mama's boys

Jul 13, 2011


anytime my husband or my sitter have the kids, i stand in line at Starbucks and no one says anything to me. but when i have my boys... whether at Starbucks, the grocery store, or any other public location... people warm up. smile at the cuties. ask questions. start conversations. i love that about having kids, we moms can all relate on some level because we just know we are the toughest people out there.

but what i could do without are the comments of shock, amusement, and downright concern when they look inside the carseat to see .... GASP ... i have three boys?!?! oh my, how did that happen?

first, i don't get why three boys should elicit responses of shock and disbelief from total strangers. it's not like three boys is that odd. but from the looks on their faces, you'd have thought i birthed a unicorn, a fairy, and a two-headed monster.

what is more i don't usually get comments of general observation, "oh wow, three boys! you have your hands full!" i bet every mom gets these. instead i get these comments ridden with the suggestion that i'm unhappy with boys or wish i had a girl.

"three boys, how did that happen?" "awwww, you just never get to buy anything pink, do you?" today in Costco, i got: "three boys? i'll pray for you!" then there's one i get just about every time i go in public.... "so are you gonna try for a girl?" what does that even mean to "try for a girl"? if you know of some maneuver to pull during the baby making process that will predict gender, my friend, you should get that move patented. you are sitting on a gold mine. and besides, who says i even WANTED a girl?*
*i totally wanted a girl.

but what really kills me about these comments is the thought that one day my boys will be old enough to notice them. and for the first time, the thought could cross their little minds ... "what if i'm not what mom wanted? what if mom wishes she had had a girl instead of me?" my sweet boys are all i could ever want. and more. and i hate that random well-meaning comments could make one of them might think that i'd have wanted anything other than them. just as they are.

sure, i was disappointed when i thought i saw little boy parts on my third ultrasound as visions of prom and wedding dress shopping fled my mind. but i cried, got over it, and have never looked back. i am so excited each of my boys and what they will mean to one another. i can't imagine life without my sister and they are each doubly blessed. two boys are brothers. three boys are a camaraderie.

and of course... i will always have my three boys to thank when chris notices too many Nordstrom charges on the credit card statement and i can flippantly say, "don't worry, honey. we'll never have to pay for a wedding."



bait and hook... in life, love, and fishing

Jul 11, 2011

the night i met chris he sat down at a table with me and my roommate outside fresh choice, a smoothie place in chicago. sure, he was cute, but the fact he just sat down with us and made himself at home seemed audacious. he was talking about being hungry and tired because he had come from a bachelor party weekend at the lake and had gone straight to a basketball game or something. then, the words escaped from his lips that made me stop mid-smoothie: "blah, blah, blah .... and i haven't showered in 3 days."

what? what was that? you haven't showered in 3 days? i immediately couldn't get enough of this guy. "you are cute but dirty and you don't care about it?" i was in. love.

and if any of you know chris, one thing is clear about that night. i was duped.

i love my husband. he is bold, caring, loyal and generous. he is kind, funny and thoughtful. but he is also particular. and clean. and quite particular about being clean. i have no idea who this unkempt man at the smoothie shop i met was, but he does not sleep in my bed every night.

now what's that you say? why was i into a guy who hadn't showered in the first place? well, let's just say... i'm weird like that. while keeping up on my blonde highlights may present the facade of an equally clean and particular woman, it's just that. a facade. i actually don't wash my hair more than once (maybe twice) a week. i can burp the ABC's faster than my toddler can recite them. i eat things off the floor (unless we're talking a bathroom floor), and i don't wear deodorant. unless it is a day when i happen to be wearing a strapless dress to a wedding. going to a wedding in a cap sleeve dress? no deodorant. going out to a nice dinner in a strapless dress? no deodorant. going to a wedding in a strapless dress? why, deodorant, of course.

plus, i am not saying i am into gross guys. lest visions of animal house flood your mind, let me remind you there is a kind of guy who wouldn't shower and still be cute. you know exactly what i'm talking about... mr. big? he showers. jack berger? he probably showers. aleksandr petrovsky? he definitely showers. but aidan, oh, aidan... i doubt you shower more than once a week and you probably carry the deliciously faint aroma of pine. with just a hint of old spice.

