Blessed!!

I know that I can never say it enough but I am truly Blessed!  The Lord has bestowed on me an abundance of blessings.  Clay is a wonderful husband, the best that there is and Gavin is SUCH a good baby.  I have known this since he was born but each time he exceeds my already high expectations I am reminded of what a blessing he is to Clay and I both.

His latest act of exceptional behavior was Saturday. First a little background, for those of you not aware, I have begun the wonderful tax season tradition of working until lunch  on Saturdays.  So when it occurred to me Thursday night that Gavin had no pants or shoes to wear to our first family portrait session and that he would be in no mood for shopping after I got off work Friday, the shopping responsibility fell on Clay and Gavin for Saturday morning.  I wasn't too concerned with the purchases, Clay has good taste and I knew he understood how important this was to me.  I was more concerned with keeping Gavin on his "schedule" because I had scheduled the pictures so he would get a decent afternoon nap and hopefully not need a bottle during the session.  Well of course my well laid out plan got blown all to bits mainly due to having to squeeze a shopping trip in between feedings and a morning nap.

So poor Gavin got short changed on his morning nap and to make matters worse he got shorted at least an hour on his afternoon nap.  So I was saying some major prayers that the photography session go quick before my child had a much deserved melt down from his lack of sleep.  I think I forgot to mention the portrait sitting was at our church, they are doing directory pictures but will also allow you to do different poses and buy the prints.  So we wake Gavin up as late as possible and break our necks to get him into his WHITE button down shirt, pants and cute little big boy shoes.  I immediately put his body bib on him to hopefully save us from any spit-up or drooling stains.  We had tried to give Gavin his bottle before his nap but since he had eaten so soon before he wouldn't really take it so we were forced to give it to him on the way to church which normally wouldn't be a problem except that lately he has developed this nasty habit of turning the bottle upside down and watching the milk pour out on his lap.  And of course he did it this time also, luckily I caught him quickly enough to keep it from soaking through his body bib.

We actually arrive about 10 minutes early for our session so I was pretty happy thinking we shouldn't have to wait long and we could be out of there, go grocery shopping and be home before Gavin needed to eat again.  Luckily the Lord told me to bring an empty bottle and some formula just in case. I immediately realized something was amiss when the two LoL's (little old ladies) that were supposedly checking people in ignored me for 10 - 15 minutes even though there was no one standing in line in front of me.  Finally the one that was apparently in charge told me, sweetly,  to have a seat that this would take a while.  So when I sat down in a chair next to her I noticed her checking names off of what appeared to be the schedule.  Our appointment time was at 2:40, guess what time she had finally just checked off......1:40.  Meantime Clay has taken Gavin to the bathroom to change what was almost a disaster of a blowout.  Another Praise the Lord moment that it didn't leak out too much :-).  So I finally get checked in which consisted of her putting my name and address on a form and me signing it a little after 3.  I mean seriously what in the world about that could take over 30 minutes??

Anyway, so there are two families in front of us.  I still think to myself how long can this possibly take?  There are two photographers it appears so I figure one is probably taking the pictures while the other manipulates you into buying 3 dozen different poses afterwards.  I was so wrong, so, so, so wrong.  After the first of the two families in front of us go back, we wander around until we found a room with kids movies on and a couple we know from SS that were the other couple in front of us.  So we get to chatting and come to find out their appointment was at 1:40 and here it is 3:15 or so and they still haven't gotten their pictures taken.  The little brochure we got said to plan for the entire process of check-in, pictures, and portrait selection to take about an hour.  Nothing was mentioned about having to wait an hour before all that began.  So at 3:45 when they still haven't gone back, Clay and I are getting a bit testy.  I just know Gavin is seconds away from melting down because why wouldn't he be, he has had almost no sleep and been in a room with no toys and only another 6 year old to entertain him.  So fast forward 15 more minutes and the family in front of us finally get called back.  At this point we have been there for an hour and a half and I am about to lose it.  I mean if that 2nd of the 2 families takes as long as the 1st one did that means it will be at least another 45 minutes.  I sweetly ask Clay to go inquire of the photographers as to how much longer this was going to take.  He comes back with some snarky answer about how it won't take 5 minutes once we get our picture taken or something like that.  I am fit to be tied and just waiting for Gavin to unleash the fury.  Praise the Lord that the 2nd of the two families was in no mood for multiple poses or picture packages by the time they got in there because we got called back no 15 minutes after they went back.

So we finally get out of there about 4:30 and head to Wal-mart because neither of us are in the mood to go home and then try and make another trip back to the grocery store later.  If we were not out of everything necessary for life we would have just skipped the trip altogether.  When we pulled up I noticed that Wal-mart seemed a bit busy for middle of the afternoon on a Saturday.  Boy was that an understatement!  That place was a freaking madhouse!!!  Millions of people everywhere.  So of course what should have been a short trip of grocery shopping turned into another almost two hour event.  And Gavin still hasn't had a nap, thankfully I had brought that emergency bottle along so he could at least have something to eat.  Gavin entertained the entire store with his talking and smiles and thoroughly enjoyed his people watching.  He also pulled his bottle trick and dumped out an ounce or two on the floor before some sweet employee called my attention to it.  She was so nice and instead of making me wait and clean up my child's mess, she told me to go on and she would handle it!  

So we finally get home at almost 7!  For those of you with children you know that an almost 9 month old who has not had a nap in 5 hours and the naps he had earlier were much shorter than usual, should be past, I mean way past the point of no return by now.  But not Gavin he is just as happy as can be and joyfully entertains the household for another 30 minutes or so until the inevitable sets in and he loses it.

Sorry for the super long post about a Saturday afternoon.  But I just couldn't get across how good a baby Gavin is in just a few short words :-)