The year is flying by for you. You are doing really well in 4th grade. You have a great teacher and a pretty nice class. You even made honor roll. Math is still a struggle for you, but you are really trying. Sometimes the hard stuff really stresses you out and it affects you emotionally. We tell you that we just want you to try you best and that is all anyone can ask of you. You do not like anything that requires studying or practicing. I almost fell on the floor one night when I came in your room to tell you goodnight and you were “studying” your history notebook for a test. Whaaa? You looked so grown laying on your bed reciting history facts.
You have a best friend in your class and you two are happy to have each other. You even exchanged little broken heart best friend necklaces. Her mom does her hair with crazy color streaks and lets her wear make up sometimes, so I get to hear all about how unfair I am for not letting you do those things. It’s all coming Keely. You have your whole life to do those things. What fun things to look forward to I tell you, but you just moan at me. “Not fair!”
Your energy level has not waned at all. You still are zooming around and flipping over the couch, jumping on things, and rolling on the floor upside a lot. You sing and often make strange noises when you are nervous or excited. You love to eat on your own schedule and help yourself to making food all the time it seems. You pick one favorite a month and eat the beejeezus out of it until you never want it again and it’s on to the next thing. You still love any junk food or soda. You would live off of it if you could. When you grow up that’s what your house will be filled with, you tell me. Junk all day long. Alrighty.
You laugh a lot. You get humor and you are witty and quick. You’ve gotten us good with your one liners a lot lately. You seem so proud when you make us laugh. You like being the funny one in your class and at home. You are goofy too. We like that. Sometimes your humor can be directed unkindly towards someone and we are trying to steer you clear of that. You are afraid other people won’t like you if you act like you like someone they don’t. Classic peer pressure situation. Hopefully, our endless talks on kindness and empathy will sink in eventually. We also have to make sure we practice what we preach. You are often our mirror. We see our flaws coming at us large and raw in many of your behaviors. This parenting thing gets awfully rough sometimes. I hope you know we are trying to do the right thing for you and always trying to help you be a good person.
You love Lucas and want to carry him around and mommy him. He lets you often and it melts you. You are so happy, calm and peaceful when he wants you to hold him or sits in your lap. It’s so sweet. You then want to swing him around and play crazy games with him and he is not having that! There is screaming. Milo and you have your ups and downs. You fight as hard as you love. I guess that is normal. I really don’t know. I hope you always take care of each other and have each others back. You definitely have your own skills and interests and it is hard for you two to agree on something to do together lately.
Reading and writing poems and songs are your skills right now. You stopped reading as much as you used to for some reason. You are one of the highest readers in your class though. You are interested in outer space right now and googling things on the internet-which can be dangerous. You so want your own computer and cell phone, but it’s just not going to happen yet. We give you time on our computers and you love to play games on daddy’s computer.
You are tall as can be and growing more into a young lady. You want your hair to grow out long so we are trying that out. You want to wear what all the other girls wear and are often frustrated that you can’t because of how it all feels on your body. Lots of tears are shed when you can’t wear a pair of jeans or the ruffle shirt. You try to wear the same thing for many days when you get frustrated. You and I picked out 5 outfits that are acceptable to you and we try to get you to wear one of them each day with no repeats until the following week when everything has been laundered. When you are having a good week that system works. I hope you magically grow out of this sensory thing at some point. You think that we don’t understand and if we did we would just let you wear the same thing every day without ever washing it. Ugh. Frustrating for us all.
On Sundays, you and I started having an afternoon date together. We have a fancy drink and a snack. We sit in your bedroom together, uninterrupted and just hang out. You usually talk about school or what you’ll do when you are older. I think it has helped our relationship some. We don’t have much alone time with the two boys around because someone always needs something from me and we are always disrupted. Hopefully, we can continue our private dates. It’s nice when you seem to like me again. Sometimes old photos of you come up on my computer and I have to stop and stare at them to remember when you were little.
I love you Keely. You always ask me who my favorite kid is and I say you are all my favorites for different reasons. You say that you are my favorite because you were born first. I guess that is one reason. You did make me a mom and you are always teaching me how to be a better mom. I do keep trying. Some of the other current reasons you are my favorite are: for the way you smile, the way your eyes sparkle when you are happy, because of your sense of humor, because you are smart, because you are so creative, because you sing so beautifully, and because I know you have a caring and gentle heart. You are always my baby. Happy 9 1/2 Kinder.