anyway. back to my husband who may or may not ask me if i've washed my hands whenever i borrow his laptop... he is particular about his hygiene. this is not to say he is limp wristed or wussy. he is not afraid of noises downstairs in the middle of the night. and he will try to catch the mouse in our house in order to beat it dead with a golf club. he is just particular.

and what do you know? our firstborn is the same way.

austin will cry if i put his shoes on when the seams of his socks are not perfectly straight. he will whine if his sleeves get caught in his coat arms, and then wail if the amount of shirt sleeve sticking out on both sides of his coat is not equal. and heaven forbid i hold his sunglasses wrong and get them all "fingerprinty and dirty." hell hath no fury. and fingerprinty is not even a word.

and then there is graham... clearly, genetic lines have been drawn in the family.

so when i saw the pictures of my boys fishing, the whole experience made me crack. up. first, it is noteworthy that chris invited his grandfather down to fish with them at the pier, and i'm fairly confident it was because chris didn't want to be the one hooking the worms.

but the pictures are amazing. the pictures are so. them.

austin and graham. austin, the particular one standing back. not touching the worms or paying attention to what he is doing, just critiquing graham on his fishing pole etiquette.


and this is about as close as austin will get to a fish.

then there is graham. graham, the bold and careless wonder who digs in the dirt to pull out the longest and grossest worms he can find just to see how far they will stretch before ripping in half. and if you can't tell, graham has clearly honed his skills in tuning out the voice of austin.




clearly we have done little to give them different upbringings, so these two right here can decisively settle the eternal nature vs. nurture debate. but one thing i know for sure...

if austin ever tries to pick up a girl by telling her that he doesn't use hand sanitizer, i'm going to become a whistleblower faster than you can say fingerprinty.

our own flesh and blood

Jul 8, 2011

chris and i both have amazing families. we have families, who, upon seeing our boys, will drop anything and everything to spend time with our boys. our parents, our brothers, our sisters. all of them love our boys with a love that i can't even begin to describe.

and if your family is anything like my family... or like chris' family... loving on our little guys also means soaking in every bit of their little faces. their laughs. their personalities. their dimples. their chub.

which, inevitably, leads to a discussion that could be started with any of the following....

"austin is the spitting image of his father." "graham is the spitting image of his mother." "my goodness, carter is fat." "carter has rubber-band wrists and cankles... just like austin did!!" "graham reminds me of his uncle, brian." "austin reminds me of his uncle, adam." "carter is the same size as his uncle, alex!" "oh wow, carter has dimples... just like austin... and just like chris!" "oh wow, austin and carter have dimples just like their uncle adam!" "my goodness, carter looks just like austin!" "my goodness, carter looks just like graham!"

and it is. all. true.

these little offspring of ours tend to have similarities everyone can pick up on... but for reasons that are obvious, the Petrich's are ignorant to the fact that these little boys might have Hill tendencies and the Hills are ignorant to the fact that these little boys might have Petrich tendencies.

so i decided to put out some objective comparisons. there is no right or wrong answer. just funny observations.


here is chris. and austin.

















here is graham. and me.












again here is graham... now next to chris' brother, brian.












then here is my brother, adam. next to austin.












here is graham at 3 months. and his little cousin savvy at 3 months.

















or carter next to graham, both at 4 months.

















and then there are some observations that no one can dispute.

graham got his father's sense of style.

















and carter got his mother's thighs....


















but what if graham and austin, who share no common DNA whatsoever from what we can tell, don't really look all that much like their mom? or their dad? and what if carter just looks like carter? what if he doesn't look or act anything like his brothers and wants to be his own big deal?

i think we'd still claim they did.

it is part of being a family. to know you share blood, genes, and DNA. we exist because of our families and our offspring exist because of us. so our way of celebrating that fact is to identify with our babies. love them. compare with them.

but like i said, none of the observations are objective and none are necessarily true. sometimes these little dudes remind us of ourselves or our siblings when they were young, but they are fleeting glimpses held by a subjective observer. what matters is that God made each of these little boys perfect in His sight. to be made as imperfectly and perfectly unique as each snowflake in the sky. all i can say is that we've been blessed with some chubby, dimpled, and cute little snowflakes.

