Category Archives: Letter to William

Dear William,

On December 8, 2016 you turned 5 years or 60 months old. You are 52 pounds, 47 1/2 inches tall, according to the doctor’s office measurements. However, you show as being 48 1/2 inches tall on all the theme park measuring signs, possibly due to your shoes? Your sizing is running as Boys Small in shirts. You are size 8 in pajamas. You are in between pants sizes, the Boys 4/5 size is too short, but the Boys 6/7 size is too long.

Things we did this month:

This past month has been a whirlwind of activities for us. It’s always this way for us the last two months of the year, because we have an obsession to go to theme parks and visit Santas.  Earlier this year, you were obsessed with finding out if Santa was real, and we bought a book that talked about the history of Santa and who he was, and yet now you tell me one day that he’s real and the next day you tell me he’s not.

On 11/13, we hung out for a couple of hours after family breakfast with my friend, Lynne, and her son Joseph. You played with his toys and loved having a boy your age to hang out with.

On 11/14, you started attended pre-school two times a week. It’s really informal and is play based learning.

On 11/24, we visited your great aunt’s house for Thanksgiving. Both of your second cousins were there (Fiona and Griffin). You had a FABULOUS time exploring their house and playing with them. You have a bit of an issue with “play-roaring” and these guys are about half your size and a quarter of your age, so we were constantly reeling you back from roaring at them.

On 11/25, we visited the Queen Mary and participated in their Chill event.

On 11/26, we went to Sea World and had breakfast with Santa.

On the evening of 11/26, we went to LegoLand and stayed at their hotel, and the next day, Sunday, 11/27, we went to Legoland.

Classes:

Preschool:   You are the 8th child to join this little preschool group, and it’s almost as if they were waiting for you to complete them. You’ve changed their dynamics a bit and there’s been a few times the teacher has needed to correct one of the other children in the group on their attitude and handling anger.  There is only one other little boy in the group. I’m grateful for this opportunity and hope that things mesh for you and the other kids.  I think this is a necessary change for you.  Along with you beginning preschool, your interest in writing has soared. Your little train table that we bought you for your 2nd birthday has been used less and less, and it’s just been taking up space on the upper landing. You asked if you could convert it to a writing table. I said, “Sure.” You went to my desk and scoured the drawers for envelopes and paper and … I let you have a few envelopes, but then took you to Walmart and bought you your own box for $1. I gave you your own marker and pencil holder and gave you some notepads. We’ve now been finding letters everywhere, stuffed in envelopes. The writing is really long W’s and M’s, but there’s interest!

Also, when I was writing out Christmas cards over the weekend this past week, you said you wanted to sign your name in them. So, you sat yourself down, I gave you a choice of three colors to write with, you chose purple. You made an X and an O and put that at the top of the verse, then you drew a duck, either on land or in water, or for a select few, you drew a snowman.  As the finale, you wrote your name at the bottom. The first few you wrote, I reminded you of the order of the letters of your name, by the end, you were saying the order yourself. You have a little trouble with the “a” in your name, you write it like a square.  You’re also holding your pen (or pencil) more correctly, too.  I am so proud of you.

For the first class at preschool, you were not feeling “safe”, you would do your drawing and art, but check every few minutes to make sure grandma was still there. After a few times, you were OK with grandma leaving, however, you did tell me that you liked it better when grandma stayed.

At one of the classes, the teacher was reading a book about a mouse gathering food for winter. Children gave examples…corn, etc. You volunteered, “brussel sprouts!”

At one of the classes, the mom who was supposed to TA called in that her child was sick. So Grandma stayed and you were pleased about that. I got the following updates via text message, “William is playing in the sand & girls are doing a table activity….string beads. They did turkey songs earlier. One was real cute, I thought.” After a bit, “He’s doing the beads now. Guess he had to observe first.” And then, “William is giving tractor rides today. He’s pulling a ride-on tractor around the yard, giving a tour, the same tour for each rider, each girl taking turns.”

Awanas:  I brought the pumpkin pie for the “before Thanksgiving” class and tasked you with helping to serve the other students. You were happy to help serve and you were particularly excited about the whip cream.

Things I want to remember:

After our weekend in Big Bear, you started a game at home with your Grandma D. called “Hiking to Big Bear.” You drew a map and packed a bag. I got 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!”