March 19, 2013
This is you. You are now two years old. Incredibly adorable and full of personality. You are spunky, energetic, opinionated, and so cute we can’t stand it. I can’t believe you’ve been in our lives for two years already. It seems like you’ve always been a part of us, but also like we just brought your home from the hospital. You were such a quiet, calm newborn I wondered if that personality would stick. It didn’t.
You are talking a lot more now and you copy funny noises that people make. You also copy odd gestures that people do. You try them out and laugh at yourself. You yell a lot too. Your brother and sister always are trying to get you to do something and you scream at them so loudly if they try to control you! They don’t stop though until we jump in. There is so much yelling. If they kiss you or hug you when you don’t want it- you scream, “OW, OW” repeatedly-and often fall to the floor dramatically. Or you’ll throw yourself down in protest and then lift an arm up for us to assist you in getting up.
Thankfully, when you wake up in the morning or from naps you love to greet everyone with a hug and kiss them and a soft, “hi.” It is all of our favorite daily moment with you. I love getting you up when you are all warm, calm, and snug. You still have a bit of that special Lucas babyish smell and I have take it all in while you let me. You like me to wrap you in your blanket and put my head on your lap. We sit quietly for about one minute and then you are ready to get running.
Lucas, you love cars. You have a car in your hand all the time. They drive a little and crash into things often. You love when we walk through parking lots and cars are backing out and pulling in. You scream, CARS! CARS! OH CARS! so excitedly. You carry around your hard giraffe and polar bear sometimes too…but nothing beats out the cars. You like to make roads out of blocks for your vehicles and they drive on it for a few minutes and then you throw the giant, heavy blocks across the room. It’s dangerous around here. Milo and you chase each other wildly through the house many times a day too. Sometimes you scoot on your riding cars and sometimes he chases you with balls. All balls in our house are called, “fireballs!” and that must be yelled while attacking each other with them. So, yeah… it’s loud here too.
You like to sit on mommy and daddy’s lap a lot. You do not like anyone else to sit there. You do not like to be confined anywhere either. You get mad if people even sit on both sides of you. You do not like to be flipped upside down or leaned back in any abnormal sort of way. Your siblings love that stuff, but not you. You take off your clothes a lot too.. and your diaper. That’s fun. Socks don’t last 5 minutes on your feet either. You keep us busy baby.
Photographs have you very interested lately. You name everyone in the photo except yourself. You call yourself Milo. We’ve tried to teach your name, but you won’t have it. Water is also very popular right now. Washing your hands is one of your favorite things to do. You grab the foot stool and push up your sleeves and go crazy splashing around. We have to carry you out of there kicking and screaming eventually. You’d run the water for hours if we would let you. You also love drinking water out of normal cups. If we hand you any lidded cup you cry and tell us “no” SO angrily. You want cup after cup of water just so you can act so grown and casual while you wander around drinking (and spilling) it. You do often get the kitchen towel and clean up the floor though. You like to help me clean up when you are in a good mood. You like to dust and put laundry away and sometimes you’ll help clean up your toys.
At nap time you usually tell me that your “tied” (tired). You like to walk up the stairs to your room and not be carried. You hop in your rocker and I rock you for a few minutes. I have to watch you sleep for a few minutes before I leave so I can try and memorize that sweet, peaceful, little face of yours. I know how quickly you will grow. You still hold on to my hair as you fall asleep. My sweet baby.
You love for the family to be together. You don’t like when some people go off to the store or outside without the other half. You must be included in all outings. If anyone puts on a coat you are all over the backdoor yelling for your coat and shoes and you want to “Go! Go!”. You still love just wandering around our backyard. You are brave enough to climb our fort ladder and go on the slide now. You do it about 100 times in a row and you are so happy while doing it.
I thought we might be passed the messy, into everything stage, but we are not. You still can hurricane any space. Yes, hurricane is now a verb. You will empty any box, drawer, container, closet, any vessel onto the floor and spread it or throw it to all four corners of the room. We’ve had to rearrange so many closets and drawers just to keep you out of danger. All of our higher up storage spaces are a disaster from holding all of the lower spaces stuff. You also really enjoy putting things down our air vents-straws, Cheerios, dogfood, spoons, cards, etc. “Uh-oh mommy,” you say afterwards. Uh-oh indeed Lucas.
Lucas we love you to pieces. You are loud and messy, but we can’t imagine a day without you. Your cute little walk and your fast run. The way you laugh and your hilarious expressions. Your big eyes and thin hair. The way you hug us so tightly and lean your head on us. Happy second birthday my baby boy. We are so lucky to have you.
