Three

(Upon rereading this post I see that it’s mostly
just a crazy jumble of thoughts. I’m going to leave it as is,
but read at your own risk :) )

Have I posted about three before? If so, it’s a long year
so I’m going to go ahead and post again. I guess we could call
this “three and three quarters” to be a little more precise. Or
not. Whatever. Anyway, three is a funny age. He’s so smart and
so capable that it’s easy to forget he’s just a little kid.
Sometimes he seems so big and grown-up, then I seem him with a
bunch of other kids and he still looks like a baby. I think
sometimes my expectations of him are very high. He can fully
dress himself, including outdoor clothes (needs help with the
mittens, but that’s understandable!). He’s fully potty-trained
and can do the whole thing on his own with little to no help
from us. He can read and he’s starting to make recognizable
pictures (he drew an awesome fish the other day!). He can write
some letters too, but seems very resistant to the whole concept
of writing. He must get that from daddy, ’cause I can write all
day! :) He also has an amazing memory and can recite books and
his new Thomas the Train DVD for hours. HOURS, I tell ya!! Book
recitals are calm and mellow, but Thomas recitals involve
complicated walking around patterns, usually involving climbing
over things and circling around me. They also involve lots and
LOTS of repetition, in both motion and words. He does a great
job of getting the inflection and storytelling emphasis right.
I sometimes find myself yelling at him to sit still and stop
talking because he isn’t really saying anything, just “telling
me” the Thomas story. It usually starts with “Mom! In my new
Thomas the Train DVD…” and goes from there. Whew! I get
exhausted just thinking about it. Despite (or because of? who
knows) his ability to remember everything under the sun, his
imagination is really coming through lately too. The other day
he made a “really terrible accident” in the living room that
involved all of his cars and trucks, lots of toys, doggies,
blankets, etc. Then he built the firetruck floor puzzle and
“drove” the firetruck over to help at the accident. Slowly the
cars and other items untangled and came over to admire the
firetruck. It was a long involved game that kept him busy and
relatively quiet for awhile, with the occaisional requests for
“mom! come see this really terrible accident!” I like the
mostly quiet kind of games :) For some reason he seems to be
regressing slightly in some areas. Not sure why. He claims he
can no longer put on his own winter jacket, he consistently
puts his boots on the wrong feet (after knowing right from left
for a long time now!) and he started using the little potty
again and not emptying it, after using the toilet for quite
awhile. I think the potty thing might be because Eve is using
the potty a lot (although she always wants to use the toilet
like Lex), but I can’t figure out the dressing thing. He also
gets super frustrated by things like inside-out sleeves on his
PJs. It occurred to me the other day that he (and probably most
3yr olds) could accomplish so much more if they were able to
focus. When I get Lex to sit still for a split second and look
at his PJs he is able to straighten them out easily, but he
just gets flustered and moves so quickly that he can’t handle
it. Must be an odd feeling being three. It seems like he has so
much energy he can barely slow himself down, but then,
suddenly, it’s gone and he drops. Crazy. Lucky for me he has
been super, super sweet at bedtime and quiet time. I am sooooo
happy that we don’t have to fight the bedtime battle anymore
(well, with Lex anyway. Eve is becoming more difficult in that
area :/ ) It’s like he’s finally starting to appreciate that
his body needs rest. Ahh… ok, I’m done now. In summary: Lex
is an amazing kid. I couldn’t ask for a more perfect son!

The
accident

The wild
man who caused the accident

The
rescue scene

Go Navy!

As most of you probably know, my little
sister joined the Navy today! (Alan keeps reminding me that she
joined many months ago, but she WENT today!). It’s exciting,
but a little scary. I hope she has fun. We’re all super proud!
Please send love and thoughts and prayers her way.

If you’re interested, here are two YouTube
videos she sent me about Navy bootcamp. The whole thing is
about 30 minutes. I think it’s pretty cool.

Part 1 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdHt56NdERo
Part 2 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYREP-35Ylk

We love you Joyce!!!!!

22 months

Eve is 22 months today and just told me
that she needed to pee on the potty! Yay! Happy 22 months to
her. Her 2nd birthday is sneaking right up on me! It occurred
to me the other day that this is how old Lex was (plus a week)
when Eve was born. Crazy! Here’s a picture of a 22mo old Lex.
He looks like such a baby!

Potty training

Alan is bathing the kids (yay!) so I’m
going to sneak in a quick blog post! Eve has been wearing
underwear most of the time for several days now. She’s really
in to it and gets super excited when she pees on the potty. She
doesn’t do a perfect job, but she’s making great progress.
Today we went to the store and to Michelle’s house (first time
we’ve left the house all week!) and Eve got mad when I put her
in a diaper. I’m not brave enough to take her in the car with
no diaper just yet! She went diaper-free at Michelle’s house
and did great!

Since it’s January and cold, the diaper-free
thing has made for some interesting outfits. She won’t wear
pants over her underwear, but seems ok with sweaters and hats
and mittens. Silly girl. I got a bag of clothes from freecycle
last week with a few skirts and dresses and those have been
handy in our efforts. The whole process has been pretty
different from our experience with Lex. I’m curious if she’ll
continue down this path to potty trained, or if we’ll stall and
be in diapers for awhile longer. Time will tell… :)

Daddy bee

Eve has put herself in charge of keeping
track of everything and every one in our life. She frequently
asks where people are, including Aunt Joyce and “uncle bama!”
Her preferred question is “Where is daddy be?” (you can replace
daddy with just about anything because she tries to keep track
of everything!) We’ve stared talking about Daddy Bee and Doggie
Bee and Lex Bee and Mommy Bee. :) She laughs and we laugh and
all is good. Buzz buzz.