Heading to dinner one night, we were driving past the fence in the center meridien, and you looked up from your book and drolly said, “Whoa! That fence is going very fast there!”

A conversation about your future went like this:
Me: When you grow up, you could be president.
William: No, thank you.
Me: No, thank you? Really?
William: I don’t want to be president when I grow up. People don’t like the president.

Your Grandma D. came over one Saturday afternoon and when she walked in the house, you got up from your play and grabbed her hand to escort her right back out the front door. You said, “No, Grandma! Don’t ruin my weekend!” Thankfully, your Grandma D. has a pretty good sense of humor, she just thought it was funny.

You woke up in the middle of the night one night and cried out for me. Concerned, I went to you and asked you what was wrong. You replied, “I’m sorry, but, uhhh, my neck is thirsty and I couldn’t find my water.”

After swimming one evening, we were getting our things together. You went over and waited by the gate to leave and I heard you saying, “I have two shadows, isn’t that strange. I have TWO shadows!” Sure enough, the way the lights were behind you, you did indeed have two shadows on the wall.

One night after dinner at Red Robin, you were carrying your balloon around outside and spotted a bunny rabbit in the shrubs. You froze and stared at her. I took a picture, but couldn’t get the exposure right, so I took another one. You were still frozen, so I thought you were trying not to scare the rabbit away, that you were enjoying looking at the rabbit. So I just kept taking pictures, playing with my camera. I finally paused, and I heard you say in a voice laden with boredom, “Are you done taking your pictures yet?”

There was an amazing full moon this past month. The biggest ever, they said. It seems they always say that. But it was fun to make a big deal of it.  The first night, I packed a simple picnic and took you to the Awesome Park. We sat under the super moon and ate our fare. Then we climbed and played and ran a lap. You thought that was pretty fun to be out when everyone else was asleep (at 6:30 pm haha).

The next night, we decided to take our telescope to the park in the community next to us. Our telescope is in a backpack and you wanted to wear it. It was pretty big on you, even after I adjusted the straps. As we walked, I heard you saying something repeatedly, but I couldn’t hear you. I asked you what you were saying, you stopped and said, “The back pack is spanking my butt!!” With every step you took, it was smacking your behind, and you were saying, “Spanking my butt. Spanking my butt.” Hilarious!

You have been so affectionate this past month. Full of kisses and hugs and lots of, “I love you so much, mommy.” You have been very concerned about my “love bank” and making sure that it’s filled up.

In light of this new affection, you have also been a little more able to let me do my chores and you’re not so scared to let me out of your sight.  When you’re in the bathtub, after a few minutes, you will call out, “MommY?” I reply, “Yes, William.” You say, “I love you, mommy.” And that’s it. This is a lot less tethered than things have been the last couple of months. I’m glad you’re feeling safe again.

One day, I told you I’d bitten my lip three times that day and it was really sore. I showed you the inside of my lip where it was all bitten up. You were so sad for me. Later that evening you asked if I’d had a good day. I told you that I’d had a great day! You replied, “How did you have a great day if you bit your lip so many times?”

We’ve had a lot of fun the past couple months with the “mummy” and “mommy” word similarity. With Halloween having passed, you were saying, “That’s a mummy!” I would reply, “No, I’m your mommy.” You would so, “No!!! That’s a mummy!” I would say, “No, I’m your MOMMY!” And you would say, “NO! A mummy is wrapped in toilet paper!” or “A mummy has bandages.” It’s so funny to see you define the difference to me.

We went through some old photo albums this month. I was showing you pictures of our cats when they were kittens. In one of them, I was holding Tug. Surprised, you asked, “Is that young mommy?” I answered, “Yes, it is.” You looked at that picture, then you looked at me. You snuggled into my arm and said, “I like old mommy better.”

I felt a certain amount of success about shielding you from one of the hideous cartoons of all time. You saw a picture of Spongebob and said, “A cracker! Look it’s a cracker!”

One afternoon, you and I were hiking up the stairs. You had your hand drawn map and your hiking stick. We encountered a mountain lion (Snuggy) and a wild bird (Yoda, our parrotlet). Thankfully, we made it to Big Bear safely!

Driving away from our house to go to dinner one night, you were “reading” the comics in the newspaper. Your father asked, “Is that our porch light on or the neighbor’s?” I replied, “It’s the neighbor’s. Their porch light drives me crazy!” From behind your newspaper, I hear you say, “Me, too.”