"don't hassle me, i'm local"

Jul 5, 2011

well, we've gone officially gone from being comfortably accustomed to life in lake geneva to being downright locals.

we eat at establishments where my 3-year-old must ask why everyone there has colored on their arms.



















we use glow sticks at periods when it is wholly unnecessary to do so.

we eat ice cream at every meal.

we frequent a movie theater called the Showboat where entire families can be seen bringing their own array of tupperware bowls to fill with the theater popcorn.

we eat ice cream at every meal.

we don't really notice (or care) when our bellies hang out from under our shirts.

we wear Wal-Mart bought bathing suits that don't come in any colors other than red, white, and/or blue (and no, i have no clue what i'm doing with my mouth).

we eat ice cream at every. meal.

we don't even bother with bottle openers anymore when there is an anchor within reach. or we use our teeth.

and you guessed it... we eat ice cream at every. meal.

but i guess we will never fully achieve "local" status because the good lord knows that if we were to stay here a lifetime, we would still never, never, ever....
...become Packers fans.

my runner's digest

Jun 28, 2011

every mom should run.

of course, we've all had babies, so one reason to run is to maintain just a little bit of what the good lord gave us. but any normal person will use a workout as a way to rationalize a bit more junk food consumption throughout the day, so staying in shape will become a moot point.

the real reason every mom should run is simple. it's to clear. your. mind. reflect. put words to the feelings you had all the day long when you were to busy to figure out why you were feeling them. running is sometimes the best road to self-awareness.

it doesn't matter how far you run, or how fast you go. i don't go far and i don't go fast. the point of a run is that the second you are let out of the house (yes, "let out of the house"), you get to run. away. the more stressful your day, the faster you run. away from your kids. away from your job. away from your husband. away from your house. away from all the other things you love most dearly but often prove to be most challenging in life.

and the beauty of every run is that at some point, no matter whether it is blocks away or miles away... you turn around. having had the chance to vent to yourself, figure out something in your head, or to tune out to the sound of your iPod, you turn to go back. the greater the resolve you've had, the more excitedly you run back. back towards your kids. towards your work. towards your husband. towards your house. towards all the things that ask the most of you but prove to be the most fulfilling in life.

and because i am SO blessed to spend a few mornings a week running at the lake, the end of every run of late is the chance to shed my shoes, dip my feet in the water, and thank God for the things to which i'm running back.

nonsensicalness (if that's a word)

Jun 27, 2011

this morning we reached a new low.

i've previously posted about austin & graham's remarkable ability to argue about nothing. but they have taken to a new level this art of arguing senseless things that can't be reasoned. and they've dragged me down with them.

as we went about making coffee and dressing the boys this morning before taking chris to the train, this argument broke out...

Graham: Dada, look at my gloves! Ooooh, look at my gloves!
Austin: Graham, I'm going to take your gloves. I'm going to take them right. now.
Graham: No, no, deez is MY gloves! Deez is MY gloves!
Austin: I took them! Haha, Graham, I took your gloves! I'm wearing them! Ooo-la-la, I'm wearing your gloves!
Graham (wailing): Noooooooo! Austin took my gloves! Mama, Austin took my gloves!
Me (from the kitchen): Austin, do NOT take Graham's gloves! They are his gloves, do not take them!
Chris (from the bathroom): Babe, there are no gloves. Austin didn't take any gloves. They are fighting over imaginary gloves.