February 20, 2013
How on earth are you 5 years old. I really do think time speeds up the older I get. You are less “little” every week. I can see the big boy you are becoming and the man you will be in brief moments here and there. You are still my daily companion. You are almost always right by my side or at least in the same room as me. Occasionally you will go alone to your room and play for a bit. If you are not calling me every 5 minutes to see something or help you, you might get really interested in what you’re doing and forget you are alone, but as soon as you realize you’ve been gone for too long. You close up shop and get back to where I am.
We started to homeschool this fall. You technically wouldn’t start kindergarten until next fall, but you seemed ready to start reading and writing. So far, you really love it. When Lucas takes his nap, we work on your school stuff. Watching you read your first book was awesome. Your sweet face just lit up when you realized that the words you were reading made a sentence and made sense. You were so proud. Writing is a little harder for you and makes you tired and frustrated. Math is a piece of cake for you so far. You are still always full of questions and you do still talk all day and narrative almost everything.
Lucas and you have hit a rough patch lately. You are frustrated that he wants everything you have and takes every toy you try to play with. He screams and yells at you and you hold strong on your belongings. There are battles. You try to engage him in your games, but he is still too little to understand your rules. You usually get mad and huff away. Lucas usually goes to you and hugs you to make up. He loves you and is always saying, “My-mow” in the sweetest voice. He brings you your clothes and pats your back too. You love to go in his room with him and play and sometimes you offer him your toys as peace offerings. You’ve got a sweet heart Milo.
Keely and you aren’t doing too much together lately. She’s in school all day and your age differences aren’t helping. You don’t want her to think you are a baby, so you try hard not to do anything she wouldn’t approve of. She can be rough on you, but if anything happens to you she is so upset. If you are sick or hurt, she falls to pieces. She loves you. She just wants you to know she is so grown and you are not, right now. You do have your inside jokes and secret meetings in her room. You both love to play old computer games on daddy’s computer and practice wizard works and look for fairies in the backyard at night. You watch the movies she likes and you get into them too. You’re good like that.
Right now you are into matchbox cars and Lego’s. A good section of your bedroom floor is covered in your Lego creations. All you really wanted for your birthday was Lego’s and you got it. That’s a lot of little pieces. You like to invent your own little things to build- mazes, games, animal lands, traps etc. You are also into finding secret treasures. Everywhere we go your eyes are on the ground searching for lost little objects. You fill your pockets with pins, change, beads, and other random bits. At home your dump your pockets to inspect your loot and then dump the goods into your treasure jar. It’s filling up fast. When I ask you if you want to go to a new place you always ask if they will have good treasure for you to find.
You do not have any desire to play with other children outside of our home. You get so upset if another child touches your things or plays with something in a way you don’t want them to. You almost hide from children who are your age in public. You do wave, smile, and say hello to younger children and babies though. You are shy around people you don’t know. You work your way behind my legs or pretend like you don’t see them at all. You are also kind of a germophobe. You got that from me. Sorry about that. Sort of. You have to wash anything that some other person (who you have randomly deemed germie) touched before you can touch it. You do not like your hands to be dirty and you can’t stand if your nose is drippy. You go crazy and beg me to take care of it for you. You also do not like much food still. Very not adventurous in that department. I think you would happily eat the same three meals everyday. Cinnamon toast for breakfast, some cheese/bread/pasta combo for lunch, a sectioned tray of bananas, dried cereal, cheese, and an extra for dinner. I keep trying to slip in new items but you won’t even try anything. Vegetables are the enemy. Thank goodness you like V8 juices and vitamins. Maybe this is the year for new food? I hope.
You are still very sensitive and your feelings get hurt quite easily. It breaks my heart and makes my eyes water when I see your face when your feeling like that. I just have to hug you and pretend to erase the hurt. You do still have your temper too. If you are wronged or if you are asked to do something you don’t want to do, you get so mad. I think I can see the steam coming off your head. Lowered head, frown brow, clinched fists and the meanest look comes from you. Sometimes you will just stand and stare at us and other times yell and tell us how mean we are. Lately you tell me you are mad at me about 100 times a day because I’m not doing what you want me to do with you or for you. That’s fun. I try to acknowledge your feelings, but keep moving on and engage you after you’ve had a pout. Eventually, you come and hug me and apologize and we move on. Lucas has been yelling at you every time you try to sit on my lap lately and I often have to help Lucas with something before you and that seems to be getting to you a lot lately. I think you feel a bit displaced and that’s why you are “mad” at me so much. I’m trying to make up for in whenever I can. Parenting 3 is a wee bit harder than I expected.
