Matthew, my sunshine

My little one loves music, especially mommy's singing. He even has favorite songs. For the past several days I have been reflecting on lyrics to a song from my childhood that is now becoming part of my daily routine – “You are my sunshine”. I am sure most of you know the song yourselves. "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are gray. You'll never know dear how much I love you. Please don't take my sunshine away." I remember my grandma teaching me that song as we sat on her front porch swing. It is one of the first songs I remember learning the words to. It seems to be Matthew’s favorite song. He appears to be learning how the song should be sung. If I try to stop singing in the middle of it, he looks up at me until I start back singing. I sing it to him at bedtime every night and it seems to calm him down as he nurses himself to sleep. I also sing it at the top of my lungs when he is crying in the backseat because it soothes him. I have had occasions to sing that wonderful song for an hour straight just to keep my little sunshine happy as we commute to Goldsboro or home.



He truly is my little sunshine. He makes my day. When he wakes up in the morning he stretches and then gives me a little smile. Thursday he really made my day. When I went to daycare for lunch, he was rolling around on the floor and talking to himself.
When he saw me he squealed with pure delight and gave me the biggest Kool-aid grin. I scooped him up. He put his arms around my neck and kissed me all over my cheek and chin. By the time he was done greeting me I was covered in drool. But it was the best greeting ever. It seemed to make his day just to see his mommy. It amazes me how much this little fellow loves me and Brian. He doesn’t care about our past, or our jobs, or our lack of things, or who what we know, he just loves us. Being his mommy is more than I ever dreamed it would be. I have a whole new appreciation for my parents now. I now understand just how much they love me and my sister. Because every time I look at Matthew, my heart seems to swell with even more love. I had no idea one heart could hold so much love. No matter what kind of day I am having at work, when I go spend my lunch hour nursing him and playing with him, all my worries, headaches and troubles melt away. No matter how poorly I slept, when he coos at me in the morning, the sleep deprivation disappears. No matter what is going wrong in my life, one look at my sunshine and everything seems right.


I don’t really have a lot of interesting stuff to report today, but it is quiet at my house for the moment so I thought I should write something. Matthew is napping in his swing and Brian is on his way to Fantasy Lake with John, Crystal and the kids. So I thought I would just share my reflection of the week and some pictures of my sweet boy. And I am sure you all want to know what he has been up to this week. This week he continued to practice rolling and pulling himself up. He had 2 days at daycare with NO crying at all. Now that he has learned that mommy loves his open mouth kisses, he takes every opportunity to give them to me. He is producing more babbles and sounds and squeals every day. He certainly seems to be telling us things. He laughs sometimes when you tickle under his arms or neck. We are learning that anything you have in your hands, he wants it. And when you give it to him, he treats that “gift” like it is the best thing in the world. He had his first taste of oatmeal this morning. He liked it and hopefully it will sit in his tummy better than rice cereal did. We tried rice cereal twice. He loved it, but it didn't seem to like him. Both times, he spit up for 3 days afterwards.

The happenings of the last month

When I decided to start a family blog, I had all these things I thought I would write about. Now as I sit down to type, I can’t remember what I thought was important enough to warrant typing in a blog. But now that I have committed a block of my time to this and I have a sleeping husband and baby, I really should type something. It won’t be earth shattering or incredibly interesting, but it will be an update of what is going on with us and what we have been doing the last few weeks.

Brian and I really don’t have a lot going on besides working and parenting. Matthew is our main focus. I don’t remember what we talked about or did before we had him. I know we slept and ate meals together, but that is all I remember. This weekend was a quiet one at home other than Brian helping some friends of ours with some outside work (which is a change because we have been busy on almost all the previous weekends for the past month). It was nice not to have anything pressing to do, except laundry (lots of bibs) and making lactation cookies (a good excuse to eat homemade cookies).