One evening, your father was having issues with swallowing and kept coughing. Exasperated, your father said, “I need to figure out why I keep choking!” You replied, “OK, fine. We’ll take you to the hospital.”

We were getting ready to go to an all day event. You wandered in the kitchen and asked what I was doing. I replied, “I thought I’d pack you a lunch for today…” You replied, “Oh, instead of daddy spending money on something I don’t like?”

Watching Rudolph, with the snow monster, you said “That didn’t scare me because it’s not 3D.” (When we were at Legoland, you asked to see one of the Lego Movies there, but it’s a 4D experience. You were not thrilled.)

One morning, it was quite chilly and I asked you, “Can you warm up my hand?” You replied, “Of course! I can toast you!”

Placing our order at Sonic, we rolled down the window and you said, “Daddy is having a strawberry shake tonight and mommy is having s spinach shake.” I guess you think I eat healthy all the time, even for dessert. Then you revised the order to include you and you said, “Oh, OK, one candy cane shake for William and actually a butt shake for mommy.”

Watching the movie Elf and the raccoon scene comes on. You commented, “I don’t think that raccoon wanted a hug, he is kind of like Snug, grumpy!” Then after a bit you said, “I don’t think he got enough sleep.”

I put you in a pair of sweat pants for a chilly day. I noticed you were playing with the drawstrings, and commented, “I see you have your pant strings to play with?” You replied, “Yeah, they’re my pet snakes.”

One afternoon after we’d been sick but getting better, I took you to the pool. It had been windy that weekend and we swam for 35 minutes, and made a game of diving for leaves  You were pretty proud of yourself when I turned around and saw you under the water pretty deep, diving for leaves. You said, “You were surprised, you didn’t know I could do that, did you?” We had used my kickboard like a hauling boat for the leaves and grouped all the leaves together in one spot. When we were done, we noticed that they kind of looked like a Christmas tree, so you asked to take a picture with our pile of leaves.

That apparently inspired you to have your father haul out our Christmas tree. Your father had been sick that weekend, and I felt bad about asking him to get stuff out from the storage area, but you had no issue with it. We had a bit of a false run with it, because we thought you wanted to get a real tree, but after we all got dressed and ready to go, you said you didn’t want to go anywhere, you just wanted the fake tree again. So, we hauled out the fake tree and I let you decorate it. Saved some money and some time, I guess.

You’ve been owning your age this past month… it used to be that when people would ask you how old you are, you would either say, “I don’t know” and walk away, or just say, “I’m two!” And grin like a goofball.  Now you answer correctly.  Along with that, however, has come a concern from you asking me, “Am I still a kid?”  Or, “Am I still a little boy?”  I’ve never seen a kid so concerned about staying a child as you.  I’m not sure why that is, because as a kid, I remember wanting to be grown-up!

~~
It’s so strange looking at the amazing boy you’ve become and to remember those early days when you were a newborn. Leaks everywhere, milk (mine), poops (yours), spit-up (yours), snot from a cold (mine), other stuff (mine) and then the odd sleep schedule and for those first months I remember joking to your father that I was going to write a book entitled, “Walking William to Sleep” because the number of times that we walked the neighborhood with you in the carrier, tucked into a giant jacket, so that you would fall asleep was innumerable! People would tell me how small you were and I remember thinking how huge you were (for a newborn) but now I understand what they were trying to say. Even though you were a big baby, you were a newborn, a new life, the smallest YOU would ever be. Five seemed so far off, even 4 seemed like such a big boy. Although I feel like I remember every single moment of those newborn days, how loud you were when you nursed, and every single moment of you learning to roll over, sit up, crawl, walk, saying your words, signing your words, how delighted you were to be able to communicate, how happy you are inside and how full of smiles and laughter you always were and still are. You’re just a happy soul. How when I sat down to be with you I realized what a tall world we live in … and then, we kept so busy making memories, going places, doing things, and being sure to take pictures and videos, and in retrospect, I’m so glad we did. You grew and grew and now you’re tall enough to ride the “big” rides at theme parks. In the last 5 years, you have more than doubled in height and quadrupled in weight! And it wasn’t all that long ago that you were hanging onto your daddy’s leg, giggling, saying, “I captured daddy!” with utter delight and joy. You see, when you’re an adult, 5 years isn’t really all that long. We still look the same, we pass time at our jobs or hobbies or our causes and we take pictures and nothing really changes except our clothes. But when you’re a little person, well, your brain grows, your body gets longer and you learn to do more stuff and it all seems much more dramatic than an adult’s Ecclesiastical life.