You are still interested in nature and watch all the happenings in our yard and the sky through the seasonal changes. You question the hows and whys of it all. I’m glad (at this point anyways) that I usually have an answer. You still collect rocks and berries outside. You call the tiny berries on our Liriope- wish berries. Every time we go to the car- you give me a few and I have to make a wish for each and throw them in the air. Milo’s rules are: If they disappear and you don’t know where they fell, then you get your wish. You don’t like to be cold and go outside when it’s chilly is not your cup of tea. You like to have your head covered but you look stiff and uncomfortable in non-balmy temperatures. However, in the summer your face turns so red and you’re so sweaty that you like you might pass out. I guess your a moderate climate guy. You do like to curl up in blankets since fall is here and are often found perched on our heater vents…the modern hearth.
You still pick out a small stuffed animal to sleep with each night and you still wake up at about 6:30 and rush downstairs to sit next to me. You give the best hugs and you are a wonderful cuddler. Your eyes are just as sparkly blue as ever and your light yellow hair is so gorgeous. Your smile and your giggle lights up my heart. You will always be my baby Milo. I love you so much and I think you are such an awesome, beautiful boy with a very special light in you. I’m lucky to be your mommy. Happy fifth birthday Miggity.
December 3, 2012
So big, so fast. I see the days just flying by with you. I understand why the baby of most families is baby-ed. We try to hang on to the precious young days knowing what is to come. The big kid days have their perks too, but nothing is like the loveable, cute baby ones.
Lucas you are full of personality. You are our most “into everything” baby. You just can’t help yourself. We can’t leave any chairs next to our desks or you are up on them banging on computers and drawing on the screens. You love to find markers and crayons and draw on walls and floors. You very much enjoy emptying out cabinets and drawers still too. If we sit a drink down you are all over it…splashing in it or knocking it over. When you dump millions of things on the floor and I say, “Lucas, what have you done?” You say, “UH OH Daddy” and you tilt your head sideways and put one arm out to survey the mess. I don’t know why you blame daddy,but you do.
You finally are getting some words. Mommy and Mama happened last month and they are so cute. You say, uh-oh, ow, puppy, baby, rain, tweet, rough, meow, cookie, cracker, diaper, drink, milk, blanket, Milo, Keely, and Caribou now. You sing songs too. You laugh a lot and try to make us laugh by being silly. You are so into cars right now. You almost always have one in your hand. You drive them all over the furniture and floor. You try to copy how Milo plays too. You like books with animals and babies in them. You say, “Aw,” to every cute thing you see. When you get hurt you yell, “Ow” really loud and run to me for comfort. You get over your injuries quickly.
Your favorite thing to do is to play outside. If anyone goes out without you, you stand at the baby gate and scream like crazy. Begging for us to put on your shoes and take you too. You love pushing your shopping cart and dump truck outside and carrying around rocks. Sometimes you will lay on the ground and watch the tree branches sway in the wind. Super cute. You also enjoy watching cars out our porch door. Highly entertaining.
You only take one nap a day now and you still wake up at night at least once. You love for me to wrap you in a blanket when I rock you, but you don’t like your feet covered ever! You don’t like blankets on you when you sleep and you love to smoosh yourself against walls. You still hang on to my hair when you fall asleep. You also are starting to like food. You love sitting in your chair at dinner time and using a spoon. You make a mess, but at least you are finally trying real food!
You and Milo get along most of the time. Milo gets frustrated that you take all of his things and mess up his projects though. He does take care of you and cleans up some of your messes. He also shares his cars with you. You give him hugs when he is near or when he gets hurts. You pat his back and say, “K?” You let Keely hold and carry you around a lot. You even reach your arms up for her to pick you up. This just melts her. You love to greet her when she comes home from school do and you two have a special night time kiss you do that makes you giggle like crazy.
You like people a lot. You always want them to look at you and you want to show them things. You yell bye-bye to them when they walk away. You like to go places a lot. You want us to go somewhere everyday. I don’t know why though. You scream and yell at stores still. I guess you just like checking out the new scenes and people….not the boring shopping part.