Fun in the snow

Here is a little video from today. I
wanted Lex to go down the slide in the front, but instead he
sent the shovel down that way and he went down the other slide.
Eve loved the slides but couldn’t figure out how to get herself
to the top, so she could only play when I picked her up and put
her at the top. The snow is so deep I don’t think she could
climb up there anyway.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3QQsYydFWI]

Love in the snow

We had a very, very snowy day today. It
came down in big flakes all day! We were cozy warm inside and
everyone was happy. Good times. The most noteworthy thing for
today though, is that Eve said “I love you” to me!! :) She’s
said it to Aunt Joyce and says it all the time to Alan
(“Where’s daddy? Love daddy”) but so far has never said it to
me. Today I said, “I love you, Eve” and she said “I love you”
with a big grin! Good enough for me! It made me happy all day.
Silly little things, but important nonetheless.

This is
from a few days ago when we went out to play on a sunny
day.

We went
out in the big falling snow today to shovel the driveway. Every
time I shovel the driveway (for the past 3 winters!) I have a
secret fantasy that one of my neighbors with a snowblower will
offer to help. They’re always out there with their snowblowers
and I’m shoveling snow as fast as I can in a desperate effort
to get the driveway clear before one of the kids ends up in
tears. Well today my neighbor across the street offered to
help!! I was thrilled! I had most of the driveway done when he
came out, but he did the end of the driveway where I didn’t get
to last time and where the snowplow creates mountains of dirty
snow…. basically the hardest part. He also did some around
the mailbox and up one side so we could get the other car out.
Very cool!! With his help I even had time to shovel off the
porch and take a walk with the kids up the street to “check on
the fire hydrant.” And we made it back inside with NO TEARS!
Good times!

This is
from today. Not so sunny, but still lots of
fun.

I like
that they are little enough to appreciate a snowbank slide. We
don’t even own sleds and they don’t even know it. Lex made this
slide (and another on the other side of the garbage can and a
third on the other side of the driveway) and they both had a
blast with them.

PS. I have to say that I really don’t mind
shoveling the driveway. I like to complain about it, but I also
like doing it :) Good calorie burn! The snowblowers are loud
and stink like gasoline, so even if we could afford one we
probably wouldn’t buy one. I told Alan my story today and he
said someday we will have a quiet, non-stinky electric one.
I’ll be shoveling until then :)

PSS. I’m
currently using 99% of my available photo space for blogger.
I’m gonna have to figure something else out pretty quick or no
more photos!

Still here

Still here, super tired, will post lots of
fun and exciting stuff and amazing pics… someday… when I
find out where I left all my energy! We had a nice visit from
Alan’s family for his birthday yesterday and Joyce was here for
lots of days. Yay! I promise to post more, just a little
overwhelmed with life lately and the blog (among other things)
seems to be suffering for it. G’night for now.

Little Boxes

words and music by Malvina
Reynolds

Little boxes on
the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky
tacky,
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes all the same.
There’s a green one
and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow
one,
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

And the people in the houses
All went to the
university,
Where they were put in boxes
And they came out all the same,
And there’s
doctors and lawyers,
And business executives,
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky
And
they all look just the same.

And they
all play on the golf course
And drink their martinis
dry,
And they all have pretty children
And the children go to school,
And the children
go to summer camp
And then to the university,
Where they are put in boxes
And they come out
all the same.

And the boys go into
business
And marry and raise a family
In
boxes made of ticky tacky
And they all look just the
same.
There’s a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they’re
all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just
the same.

http://www.wku.edu/~smithch/MALVINA/mr094.htm

A footnote at the bottom says, “The term “ticky tacky” is
now included in the Oxford English Dictionary, and credited to
Malvina.”

Watch Pete Seeger perform
“Little Boxes” here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AN3rN59GlWw

I am the dairy-O!

One of the best parts of parenting is
listening to the kids sing. It’s sweet and funny all at once. I
was laughing to myself the other day as both kids were singing
(to themselves, not together) the theme song to the show Weeds.
Anyone ever watch that? We saw it on Netflix and I don’t know
how old it is, but it’s a show about a pot-dealing housewife.
It has a great theme song and Alan discovered that it settles
Eve right down. Now both of the kids know it by heart and I
sometimes wonder what people are thinking when the kids burst
into song (that song anyway) in public. Lex has also taken a
liking to a song from his new Thomas the Train DVD. He sings
the sone (a lot!) and speaks the words (“I’m saying a poem!”)
and even and spent a fair amount of time yesterday teaching me
the words. Eve will randomly burst into “I am the dairy-O!”
(hi-ho the dairy-o) but she doesn’t know all the words so it’s
usually just that line over and over. She’s pretty good at the
alphabet song these days. As part of our new, mostly successful
bedtime routine, Eve and I snuggle in the big brown chair in
her room and I sing her a few songs before putting her in bed.
Today I brought her up for a nap and found all of the beds
stripped (Alan was cleaning!!), so I put her down and started
making the beds. She climbed up into the chair and said “do
self, sing self!”, then started singing the Weeds song (“little
boxes”) and the alphabet, the two songs we typically sing. She
sat there happily singing herself bedtime songs until I got
done with the sheets and cuddled with her. I love their
singing! Can you tell? :)