Li'l Party Man

I have to start this post with a huge I love you to my amazing friend Erin.  She hangs out with Li'l Miss every other Tuesday so I can have five hours of grown-up time.  

Five hours. All. By. Myself.

I know; Erin totally rocks. 

Right now I'm sitting in a certain no-so-healthy restaurant alone.  Just me.  Well, me and my $1 sweet tea...because I'm addicted.  It's not so bad to have a six-month summertime addiction, right?  (And I know I just told you which not-so-healthy restaurant I've chosen to patronize today.  Pretend you didn't notice.  K?)

The last couple of weeks have been a whirlwind.  I think I've waved to my husband once or twice as we passed in the driveway; do those count as date nights?  And I actually went four days without checking my email.  Seriously.  That can happen when you have a 1997 phone that doesn't get email or talk to you or other cool things like that.  (I could go on a little rampage here about the fact that one member of our family has a phone that does cool things like that, but I won't.  Dropping it.  Letting it go.  Really.)  

I have a ton of half-written posts swirling around in my brain that I will get written and shared soon.  But today I just had to share some surprise pictures of Li'l Man.  A sweet mama I met on FB sent me eight (yes, eight!) pictures of our cutie boy at her daughter's birthday party.  She totally made my day and pretty much tripled my picture collection.

Here's our boy.  (He's in the bottom left corner, rocking the adorable overalls.)

I love this one.  I swear I've seen his dad look at dessert in the exact same way.

Aaaaahhhh, he uses a fork.  

(Yes, I'm for real excited about this.  But I missed Aaaaahhhh, he smiled! and Aaaaahhhh, he rolled over! and Aaaaahhhh, he took his first step! so I've got to do something with all my mama pride.)

 

And he's looking at the cake again.

 Here's a great shot of the "orphanage 'do".  Definite make-over happening when this boy gets home.

 

So there's our Li'l Party Man.  We are going to have some fun at our house when he gets a cake all to himself next April.  I absolutely can't wait.

Reader, beware: This is a happy post, but I'm about to get mildly depressing.

 

I have to confess that the rows upon rows of cribs are possibly my least favorite thing about any orphanage picture ever.  (I HATE YOU, bedtime assembly line.)  If you missed the crib metropolis, please go back and look.

 I almost cried once looking at a picture of empty beds in Alex's orphanage in Eastern Europe.  There were little outfits laid out at the foot of each bed.  There were no kids in the picture, but it shattered me.  

Bedtime is not meant to be an assembly line.  Kids should not sleep in rows.  These little ones need mamas and daddies and bedtime stories and kisses and monster-chasing and nightlights and 57 that's-really-the-last-one sips of water.  

Think about it.