Dear William,
On November 8, 2016, you turned 59 months old. You are 47 1/2″ tall and weigh 52 pounds. You are wearing boys size “small” shirts, size 6 in pants and shorts, size 13 1/2 EW shoes. You are in size 7 or 8 pajamas for the length.
Things we did this month:
10/9 – Photo session at the Park (our photographer didn’t show up, so we used the timer and the handle of our wagon)
10/22 – Big Bear weekend
10/28 – Winnie the Pooh Party (city’s community center) — Painting pumpkins, storybook time, song, 2 games, favor bags, candy, snack time, lots of interaction with the party leaders.
10/29 – Halloween party at Dr. Werlin’s — picture, bouncy house, Costume Parade, balloon animal
11/4 – Super Heroes Party (city’s community center) — Right on target with the vet outfit! another child is wearing fireman outfit, etc. 1st project was to make a police vest out of a paper bag. Only about 10 kids. Surprise was a visit from fire dept. Firetruck & 4 firemen.
11/5 – Big Bear weekend
11/8 – US Presidential Election (Hillary Clinton/Donald Trump)
Recurring things: Library (Spanish and English)
Quick Interview:
Name: William
Age: I’m 4
DOB: Is it on day 6? Day 4? Which day is it on? Day 8?
How old is mommy? I don’t know.
How old do you think I am? I think you’re 5.
Favorite color? Red
Favorite food? Chicken nuggets
Best friend? My best friend? Is… Awana Club… the kids in Awana Club.
Favorite TV show? It’s Scooby Doo
Favorite movie? It’s Scooby Doo
Favorite song? Scooby Scooby Doo coming after you… and Everything is AWESOME (Lego movie) (He sang these enthusiastically…)
Favorite animal? Froggy
What are you scared of? Monsters
What makes you happy? Ice Cream!
Things I want to remember:
The weather has fluctuated this fall, we’ve had some crazy thunder & lightning storms one day and the next unseasonably hot. We were outside on one of the hot days and you exclaimed, “It’s hot here. Someone needs to turn on the AC!”
On one of the rainy days, you woke up feeling grumpy and you told your Grandma D. that rain is boring. Yet when I called you a bit later, you were outside wearing your rain boots and squealing with laughter as you tried to stomp the puddles and splash your grandma.
One Saturday, we had been out and about and there was an incident that involved you not listening and getting in trouble. As you took your bath, you were apparently reviewing your day in your head and you said to me, “Today was like a banana. There was one bad spot in it but overall it was good.”
One night, you were begging for dessert and I informed you that the food on the table was all the food we had in the house. You looked very worried for a few seconds until you looked at my face and then you tentatively said, “Uh, you’re just kidding, right?”
You’ve been in the “bath tub painting phase” this month, and one night I heard this from you while you were madly mixing paints in there, “What happens if you mix up red and blue paint? It makes fresh and fruity paint. And if you mix up red and blue and pink…. uh, it looks like it makes brown, just like this brush I’m using.” (Your brush had a brownish handle to it.)
While you take your bath is when I typically undertake upstairs chores. Ever since your “lost” incident at Saddleback Church, you’ve had an issue with letting me or your father out of your sight. Even when you’re in a safe place, like your bath tub. It’s been a bit of a challenge for us, and I’ve tried stretching the time. I’ll start with, “Hey, I’ll be right back, I’m just getting my water.” Hurry out, hurry back. Then, “I’ll be back in 2 minutes, I’m just going to get my pajamas on.” And so on and so forth. One night I was taking too long and you started making a terrible screechy growly noise. I went back to you and asked you not to make that noise and explained that I was almost done. Apparently I took too long again, because I heard you say, “Uh, mommy, come back or I’m going to make that awful noise again!”
Another night you were having a tough time and you sweetly asked me to sing to you while you took your bath and I moved about doing my chores.
One night, you were tossing and turning, having trouble going to sleep. I checked on you, gave you extra snuggles and you explained, “My mind is tired but my body is thirsty. That’s why I’m having trouble sleeping.” You were having trouble finding your water, so I handed it to you.
You love to ask Siri on your iPod to show you pictures of kittens and puppies. You also like to see pictures of “Toy Story.”
On Halloween you came to my work and trick-or-treated. You were the only kid I saw who did that, and everyone had loads of candy. Some people had none, but the ones who did made up for the ones who didn’t. One of my co-workers dressed up like the Joker and you found him to be a little disturbing. He was really good at playing his character, and at one point, he got in the elevator to return to his cubicle on the 3rd floor, and he laughed loudly as the door shut. You stared at him. When it was time for you to leave, I called the elevator and it opened and you bemusedly said, “The Joker isn’t on the elevator any more. You just never know where he’ll show up!” Then the next day, your grandma D. couldn’t find the cinnamon in my spice cabinet. You told her, “Don’t worry, Grandma, it will pop up somewhere, like the Joker!” But when I told you that the Joker had won the Halloween costume contest, you started crying. You told me you didn’t want the Joker to win the contest because he was scary.
Trick-or-treating in the neighborhood, a family with 18 month old triplets came along. You trick-or-treated with them at a couple of houses, and at one house, they were too scared to go to the door because of the decorations. You told them, “That’s OK, I will give you some of my candy.” And so you pulled candy out of your pumpkin and put it in all three of their pumpkins.