Last weekend Leslie and the kids came for a short visit. It was wonderful seeing Dillon and Levi (they have gotten so big) and meeting little Liza for the first time. Dillon and Brian had a playdate as a reward for Dillon getting his math grade up last year. They went rollerblading. Brian also got to sit on the floor and play with both boys and show off his Tech Deck (finger skateboards for those of you who don’t know) skills. Matthew watched Liza (he loves looking at other kids his size, she wasn’t very impressed with him). It did seem as if he was trying to give her tips on how to roll over. It was so nice for me to just sit and chat with Leslie. I could have sat and talked for hours. We are both so busy that we don’t see each other often enough, but we do make time for weekly phone calls as we both drive to work.






A couple of weeks ago, we went to visit Me-Ma and Pappy (my parents), Aunt Christy, Uncle Brandon and Cousin Ayden (plus all of my grandparents, cousins and aunts in the Ahoskie area). That was fun. We carried Matthew and Ayden for their first boat ride. Ayden loved it, Matthew warmed up to it after a few minutes. Matthew also took his first dip on the river. He did not like it initially – too much like a bath I guess. It was nostalgic for me to see him in his life jacket in the river where I learned to swim and spent so many happy memories of my childhood.

Next weekend Brian will be heading to Fantasy Lake for some fun and sun with some of our extended family. Matthew is too little for a full day of fun in the sun, so he and I will be relaxing at home.

So Matthew had his 4 month checkup on Friday. Everything was fine. He is in the 40th percentile for weight and the 10th percentile for length. I am not surprised that the son of 2 short people is already measuring short. The doctor said that everything was great. His doctor (Dr. Pepper – not the soda) was pretty impressed with how perfectly his growth has stayed on the same curve. He was also impressed with Matthew’s ability to roll over BOTH ways and to pull himself up to stand. Dr. Pepper said Matthew has good muscle tone in his legs, (I’m sure he gets that from his daddy). All in all it was a great visit. We got the go ahead to try some cereal and baby food. Yeah! for Matthew. And Matthew only cried for like a minute after getting his shots. It still broke my heart when he looked up at me while getting stuck. In my mind I heard him say, “Mommy why are you letting that lady hurt me?” Thank goodness he won’t remember these shots later.

I can’t believe that this precious miracle has been in my arms for over 4 months now. (Sometimes I need to pinch myself to convince myself that he is really here and he is really mine.) I feel like it was just yesterday that they were holding him over the sheet for me to see his perfect crying little face. I was reflecting while we waited for the doctor on how much my life has changed over the past year. A year ago, we found out we were pregnant for the second time. We were so excited. But I was so scared. I wasn’t sure that I could handle it if we lost another baby. Thankfully Matthew made it here safe and sound. I thank God everyday for blessing me with the privilege of raising this little miracle. I know that had our first pregnancy continued perfectly I wouldn’t have Matthew now. I still love our heavenly baby, but I appreciate Matthew so much more because I have a child who I didn’t get to hold. Does knowing how precious this little life is make me spoil him? Probably, although the books say you can’t spoil them when they are this little. I know how quickly things can go awry, so I intend to cherish every moment with him. He is growing up so quickly. And so what if I don’t get to sleep in my bed. So what if he wakes up to nurse every 2 – 3 hours. So what if the thing he wants most in the afternoons is to love his mommy instead of letting her fix dinner. The way I see it, is he won’t be little forever and it could be worse – he could not be here.

Well, I guess that is enough rambling for one blog. Hopefully I didn’t bore you too much and you will want to check back later to see what’s new in the life of the Stanleys. I hear my little precious one waking up, so I will write more later.

Why a blog?

Welcome to the Stanley's Story.

We are the Stanley's. And this is our story. The cast of characters in this drama includes Brian (my loving husband), Matthew (my adorable little son), and me, Charlotte (the wife and mommy). We have a large list of supporting cast who will periodically appear in pictures and stories.

Our story is a love story with a mix of drama, a dose of comedy and a splash of action thrown in. The story of our lives is being written day by day. It is being penned by the Master Author and Creator. It is an amazing tale, that I am thrilled to be living.

I love my life. Each day gets better and better. So much has changed in our lives over the past several months. We are insanely busy with our new addition, so we don't have time to chat with our loved ones like we used to. This is a way of keeping people up to date with our story as it unfolds if you haven't heard from us in a while. I hope to update with pictures and posts often, so those who love us can see the new developments in our story.