm quite excited about. You will notice in the video that he could have kept going if he didn't get distracted by the large piece of mulch on the floor. He loves to find random objects that don't belong on the carpet. It's a really fun game we play. I vacuum, Grady drags the mulch in on his paws, Graham finds it and tries to eat it. Repeat. We are very proud parents at this moment. Proud and nervous. We fully recognize this is a gam...