- PERIOD OF SILENCE -

Me: What? Seriously? Graham, there are no freaking gloves. Stop crying. Austin, stop taunting him. Graham, STOP crying, he didn't take your gloves, they are still on you. I see them right here on your hands.
Austin: Oooooh, my hands are so nice and cozy cause I took his gloves.
Graham (wailing in a heap on the floor): He took dem!! He is wearing dem!! Waaaaaaaah!!


seriously?

seriously.

gone fishing

Jun 24, 2011

well, we are officially on vacation.

a few weeks into our stay in lake geneva, we have finally hit our stride. we no longer have our bags half-unpacked. we no longer have lingering commitments in the city we are driving back to attend. we are used to chris being gone back in the city a few nights a week, and we are getting used to the pace of life here. it's slow.

so what have we been doing to bide our time?

we've been lingering at the breakfast bar.








and we've been seeing what happens when we blow bubbles into our own faces.

and we've been wearing floppy hats to the beach.














and we've been holding hands with our cousins when they are up at the lake with us.














and we've been berated by lil' miss thang who thinks she was crowned princess of the public library (and is apparently the only one with the right to touch the big, stuffed tiger).

and we've been getting our coffee at a Starbucks where they stop listening to your order two specifications in (so that while my misto is in fact venti and is in fact made with white chocolate syrup, it is never non-fat, never extra hot, and never, ever foamy).

and with more certainty as to where we are living after this summer vacation, mama hill has had more peace of mind. a greater ability to take things in stride. and a sudden realization that this vacation will be over before i know it. it's time to soak it in.

and thus prompts the question: after all this where will we be living? with great excitement and a sense of peace only God can provide we've decided on home, sweet home, chicago. so, windy city, we'll see you again in august!

father's day

Jun 20, 2011

i felt a little bad about father's day this year.

usually, in our house, mother's day is a day off from motherly duties and father's day is a day off from fatherly duties. this year, however, was a little different. all hands were on deck. carter has still been waking 3 times a night and chris had to take at least one turn getting up with him. plus, we had a gorgeous wedding of some dear friends and chris was an usher.... meaning i'd watch the boys as much as possible, but chris was going to have to take his turn watching the boys so i could get ready.




then we went to brunch. we (like most people going to brunch) had to wait 45 minutes for a table and another hour for our food. here is austin entertaining us while we waited.... and graham enjoying his cold green eggs & ham.














plus, we got him a gift. a painting. but it was clear he didn't love it. as he will tell you, he doesn't hate it. hmmmm. at least i know my husband is going to be honest with me.

and after all that... the ONE gift i knew he would love was stuck on my computer. which had crashed. so after 3 hours spent on the phone with apple care (all while chris was completing fatherly duties) it was time to leave for the wedding and chris had had a totally stressful day full of fatherly duties and completely lacking in decent gifts.

i spent another few hours on the phone with apple care this morning so finally we could give him a father's day present he will appreciate....



if mama ain't happy...

Jun 13, 2011

one evening not too long ago, as we sat in bed reading, chris shared a bible verse with me that was obviously dear to him. he read aloud to me from the second chapter of proverbs…


"a quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping on a rainy day."


haha. we laugh together. good thing chris doesn't have one of those for a wife! no, no, we have a good marriage. we are happy. blessed. that verse was clearly written for someone else.


fast forward a few months.


having been deprived of sleep for going on 3.5 months now, i hear my voice sounding all too often like a constant dripping. i am crabby. austin and graham are sleep deprived as well. and crabby. and our trips to target looks like this.


you can't see me, but i am crying, too.



















we know how challenging life can be with a newborn, so i don't know why we are caught off guard each time.


the story is always the same. chris & lauren have a baby. chris & lauren are so happy with their precious angel. chris takes his turns getting up with the baby. family and friends visit and bring meals. and everyone loves the baby. weeks pass. baby is still not sleeping. but we shrug, laugh about skipping showers, and coo at the baby. months pass. baby is still not sleeping. the adrenaline surrounding a new baby has worn off. chris is tired at work and no longer wants to get up. lauren is tired and can't nap. no longer is anyone bringing meals, no longer is family is offering to come help while we nap, and we no longer think it funny that we can't get a shower. and the baby is. still. crying.


but with or without a good night's rest, it is no excuse to be a dripping faucet. getting through the challenges of life with joy are what separates the good, the bad, and the ugly. because taking joy in life is a woman's best cosmetic. ~Rosalind Russell


this period of sleepless will pass. and if it takes years, everywhere i look are three very. big. reasons. to choose joy.


and within another year or two we'll have entirely forgotten the challenges of infant. and the chances are good that we'll want a baby. again.

 

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