I distinctly remember looking at your newborn face and searching your tiny features for the face you’d have as a child, knowing that when you grew into the child’s face of the future, I would be searching for the newborn face that you grew out of. Parenthood is such a journey. It heals, because the choices we can make raising you can be different than those our parents chose. It teaches, because I find that I’m learning how to navigate situations I’ve never addressed before. It humbles, because there are things I never thought I’d have to face, and I seek thoughts and guidance from those that I trust. It stretches, because there are things that I know, but find that I have to find a way to explain them. It yields wisdom, thoughtfulness, kindness, openness, vulnerability and a certain amount of fear. I find myself praying repeatedly for you, your safety and your future. I also hold you close when you fall asleep at night, still, because I know you’re as safe as you’ll ever be at that moment, and I listen to you breathe, with your little fist knotted up clenched around your favorite corner of your Froggy, placed gently on my chest, your knees curled up against my legs, and you whisper to me, “I love you so much…”

We love you so much, too, sweet boy.

Love you forever,

Mommy and Daddy

More photos from this month can be found here: Link

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

Dear William,

On October 8, 2016, you turned 58 months old.  You are 47 1/2″ tall and weigh 51 pounds.  You are wearing boys size “small” shirts, size 6 in pants and shorts, size 13 1/2 EW shoes.  You can wear “youth” size 1 shoes, but your foot is really wide, so the extra length in the shoe is mostly about accommodating the width of your foot.  Which is a fancy of way of saying your feet are too fat for normal shoes.  It’s OK, I blame your father for this and you’ll understand when you’re a grown up.   You are in size 7 or 8 pajamas for the length.

Most people are shocked to learn that you are “just 4” because you are the size of most 6 year olds and are actually taller than some 6 year old kids.  When I took you to the dentist, she told you not to tell her how old you are, that she wanted to guess by looking at your teeth.  So, she took a look at your teeth, furrowed her brow, looked at the whole of you in her dentist chair, looked at me and said, “He’s not 6 yet… not even 5 1/2.”  I replied, “No, he’s not.”  She asked, even more confused, “Is he still 4?”  I replied, “Yes…” She looked back at you and said, “He’s really tall for a 4 year old.”  She’s a pediatric dentist, and so I’m sure she’s seen her share of kids sitting in her chair, but at first glance of your teeth, she called both of hygienists over to take a look because, “He has the nicest, cleanest baby teeth I’ve ever seen!”

Things we did this month:

Your Grandma D. takes to you library craft and story time weekly at several different libraries.

You swim with me at least once, sometimes twice a week.  You love swimming.

Awanas started this past month.  You were giddy with the happy over that and look forward to going every week.  I think it’s mostly about the snack, but these new teachers have cinnamon scented homemade play-doh that they use on one of the tables and then the night’s craft on the other table.  You practically dive at the play-doh and grumble about the craft.

On 9/18, your grandma D. took you to Pretend City. You had a really great day, stayed there for 4 hours exploring all the things they have there. It is *exactly* where you are right now in your development.

On 9/23, we took a vacation and went to visit my longtime friend, Tracey, who lives in Oklahoma.  We flew in and out of DAL (Love Field) in Texas, because Tracey lives smack dab in the middle between OKC and DAL.  The price was cheaper and the the flight from SNA to DAL was nonstop.

Since we were anyway going through Texas, I contacted a couple of other friends who I’ve only known through the internet.  They both have little boys (Barrett and Dillon) who are your age, so I thought it might be fun to meet these ladies and their children that I’ve admired for 5 years from afar.  It went so well and I really enjoyed these two ladies so much, that I can see doing something similar in the future.

From Dallas, we then flew to Omaha to see my aunt Marjorie and her husband.  Since we lost my aunt Donis earlier this year, I wanted to fit in lots of visiting time with Marjorie, as she is my dad’s last “immediate” family member.  While we were “stationed” there, we repeated our visit to the Omaha Zoo and met up with Nicholas and his mommy (and family) there, too.  Nicholas is also your age, and we met them the first time July of 2015.

