Where’s the best place to showcase fresh flowers from our yard (a.k.a. weeds)?
Why, in a “flower pot,” of course!
I guess that “pot” has many uses!
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It’s not quite warm enough to be ON the water yet, but it’s definitely warm enough to be near it! The kids and I took a walk down by the lake, and we all enjoyed the view: Jimmy kept a watchful eye out for boats (in between bites of an apple that he dropped in the dirt a dozen times): While the girls preferred to walk the plank: And since we were so close to the water, we had to get SLIGHTLY closer: But there’s no such thing as “slightly” in Jimmy’s vocabulary! My adventurers don’t need an exotic location to go bushwhacking. They just need a bush!
Whaddya get when you cross a bored sister with leftover holiday gear? A bunny baby! Becky was very proud of her handiwork – and her brother! Jimmy, I can’t believe you are two years old. Part of me agrees with my mom that it seems like you’ve been in our family forever, but part of me feels like it was only yesterday I was looking into your (alert, attentive) eyes for the first time. Two is a funny age; you are part big boy, part baby. You want to do everything yourself (“Me! ME!”), but yet you still need my help with so much…although that list grows shorter by the day. You adore anything on wheels, especially if it also comes with a loud motor. You can practically spot a boat, motorcycle, plane, or bus with your eyes closed. Nothing makes you happier than to play with your daddy, your grandpas, or your sisters. Your happiest times of day are when you wake up in the morning and see your daddy, and when daddy comes home from work and you get to fly the remote control helicopter with him. You love the TV show “Bubble Guppies,” but you will happily watch any show your sisters choose. You want to do absolutely anything and everything your sisters do. You aren’t attached to any toys unless your sisters are already playing with them. You carry around not one, but now two soft, minky blankets that my mom made (or “B’s” as you call them), and insist that one “B” be draped over your head and back when you fall asleep. You enjoy being in your bed and I often see you on the video monitor just rolling silently and happily around when you wake up from a nap, playing with your blanket and a few books. You love to read books (which is a surprise to me because you wanted nothing to do with them for so long, and then one day you discovered a small Thomas the Tank Engine board book from the library and you literally loved that book to shreds, and have continued to adore books ever since). You’re becoming a very polite young man, often saying your equivalent of please, thank you, please don’t, love you, and sorry (“pee,” “tank oo,” “pee dohn,” “bub boo,” “bobby”). You like to help put toys away, or help clean the kitchen floor with the vacuum, or help wash dishes in the sink, but you oddly refuse to pick up any food that you spill or throw from your high chair. You have a fiery temper and express yourself passionately. You have the most kissable cheeks I’ve ever seen. You are a clown and love to make people laugh. You greet strangers with an infectious smile and eager, waving “HI!” that brightens everyone’s day. Quite simply, dear Jimmy, you are a JOY.
Meet my newest secret weapon in parenting: the BAGEL! Would you believe he ate that entire half bagel in one sitting? The child clearly inherited my carbohydrate addiction! Susie desperately wants to be a “mommy.” She constantly asks me what I’m wearing (down to my color underwear and whether or not I’m wearing socks) in order to determine what she will wear. She has taken to carrying a purse around, pulling out a Candyland card in lieu of a library card at the library, trying to discipline her siblings, even arranging the sheets in her bed to mimic mine. If you ask her what she wants to be when she grows up, she answers “a mommy” without hesitation. She’s always been a very careful observer of others’ habits, especially adults. It’s quite endearing to watch her mimic me, and it keeps me on my best behavior! One of these days she’s going to start raiding my closet for real (although I hope at that time she doesn’t put her pants on backwards!). Today Jimmy decided to celebrate his upcoming birthday by acting as if he’s two years old. First, he climbed out of his crib when he woke up from his nap (he’d never done that before). Next, he locked himself in his room. And then, a few hours later, opened an off-limits cupboard and stuck his hand in the sugar jar. Finally, he rounded off the afternoon by putting his hand in his brother’s very dirty diaper that I had just removed. Needless to say, his hands got washed several times today. As my sister-in-law told me when I informed her of his antics, “Welcome to the world of boys!” Good thing he’s such a cute almost-two-year-old!
The girls haven’t been taking naps for quite a few months now, really ever since they started afternoon preschool a couple days a week and weren’t napping on those days. I thought I would desperately miss having them sleep in the afternoon, but it’s worked out well. They used to sleep from 2-4 or 5 and then lie awake in their beds until 10 or 10:30 at night, which wasn’t ideal. Now, they play in their beds for 1-2 hours and then usually fall asleep very soon after they’re put to bed around 8:30. I still have the downtime in the afternoon where they’re out of my hair (well, other than repeatedly jogging upstairs to tell them to keep their voices down for their brothers’ sakes), and they’re less groggy in the morning because they fall asleep earlier at night. It wasn’t a seamless transition, because it took a while for the evening grumpiness to wear off when they stopped napping, but on the whole, it’s working out for everybody. And one bonus is that I get to be entertained by their imaginative antics while confined to their beds in the afternoon. Yesterday I went in to get them up, and I found them both sitting in large boxes (that I had placed in their beds earlier, per their request). Susie gleefully announced, “Look! We’re Jack-in-Boxes”!
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