In your Scooby Doo costume, running from door to the door to trick-or-treat, you said, “My tail is waggin’.”
At the park with Grandma D., you and 4 or 5 other kids were on the merry-go-round, and when it slowed, you would “fake fall” off of it. Several of the other children started doing it, too, and it freaked their parents out. After awhile, several of the kids who were pushing the merry-go-round left to go to lunch with their parents, and as is the way, they didn’t say goodbye, they just left. Pretty soon, the merry-go-round came to a stop. The riders (including you) looked at each other in confusion and finally you spoke up and said, “Who’s going to push us now?”
After a tough night at Awanas the prior week (pushing), the next week you were the exact opposite. You were putting down sand for one little boy to rake up (he wanted to rake haha), and when the leader told you it was time to go inside, you helped pick up sand toys and told another little boy that he could lead the line inside with you, since you were first in line. Then when the teacher randomly decided to choose someone as the line leader (she’d never done that before), you were upset for a minute and then you went to the little boy (it was the same boy you’d been nice to) and you asked him if you could hold his hand. I was so impressed with the way you resolved your problem, and what was the teacher going to do? You were peaceful, you solved a problem that was caused by her, so… she said, “Oh, that’s a good idea.” And let it pass.
One day, your father sat down and closed his eyes and you said, “daddy’s sleeping already!”
We surprised you with a visit to the park one day, and your response was epic, “I never planned on this park!! I love this park!”
We finally found you your own die cast Mazda Miata, and before you opened the package, you were waving the car around saying, “Get me out of here!!” When I looked back at you, you explained, “Oh, oh. That’s the car talking…”
Funniest nursing moment to date… when we travel, I co-sleep with you. It alleviates your fears of sleeping in a different place. With the time change last weekend (from daylight savings time to standard time), you woke early. Of course you did. You were on the other side of the bed from me, and in the dark room you shouted, “MOMMY!! MOMMY!!” I reached my hand out and flopped it on you and you instantly quieted and rolled toward me. I was on my side, facing away from you, and I felt your little hands feel my back, quickly patting them over my shoulder blades. I thought for a second you were just making sure I was there, but then In a frantic, slightly panicked voice, you said, “Where did my nah-nahs go???”
You like to make up jokes with your own punchlines. One of the funniest was a situation that was a couple weeks in the making. Your father made a pretty big decision this past month. He was flown to another state for a job interview, and they made him a job offer. Subsequently he spent a week or so evaluating, thinking, researching, agonizing, praying, discussing, about whether this was the right decision for our family, and the right opportunity for him in his career. He went up to the mountains to work with his dad on a project with the cabin, and you and I drove up the next day. When we go up to the cabin, we do not have Internet access, so we use the data on my phone plan. He still needed to research some things, so I made a hotspot on my phone and “loaned” him my data, which used it all up. He ultimately ended up declining the job offer in the other state and transferred within his current company to another account. The provided him with a new iPhone 7 with data/hotspot capabilities. The next trip to the mountains, I had some projects I was working on that required internet access. So I was perpetually asking your father to make me a hotspot. This went on all weekend long, because inactivity causes the hotspot to expire. Your father started getting exasperated with me… erroneously so, since he was the violator in the first place. Anyway , driving down the mountain, we kept getting stuck in construction traffic and I asked, “Can you give me a hotspot?” You, from the back seat, in an exasperated voice says, “No, mommy, he CANNOT give you a hot spot. But I can give you some hot SAUCE.” And then you laughed and laughed.
Another of your jokes, one morning you had your Grandma D. send me a text message saying “You can have a grilled cheese sandwich for breakfast. Bahahahaaaahaa That’s a joke, mommy.”
Upon waking one morning, you said, “You know what would be fun? Finding fish and playing games with them.” I pointed out, somewhat validly, I thought, “I’m not sure how well that would work… they have to have water to breathe!” You replied, “Oh, that’s ok, I’ll put them in a fish tank and play games with them.”
After we returned from Big Bear, Grandma D. sent me this text, “We hiked to Big Bear…his room. He brought one cheese stick & no water for our weekend here. But brought his bag of toys!”
On our way to the freeway on-ramp, we were driving past the fence in the center meridian by the skate park, you observed randomly from your seat, “Whoa! That fence is going very fast there.”
I’m not sure of the significance of this conversation, but I think things like this are kind of funny, especially if they do become significant later in time:
One day, with the presidential election looming on the country’s horizon, I told you, “When you grow up, you could be president.” You replied, “No, thank you.” I asked, “Really? No, thank you? Why not?” You replied somewhat curtly, “I don’t want to be president when I grow up. ”
And finally, after all these conversations we’ve had about your birthday and the upcoming holidays, and your displays of braveness and the adamant ways you phrase things, you asked me quietly one night as I snuggled you to sleep, “Am I going to be all grown up at the end of the year? Will I still be a little boy ” I told you that you will always be my little boy. And I will tell you here that I don’t really know how these things work, but I know my friends I talk to tell me that “boys love their mommies” and that even 9 year old boys like to snuggle. So, I think we have a few years left of you being a little boy.
Love you forever,
Mommy
Pictures from this month can be found here: Link
Jammie J's Quest 