You remembered last year’s trip and were begging us to go visit my cousin and her girls out on the farm (in Nebraska).  So we made a surprise trip out to Nebraska to visit them.  As it happened, my cousin had lost one of her favorite breeding / milk goats to a bacterial infection that spread rapidly, and I wanted to help her bury her.  That gave me lots of time to visit with her, which I was grateful for, and you had lots of play time with her two girls.  My aunt whipped up a pan of lasagna with three hours notice, which was kind of a miracle, and we managed to maximize our short time there that day.  I was grateful to them for being so accommodating to our whimsy.

You enjoyed everything about our vacation, but I noted a few things I wanted to remember…

When we checked into our hotel, you informed me, “I like our new life at Texas.”

Playing with a piece of paper, you said, “What do you think of my monster mask? It has a little roar box in it.”  The roar box was you.

When we left my friend’s house, from the back seat I heard, “No! I don’t want to leave! They have the good desserts and stuff…. Wah!”  And then, when you’d settled down, you said, “When we come back, we’ll have to stay a very long time, ok?”

You were nibbling an apple and your teeth made an entrance in the apple’s skin that looked like a peanut.  You handed it to me and wanted me to take a bite, but told me, “Start where I started it at the peanut one! Haha. Was that funny?”

Typing a text message, I verbalized the word ” you” as I typed it out and from the backseat, you started singing “are my sunshine.”

The ever present bucking of authority, as we drove here or there, and the GPS would articulate directions, you said, “Don’t tell me what to do, GPS!”

Climbing in your car seat, you said, “This seat is not comfortable, not like a Cadillac.”  This made me laugh, because you’ve never sat in a Cadillac.  Neither have I, for that matter.

I started chewing a piece of gum and kissed you, and you yelled out “AHH, I have a gum kiss!”  Which reminds me that this trip was the first time you’ve been able to chew a piece of gum without swallowing it, or pulling it out of your mouth 56,783 times.

Things I want to remember:

A text update from Grandma D., “We’re in pretend Candyland at Awesome park. William has 2 kids following him around as they find lollipops, caramel apples, cotton candy, etc.  So, they have found some carrots now. William is getting a lot of products I heard him say.”

You recognize automobile brands now.  It is a game that you like to play … for example, you will say, “Is that a Ford?  It IS a Ford, I was right!  I’m so surprised!”  You know that the logo on my car matches the logo on a building off the I-5 freeway (Mazda headquarters).  You know that your Grandma D. drives a “Chivy” and you know the Ford logo, as well as the Cadillac logo.  You probably know others that I don’t know, I’m sure.

At the end of the day one day after you’d not slept well and were not feeling well, you started crying.  It was random as far as I could tell, so I asked you what was wrong.  You said, “I’m crying because the circus isn’t in town.”  Well, that was certainly true, but they hadn’t been “in town” for a long time, like months.  I asked why you were thinking about it, if Grandma had talked about it or something. You said, “No, I just miss the circus.”

In an effort to cheer you up, I had dressed your stuffed Mickey Mouse with 2 of your underwears, one on his head and one on his body.  You didn’t notice.  Now, in your defense, you hadn’t been feeling well, but still… I was surprised and a little disappointed that your skills of observation were lacking, and when I pointed my silliness out to you, you didn’t even find it funny.  A word to the wise?  You should always find your mommy’s jokes funny.  Especially because I control the purse strings to most of your privileges, young man.

We took a day to go to Sea World this past month.  Your priority was to go to the kid’s park, our job was to rein you in and see other things with promises of their park in the afternoon.  Every time we would adjust our schedule to accommodate for lunch or anything, you would remind us, “First the show and then the park. Keep it straight mommy and daddy!”  Or, we would finish our lunch and you would hop up and say, “Quick!! We need to go to the park!!”  Like there was an emergency there.  Your take on the sky ride this time was, “The sky ride looks like a pill in the sky.”

I thought it would be a good idea to encourage your desire to learn to read by writing you love notes in the morning. So, one morning, you went back to sleep after I snuggled you before work, and I wrote a note that said, “I love you. XOXOXO and I drew the sign language symbol of I love you.”  Your Grandma D. sent me a text that said, ” William is awake…   Xxxxooooo William typed that in.  He absolutely loved your note. I told him “you can read!””

When I get home from work, we have a “treat taste test.”  What we do is we take 2 M&M’s of each kind of flavor that I happen to have on hand, and I put them in a cup.  It usually equals to be about 6 M&Ms and you see if you can distinguish what flavor each M&M is… is it the chili, honey nut, coffee, dark chocolate, crispy or what?  We always floss & brush your teeth afterwards, by the way.

