When we thought about having another baby, I was 39 years old. “Well, you better decide,
I’m not getting pregnant at 40!” So, we decided to add just one more to our circus of monsters.
You’d think that the last baby would be overlooked, just here in the mix, from the start our little embryo was going to make an impact. From his name choice to his birthplace, to the chaos that came when he was mobile, we knew he was going to complete our lives.
Mine & Jeff’s favorite show is Justified, we watch it on repeat many nights and why not US Marshall, Raylan Givens is bad ass. So that was when it was decided, our new little man would be Raylan Nicholas Barr. And, just like Raylan Givens, our Raylan lives his elated little life his own way and draws all the attention with his bright personality.
Little did we know that he was going to have some great adventures to tell when he grew up.
Like the day he was born, this impatient little man of ours decided that he wanted to make sure his story would be one of a kind and entered this world a month early in our camper! It was a fast and exciting morning, Raylan was born and we just hung out, until we had to seek some medical attention. Then Raylan got to take an ambulance ride to Oishei Children’s Hospital in Buffalo, NY for jaundice treatment. We stayed there for 5 nights and Raylan was dubbed our little Glow Worm because of the bili lights he was wrapped in. Can you imagine the looks and comments we get when we tell people the story of his birth?
With the Sweetest little face as a baby, I started to call him “sweet face”. Even when he is being crazy and wild, his face is just the sweetest, especially the two little dimples he gets when he smiles while defying his mama and daddy. You cannot look at that sweet little face and stay mad at him for any length of time, your heart just melts. Don’t get me wrong, his sweet little is a constant even when getting into trouble. You can see a hint of the devilishness in his face when he is doing something he shouldn’t.
Like Mommy, Raylan is ready to do whatever you want to do. He dances and sings the day away. He gets every toy in his room out, with the intention of playing with them all at once, but never wants to put them away. Playing outside on the trampoline and in the hot tub are his favorite things to do with his big brother JB3. Two peas in a pod those two are, sometimes it ends in crying and fighting and sometimes it ends with sitting together on the couch watching a movie or iPads together.
Raylan has “Green” and “Blue” which are the blankets that he carries everywhere, both if I’d let him. “Green” has to stay home most of the time, mommy made her. But “Blue” gets to go everywhere. There is never a time when Raylan can be seen without one of his blankies. Along with his trusty blankies he sucks his thumb, an action that is always accompanied with a blankie. Some more of Raylan’s favorites are Black Camper (because Panther was too hard to say), Demogorgon’s, mowing the yard, fishing with daddy, and hanging out with Sissy in her room.
The vocabulary on this kid is crazy for a 3 year old. He cracks me up with the words bigger than him, especially when he uses “because,” he fits it into every sentence. The stories that he can tell you and with the expression in which he tells them is so animated. He loves everything spooky and scary. All the kids love to sing along to songs in the car on rides, Raylan’s favorites are “Girl on Fire,” “You’re a Mean One Mr. Grinch,” and “I want a Hippopotamus for Christmas.”
Our favorite activity, as a family, is to go camping all over. We take many adventures in our camper that he was born in. Raylan has visited 11 states, and seen many farms, zoos, and lakes. He’s been to the ocean and rode on a big boat to see the whales. He is not afraid to do anything. He thinks that he is a teenager like the other kids and wants to do the things that they do.
Raylan has attended the Heritage House Day Care for 2 years and made many friends there, both students and teachers alike. He is loved by so many and must give hugs and kisses to everyone before we can leave. He’s learned so much from them and is usually polite, unless he is tooting or burping and well you know how 3-year old’s are…. It’s all so funny!
The most ironic part of Raylan’s life is that one of our favorite summer activities is swimming, and that would be the last thing that Raylan got to do, before he was called home to Heaven to live eternally. Being the sweetest boy, Raylan became a hero to four Humans, when their lives were changed forever with the gift of life from our little Sweet Face.
Live on sweet boy…