I love you so much Lucas. You bring me so much joy and I love being your mommy. I want you to stay little awhile longer so slow down please. I need to cuddle with you and rock you to sleep more. I need you to run to me full speed with arms reached out and a giant smile on your face some more. I want you to be happy sitting on my lap and leaning on my shoulder for many more days to come. You have your whole life to be a big person, so let’s soak up these little one days more.
October 29, 2012
My first born baby girl is nine years old now. I can’t believe it. I remember being 9. You’ve grown and changed a lot this year. We’ve just finished a pretty good summer. We went on vacation and you spent most of your days at home swimming in our pool. You just love water–well, outside water sources anyway— and you would practically climb into any public fountain or pond if we didn’t stop you. You’re our water fairy. You’ve become a great swimmer this summer too.
Keely at nine years old is beautiful, witty, tall, and funny. You are such a great (and fast) reader and witty and a bit snarky. You sometimes want to be very grown-up and mature and other times you want to be a little kid. You are often jealous of Milo for his age and that he gets to not go to school. You two have gotten close again this summer and that has been nice.
You run around through the house and yard playing strange games that make you both laugh hysterically and scream over top of each other. You still fight a lot too though and we often have to break you two up. You both adore Lucas and fight over him constantly. Who gets the most love from him? Who does he like the best? That’s stuff is no fun. Lucas doesn’t seem to know what’s going on though. He thinks you both are pretty entertaining…until you won’t let him get in on your games or take your things.
You get very upset when you are unable to do something you want to know how to do, but you will not be patient and practice at it. You just scream and cry. That is frustrating for us all. You loose things a lot and that is always a source of much distress in our house. You get SO upset about that. Your clothing still bothers you and you return to the same few articles of clothing repeatedly. You change out your clothes throughout the day depending on what activity you will be doing. There is always piles of your stuff all over the house. You try to keep things clean and organized for about a week and then “it is just too much work to put things where they go” and you stop. You’re lucky I’m a neat-nique.
You have great style when you do want to get dressed prettily. You’ll put the greatest outfits together-complete with scarves and jewelry. It looks so awesome. I’m always taken aback when I see them. You also have a beautiful singing voice that still surprises me when I hear it. It’s just so pretty. You’ve been a fabulous singer since you were 2…and you just get better each year. You can also make up really great songs. Sometimes they are slow and melodic and other times crazy and dance club themed. All of them are pretty dang good. You’ve got a musical gift I think. You also still love to listen to certain kinds of music and get really mad if we are talking and not letting you hear it. You want to take it all in without distractions. You snag away noisy baby toys from Lucas and shush us with waving hands and screams so that you can hear the words or the instruments in songs. Classical music and women sung pop/dance songs are you favorites.
You love playing the few very old school video games that Daddy lets you play on his computer. Super Mario is your current favorite. You are good at it too. You beg for computer time.
You also love the idea of magic in the world. Fairies still hold your imagination and you so wish you could really be one and live outside and fly around wherever you wanted to. Your favorite places to go is the Koi Pond downtown.
You lay next to the water and dream. You relax and get lost in your thoughts. It one of the few times that you are calm. Nature and music speaks to you. You sometimes will dress up still when you are so inspired by a movie or book.
You think it may be too babyish to do so, but without anyone here criticizing it– you dance in the back yard in full regalia. I hope for you to never lose that. I’m glad you feel safe enough and confident enough to play still, at least at home. You still sleep with Duckie too. Your favorite beloved animal. He is looking rough, but he’s been by your side forever.
You don’t really play with any toys now. Occasionally, Barbies or Littlest Pet Shop critters will keep your attention, but mostly you like made up games. You play school a lot, where you get to make the rules and be the boss. Milo sometimes will willingly sit and be your student. Third grade was not so good for you. You had a rough time of it and it effected you and our family a lot. The stress of it all and some bullying really made for a bad time. You were a wreck. It took a few weeks of summer to get you back to being with us and being more yourself. I hope this school year is better for you. I want you to have a great fourth grade year. Thankfully, your birthday was not on the first day of school this year!
We love you so much Keely. Happy 9th birthday! I hope this year is wonderful for you.
September 7, 2012
Lucas how can you be 18 months old! I just can’t get over how fast these young ages go by. You have quite a big personality and we all just love you so much. You roam around the house freely and you have lots of little activities that you like to do. Lots of them are things we’d like for you to not do, but there is no stopping you. Any cabinet or door that is not locked, you will get into to. You love tearing up rolls of toilet paper, dumping out all the contents of drawers, removing batteries from any device, throwing dishes all over floors and stuffing straws down the heater vents. If we leave anything within your reach, your baby radar goes off and you are on it. You zoom to it to take, dump, or hide the object.
