1 month of Bodily Fluids

Welcome to the world little boy! We’ve been getting to know you the last few weeks and honestly, I don’t know how I thought our family was complete without you. So far you are a little squishy monkey who likes to stay up late and stare at walls. Of course the moment after you were born you pooped on me, so that was fun, but at the time it didn’t really bother me. Since then we’ve been getting to know each other. 

You have a mostly laid back personality, but are really keen on being held and only last so long on your own in a chair or during tummy time. You have decided you like the swing but that chair is still evil if you have to sit in it for more than 5 minutes. You are a cross between your sister and your brother so far. Your sister didn’t like being cuddled and wanted to always see out and you are definitely like that sometimes, but I figure you are working on your neck muscles and you will still let us cuddle you sometimes too.

You have fussy time at bedtime and it can last up to 2 hours, where you want nothing more than to be walked around and held, luckily for me, your dad is home and likes to hold you so I can get myself ready for bed so that I can get my first 3 hours of sleep that night. Oh if only I get more than 3 hour stretches of sleep. During the day you can sleep up to 4 and half hours, but night time I’m always trying to push you to 3 hours of sleep. If you start fussing I won’t let you wake up until it’s been at least close to 3 hours. I’m the worst.

I wanted to take a picture of you every day, but I don’t know where all the time goes, but I don’t have a picture from every day, but I do have some good ones. Hopefully you don’t change too fast.

I’m so glad you’re here, you’re the bestest new little buddy and I heart you to pieces.

Love,

Mama

8 Years of Pink

Well little girl, you finally made it to 8. You’ve started second grade and just got baptized. You are a little Mathlete since math is your favorite subject, which makes your accountant mama very happy.

I’m so proud of you for choosing to be baptized and it was a very special day that you let us share with your baby brother for his blessing.

You’ve started playing the piano over the summer and I’m impressed by how well you are already doing. You have a problem counting, but you probably get that from me, since your grandma was always yelling at me that I needed to count. Wow, I am just like my mother now!

You’ve become a great big sister to your littlest brother and you want to hold him and carry him around and read to him all the time, it’s nice to have a little helper!

You are “crazy” about My Little Ponies, which are totally different from when I was a girl, but I’m glad that you like them just like I did.

You are developing your own sense of style, which is sometimes a little bit crazy for my tastes, but you love to wear arm warmers, long skirts with pants and jackets.

It’s been a great 8 years; I’m excited to see what the next 8 have in store for you. But don’t be a teenager. Not sure I can handle that.

Love you,

Mama

4 Years of Putting the Blanket Back on You

Just last Saturday marked your 4^th year on this planet. This year it was hot, 4 years ago it snowed and I was sure the nurses would turn us away when we got to hospital to be induced. This day was much more laid back, being the weekend of memorial day but getting ready for a party is never easy for me, but we got your Sonic the Hedgehog decorations and the balloons and I made a silly Sonic cake that I saw on Pintrest and it turned out decently. As I reflect on the past year it’s been rocky, your meltdowns come frequently and intensely. We’ve started some therapy and you’re now in a therapeutic preschool that is trying to help you figure out how to express your feelings without throwing, screaming and hitting. Just this morning while your sister threw a fit about not being about to undo the knot in her shoe you told her to “ask for help” and I was a proud mama.

Now to the good: You’re finally potty trained! You were almost there for so long, but now it’s real and even with very minor accidents you are mature enough to tell me right away! Can I just tell you how many times I declared “this is the last box of diapers that I will buy!” at least 3, but the last time stuck since I said you could start wearing cloth again during the day and use the disposable ones at night until they ran out. You did not like wearing the “baby diapers” and I think that helped, I also think your new babysitter pushed you more than I would have knowing that things I did at home might not translate to what you did when you were apart from me, but she took the initiative to put you in underpants during the day and you liked being a big boy. Now we are even having dry nights, it’s a magical thing!

You’ve matured a lot and I’m amazed when I look at you how big you are, you were just my little baby a few weeks ago, I swear! Now you have a backpack and ride a bus to preschool.

Eating is still not fun, for either one of us (unless it’s me sneaking cookies while no one is looking) but at your doctor appointment, you were average height and while still low on your weight, not to the point that the doctor was concerned. But lately you’ve stopped eating your favorite meal of the day – breakfast. Not all the time, just most of the time, and I think it might be that if someone isn’t at the table being social with you or at times, feeding you, you just don’t eat. Ugh, kid, you are 4 now, you can eat cereal and oatmeal on your own now, okay?

Your coordination has gotten better and you can get dressed and put on your own shoes and ride your scooter, but of course it’s much more fun to yell at me about how I’m not getting your shoes on while you run away and hide. But still. And drawing, you draw people with arms and legs and faces, but mostly we get monsters; that is your specialty.

You have 10 imaginary big brothers that live in the North Pole with Santa. They are giants and can walk through walls and do all kinds of things. Some day when you want to be big and strong, you will eat broccoli, since that is how your brothers grew to be giants, but at the moment you say you just want to stay the same size, no growing for you, which is why you refuse to eat any healthy food whatsoever. While moms all say they never want you to grow up, we do goes nuts over the whole “I’m not eating anything so I can stay in my 3T clothes forever” thing.

With all the dramaz you create, you also love so very much. You are the sweetest thing sometimes and tell me how beautiful I am and how much you love me. You want nothing more than to be best friends with me and your sister. Of course that can create tension when our lives don’t than revolve around you. Currently you are often found sneaking out of your bedroom to cuddle with Hayley at bedtime and I often find you snoozing together and I have to take you back to your bed or your sister will crush you with her flailing limbs.

You are excited to be the big brother and are very impatient for the new brother to get here because you’d like to play with him now thank-you-very-much and so we talk about how much more time the baby needs to grow (oh just about forever and I can’t count the days yet because my brain doesn’t comprehend that large of a number) but you are very good with the ~1 year old at the sitter so I’m hoping that while you already act like a middle child that syndrome won’t surface for awhile and I can get some rest between the meltdowns and the baby stuff.

It’s been a tough year but I think we’ve grown and hopefully we’ll have the tools to face the future in a better way. I heart you my little boo bear and look forwards to many more sloppy kisses!

 

Love, mama