We attempted to get your teeth fixed by the pediatric dentist who is on our HMO.  Her bedside charm is sorely lacking, combined with her desire to just do the work under general anesthesia, so she explained nothing to you.  So she numbed your quadrant of teeth, stuck a roll of gauze in your mouth, and then disappeared for 20 minutes.  Unbeknownst to me, you pulled the gauze out and started chewing your cheek to a bloody pulp.  Later, she gave me a baggy of stuff to take home and you were looking at it weird. I reminded you that it was from the dentist so you don’t chew your cheek when it’s numb.  But you know now, so we don’t need that anymore.”  You replied, “But my cheek tasted good.”  Surprised, I said, “It did?”  You replied, “Yeah.”  I asked, “Didn’t it hurt after the numbing wore off?”  You replied, “Not really, but I know I’m not supposed to chew my cheek now, but it did taste good.”

We were talking about how I split the Extra brand of gum in half.  Apparently that is linked in your mind about about earthworms, because you said, “When you were young, were worms your gum back then?”

One day I called your father, “daddy” and you said, “No, you call him husband I call him daddy. and he calls you wife.”  It sounds like you’ve got our inter-family relationships all figured out.

Another morning, you woke late, and your Grandma D. sent me a text that read, “William woke after you left. We’ve been discussing birthdays & holidays.  William says “I love you Mommy!” xxxxooo William says if you’re hungry, you can have a grilled cheese sandwich. Ba ha ha. (That’s his joke to you.)”

One evening, we had been sniffling and sneezing and coughing together.  Bemused, I said, “We’re quite a pair, huh?”
You thought for a second and said, “You’re quite a fruit.”  It took me a second to figure out the correlation, but when I did, I thought it quite funny that you were drawing a phonetic parallel between “pair” and “pear.”

And to round it all up, one Monday evening, when I asked about how your day was, you nonchalantly said, “We just joked off today!”

Other things:

You have informed us that you want a Scooby Doo birthday party, and it will be a mystery party and you have already designed your cake in your mind with Scooby and Shaggy and ‘that girl” and a skeleton head on top of it.  You seem more than a little thrilled that your friends might be scared… and, honestly, I’m a little scared the detail your mind has put into this cake!

In the mornings, you have taken to coming out in the garage after I have started out the door driving in my car. You come up and want m to climb on my lap to give me a hug.  It’s the strangest thing when you do this, it’s like you curl up and you fit there just perfectly and I can’t help but reminded of all those mornings when I was pregnant with you and I would get in my car and look down at my belly and see the big ball of you, contained inside of me all curled up.  Pregnancy and giving birth to you is one of those weird kinds of things for me, that even years later I remember every detail of it.  It was such an amazing experience, and even though it seemed like every day I was pregnant with you had its fears for me, the overall miracle of growing a life was an experience I will never forget.

You continue with the sweetness of sharing your Kix cereal with me and your father, making sure we each take two Kix balls with us each day to think of you when we eat them. I joke that it’s William communion.

You are quite the acrobat these days, doing headstands and somersaults on the couch while watching movies.  I’ve joked with you when you’re doing that stuff that it must mean you want to go back into Miss Robin’s class.  To my surprise, you have told me that you want to do it.  You’ve also mentioned that you want to start ice skating classes again.  Our budget has kind of been taken over with other things these days, like fixing our cars so we can get to work, so I haven’t put you in the class just yet.

You love it when I make up stories and you get a little half smile on your face whenever I start them with, “Once upon a time in a land faraway…”  And I’ve heard you starting stories that way, too, when you’re playing with your toys.  Truthfully, the hardest part of starting a story is the introduction and the ending, once you have those parts down the rest of it pretty much flows.  Since every Disney story has a set intro and ending, it opens up the world to all kinds of storytellers out there, including you.

I was reminiscing recently and read the letter that I wrote to you when you turned 9 months old.  I found myself surprised that so much of your personality was already developed at that time.  Your speech abilities, your love of rhythm, all the little things I mentioned in that update that I had forgotten about and, yet now, at almost 5 years old, you are still very much like the little baby you were then.