You finally are able to climb up on chairs now and, of course, then lay on top of tables. You also have learned to move big chairs where you want them and climb up anywhere you’d like to be! Fah-bu-lous. You are on our computers often banging on the keyboard and checking over your shoulder to see if we are coming. Last night, you got on daddy’s computer and had a google search up for the lyrics to “Come all Ye Faithful.” What?
You always have something in your hand. A small toy, piece of chalk, cracker, or a handful of pebbles. You study them for awhile and then just carry them around until you find a good replacement. Outside, you love our gravel pit in the playground. You pick up rocks and stuff them inside of containers, shovel them into piles, carry them, and try to sneak the tastiest looking one into you mouth. When I catch you, you spit and say, “yuck.” and look at me like I made you eat something gross. You don’t really like food still. Crackers, cookies, chips, and peas are all you actually eat. Good thing I’m a milk machine for you. You like to nurse whenever you want to. If I sit down, you zip over to me and start yelling at me. You have the loudest yell of all of our children. It is ear piercing. Thankfully, it doesn’t last too long. You often throw yourself to the floor while you scream in protest to some offense. You then run to a person who did not divert the offending behavior looking for sympathy. You usually calm down quickly.
You love markers—bright ones and unwashable ones! You eye markers whenever Keely and Milo have them and as soon as you have an opportunity to sneak one, you do. We realize you are out of sight and know right where to find you. Behind the chair in our library. You have marker all over yourself. It’s always blue, green, or red and looks very lovely covering your body. You run when find you and then point to your skin and gasp in shock at these foreign marks. You, my sweet, are a handful.
Lucas you are also so very loving and sweet. You shower us all with hugs and kisses. You like to be carried and cuddled. You pat our backs and say, “aaaaw” to us. You wrap your arms around our legs and squeeze us tightly. If anyone lays on the floor, you quickly get over there to plop down next to them and lean your head next to theirs. No one can get enough of your sweet baby love.
You don’t have too many words still. You have started making lots of animals noises lately and nature sounds like thunder and rain. You say, “daddy” a lot and “I…I….I….I”. Words aren’t your thing yet. You bring me books to read, you bring me balls to throw for you and point to the toys you want down from your shelf.
You love to get your shoes on to go outside and you like riding in your stroller when we are out and about, as long as it is outside. You and stores/shopping are a bad combination. You scream and cry and throw things and try to jump out of the cart. We hold you and you twist and squirm. It is impossible to shop. Who needs food anyway?
You love Caribou and sometimes you are gentle to him and pet and kiss him, other times you chase him relentlessly and he growls and snaps at you. You think it is just hilarious.
Your brother and sister fight over you all the time. They want your hugs, kisses, and attention and get so upset if one of them gets it and the other doesn’t. It often becomes a big issue. Thankfully, you still keep doling out the love.
Lucas, we are so thankful for having you in our lives. I feel so lucky to spend my days with you-watching you explore and receiving so much of your sweetness. You are so cute that it hurts and you are funny and all that love is just so good. I don’t know what I would do with you my baby. Thank you for being mine. You are wonderful pook-pook.
August 21, 2012
Milo you are 4 1/2 already. You’ve grown a lot in these last few months. You are starting to look less like a little kid and more like a big boy. You’re still shorter than other 4 1/2 year olds, but you look huge to me. You beautiful yellow hair and crystal blue eyes have not changed a bit though. You do have a lovely scattering of freckles across your cheeks and nose now. No matter where we go, people always tell you and I how handsome you are and they always comment on your eyes. You have gotten friendly to strangers lately. You will randomly wave at them and finally speak to them. Mostly you tell them about Lucas.
You are next to me almost all day long. With Keely in school for the whole day, I am your companion. We have a pretty good routine going now. I do some computer work while you play Playmobil, we clean up the house together, run our errands, you play with Lucas, we have lunch, maybe read some books or work on a project, each afternoon we take a nice long walk around the neighborhood, then you and Lucas have a snack together and play for a little bit, we tidy up all the played with toys and then its time for the other half of the family to come home.
You are such a good helper to me. You love to help me with my shop-finding boxes and wrapping them up. You carry stuff at the post office for me. You like to make the bed or clean up one of Lucas’s disasters to surprise me. It’s very sweet.You still give me lots of hugs and need lots of cuddles. You always will sit next to me or daddy instead of alone. You have gotten much more spastic and active recently. You have lots of energy and you run and flip and spin a lot. Jumping on furniture, running through the house, flipping on the floor….and talking.
So much talking from you. You do not stop talking all day. You follow me room to room talking and it takes you a long time to get through your stories and train of thought. Sometimes I just have to stop you because I really have to do something else and can’t listen 100 percent to the hour long explanation. I always feel bad though and try to give you some undivided attention afterwards.
You are still a sensitive boy and your feelings are easily hurt. You also get really upset when you get hurt.You want us to get rid of the offending wall, door, furniture or whatever it was that made you get hurt. If someone else knocks something over or hits anything (accidentally or on purpose) I hear you whisper and oh so quietly apologize to the thing. “I’m sorry Keely pushed you gate.” You don’t want anyone to hear you though. Lately, if I am not around when you get hurt (emotionally or physically) you will sulk and delay the crying until I see you and ask what is wrong. Then you fall to pieces in my arms. My sweet little boy.
Keely and you are almost always fighting now. We can’t leave you two alone for 5 minutes without some explosion of words. It is almost out of control. When she makes you made you go to hitting her or throwing things, both dangerous so we are always on guard. It seems like a mine field around here. I hope this passes soon or it’s going to be a very long painful summer.
Your favorite things to play right now are Playmobil and Legos. You still like little things and do that you can change, build, or make do something. You’ve lost interest in books for some reason and any schoolish activity I try with you you tell me, “Mommy, let’s just wait until I’m bigger for this stuff.” Fair enough. You do know the alphabet and letter sounds and can count pretty good. You just want to run with Lucas and build stuff. I get it.
You still love nature and spotting pretty things out in the world. You still bring me crystals (rocks) that you have found and pick me flowers. You love to chase butterflies and run to pet every dog and cat you see. You love babies and talk so sweetly to them. You adore Lucas and are so sad if you think he doesn’t like you for some reason. Lucas pets your head and says, “iiiii-ooooo” for Milo. It’s really cute, and your face lightens and you take it all in.
You say cute things still…if you want to go see a neighbor or a pet you say, “Let’s go meet such and such.” or when Lucas wakes up from a nap you say, “Can I go meet Lucas.” You call the universe, “noodle verse.” It’s bigger than the whole noodle verse. I love you more than the noodle verse. Awesome. You tell me that you are special to birds and dogs and cats. You still say “scare” when you mean “stare”. Stop scaring at me. Don’t just scare at me. You think that Madonna’s song, “I’m Going to Dress You Up in My Love.” is saying Milo instead of My Love. They are same to me.
You ask a lot of questions about how things work and I try to explain them to you, but you often tell me I’m wrong if you don’t like my explanation. You insist that the clouds are part of outer space. They are not part of our earth. You always think of things that you think would be SOOO cool and then you tell your wonderous ideas to me with a far off look on your face and little thrilled smile on your face. Your world is full of great stuff.
You like music, but you don’t like things that are too noisy. You get really mad. We can’t listen to songs too loud or be somewhere very noisy. You mood will sour fast. You don’t really sing or dance, but you listen to the words of songs.
You are a watcher and a learner, a wonderer, a dreamer, and such a beautiful little boy Milo. We are so lucky that you are part of our lives. I love you Milo.
June 4, 2012
Hey! I just got a grandma couch! There it is. We’ve had our old couch for about 10 years and it was looking sad. It was super comfy and down stuffed, but it was dumpy looking. We didn’t want to spend lots of money on a couch that our family of 5 would quickly destroy. Our living room is heavily used by all three children. The couch is their main flopping, jumping, cuddling land and there’s no getting around that. So last weekend I spotted this lovely Granny at a thrift store and it was next to a wall of windows and looked mighty fine and firm and no back cushions to get smooshed down. It was tufted, had nice lines, was in such great shape, and was cheap. We just had to get it.
Once we got it into our living room it looked MUCH golder, not cream like it did at the store. Hmm. I’m not a gold person. So now I’m trying to make it look LESS gold by removing all things yellowish from the room. How’s that working for you? said in my best Dr. Phil voice. The children have already gotten a handful of spots on this lady in the week that we’ve had it-dripping wet hair, chocolate mouth smears, over wet diaper, etc. Yepper. Welcome home Granny Couch. It’s like 50+ years old and had not a spot on it until it entered our land. Ah well. I am debating whether or not to paint the dark wood white/cream or not. Could be disastrous. I’m trying to go for a more coastal look here, not formal parlor. Hmmm.
Yes, we have much bigger problems in our home, life, and family but I go to organizing, rearranging and decorating to cope with stress. The living room is my current target.
Oh yeah, I picked up this real Herman Miller shell chair for $4.00 from the sweetest old man’s yard sale.
Awesome sauce, yes? The children also love this chair and fight over it. Thankfully, they can not ruin this one. I’m on the hunt now for two matching club style chairs that are kid proof-ish, but comfy still. The living room is in the middle of a cheap-o makeover. Stay tuned. Anyone have the tullsta chairs from Ikea? They are slip covered so I’m thinking that might work.
May 23, 2012
Lucas my boy, you are 15 months already. I can’t stand it. Please stay little longer. Well, you are physically little at least. You are only in the 15% for size. You are our smallest baby. You do have a big personality though. You are just full of life baby. You clap and “yay” us and everyone around you, anywhere that we are. Even the grumpiest souls break out into a smile and clap their hands and “yay” you in return. How nice that is for you to lighten up life for others? You wave bye to everyone too.
You don’t really talk much still, not with real words anyway. You have a pretend mimicking kind of talk you do. We’ve got no idea what you are saying, but you seem pleased with it. You have an adorable crooked little smile. Your bottom jaw goes to the side when you smile. You hair is lightening up now. You may end up being blonde too. Your eyes are just as sparkly as your siblings too.
You run at full speed through the house. Milo and you chase each other and scream while you do it. Our house is noisy. You love flopping on pillows and our couch. Anytime anyone is on the floor- you immediately run to them and lay across their head. If their head is not down, you try to push it to the floor so you can lay on it. Strange. You still pull my hair a ridiculous amount and love to hold it while you go to sleep.
You just started taking a seriously short nap in the am and a longer one in the afternoon. I think soon you’ll be down to one a day. I hope it’s a good one. You can wear your momma out. You still love to throw all the contents of every drawer on to the floor and every book of the bookcase into a heap on the floor. Sometimes you’ll just sit in front of the book case and fling books off one at time -super speedy- right over your shoulder. Fling, fling. fling.
I love how you cross your feet when you sit and when you nurse. So cute. The sweetest development this month has been kisses. You pucker your little lips and make a smooch sound as you give us kisses and you hug us so tightly and pat us on the back. I can’t get enough of that combination. It rocks. I love it. I want more. Please don’t stop. Thanks.
Food is not of interest to you still. Except tortilla chips and popcorn pieces. You’ll run for those treats. You also run to hear a song you like or people clapping. If you hear the clapping, you must join in and you look to us all to clap and yay too. You’re fun like that Lukie-Schmookie. We all call you schmook-pook and pook pook now. I can’t explain these weird names my babies get, but you just have to roll with it.
Whenever I change your clothes you think we are going somewhere and you happily assist the change and then you start waving and saying, “bye bye” until we do leave. If we don’t go anywhere, you act very confused.
Milo is sharing his toys with you now and you love playing with the giant trash trucks and pushing them around the house. You also like cups and boxes and putting things inside of them. If I leave you in your room for a minute and you don’t want to be in there, you start throwing your toys over the gate and making them bounce down the stairs. You have a lot of heavy, wood toys, so that’s a lot of fun. I can’t believe the things you can lift over the baby gate and throw. It’s comical. One day your bed will be out there.
Lucas, you are a beautiful baby who brings light into all my days. I’m glad to be your mommy. Thank you for snuggling with me at night and petting my head. Thank you for sweet kisses and forehead sucks and for leg hugs. Thank you for lifting your arms for me to carry you. Thank you for being mine little pook pook.
May 21, 2012
Keely and Ryan were on spring break last week, so I wasn’t here much. On top of that, my blog was hacked and shut down. I think it’s all back to normal now. We had a few nice outings together and the weather was pretty good. We did some beach combing and found some nature treasures.
Then we did some thrifting and flea marketing and found some vintage treasures.
I also finally tackled the make-your-own-chalkboard-paint wall in the kitchen.
It worked! It was really easy too. Now, I’m making my own wall paper on it. It’s circles this week. Ryan’s like, “Why did you draw circles all over it again? I don’t get it.”
April 16, 2012
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