I’ve let you see some of the videos I took of you when you were a baby, and you watched the one where you were biting my leg and I told you to remember we don’t bite mommy… you said, “Awww, I told you ‘I love you!'”  At the time, I thought that’s what you were saying, but dismissed it because you were far to young to be talking with any sort of clarity.  However, now, knowing you and knowing the cadence of your speech, I think you WERE actually talking and that you did actually say “I love you.”  If anyone would know what you were saying, I would say it would be you.  And then you told me, ” I guess I’ve loved you forever, huh, mommy?”   Yes.  And I’ve loved  you forever, too.

Love always,

Mommy

More photos from this month can be found here:  LINK

Dear William,

On September 8, 2016, you turned 57 months old.  You are 47 1/2″ tall and weigh 50.4 pounds.

Time warp — 8 months old to 4 years 9 months old

Things We Did This Month:
8/13, we went to San Diego.  We drove down the night before and stayed overnight in a motel. The next day we left my car with the Miata Whisperer to get it fixed.  You loved the motel and I’m pretty sure you would love to live in a motel the rest of your life.  Ironically, the motel was nothing special, but it served our purposes.  You also really liked the shop I took my car to in San Diego.  It was a Miata Tech day and there were lots of people there, including another boy (who was 6) named Rylee.  Plus, they had a giant container of M&Ms on the counter and you “ate a lot of M&Ms” according to Rylee.

8/20, we were at our mountain cabin to celebrate our wedding anniversary.  You told your grandma that you didn’t like anniversaries until she told you there might be cake.  We didn’t get cake, but you got a virgin pina colada because your father ordered himself a regular pina colada and it was served in a pretty pineapple with an umbrella.  Sadly, yours came in a plain glass and you had to share it with me, your father generously gave you his pink umbrella.  We also made it a 3 day weekend and you pointed out that, while you had mommy and daddy days, we had William days.  I think going forward you’ll like anniversaries.

8/27, we had breakfast with a group of friends at the Irvine Spectrum.  You spent a lot of the visit running to the fountains and sticking your feet in the water.  Life is short and feet in the cool water is refreshing.

9/3, we had breakfast with you godmother, took Bug (cat) the vet and went to Saddleback Church’s end of summer cookout.  The summer cookout ended up being more of an adventure than a cookout, as you managed to inadvertently elude us and ended up being announced by the DJ as “we have a William who has lost his parents” over the loud speaker.  Your parents had a frantic 15 minutes and you had your 15 minutes of fame.

9/8, I took a sick day to spend with you. You were running a high fever and were feeling pretty crappy.  We took you to the doctor who said it was just a virus and it needed to run its course.  It was scary, because you were complaining of a sore neck and back.  But your overall picture of health wasn’t dire, so I had to keep a good perspective.  But… an extra day with my William was a blessing.

Recurring Things:
Saddleback Church Kids, Library Story Time,

Monthly Interview of Favorite Things:
Color:  White… no, no, actually it’s red.
Movie: Pocahontas
Food:  Pancakes!!!  At Denny’s!
Snack: Melon balls
Dessert: Cupcakes
Fruit: Plums
Vegetable: Cake. Cake. Cake. Cake.
Class: I have no class.
Teacher:  I have no teacher… Oh!  Grandma!
Subject to learn: Science.
Store: Sprouts.
Restaurant: Denny’s.
Vacation spot: San Diego.
Book: Toy Story.
Toy: Penguin family from Sea World.
Theme Park: Sea World and Disneyland.
Favorite thing to do with Mommy: Go to Disneyland
Favorite thing to do with Daddy: Go to Disneyland.
Favorite thing to do with Grandma: Nothing.
What do you want to do for a job? Nothing.  Oh, well, I guess heavy equipment.
Anything else?  No.
What do you think of being 4?  Not good.

Sleeping:
You’ve been doing fairly well with your sleep this month.  The exception has been the last week.  You managed to contract a mystery virus and for some reason your sleep is always the first thing to suffer when you get sick.  In fact, restless/poor sleep is usually the first symptom of sickness with you.  You were up 3 times one night, 2 times the next and up at 5:15 AM the next night.

Classes:  Summer is over, so I’ll start looking into various “sport” classes for you again to supplement the curriculum you work through in your schooling.

Awanas:
This will start up again mid-September. You have mentioned a few times that you miss Awanas and want to go again.  You went with your Grandma to hand in the enrollment paperwork the end of August.

Always Learning:
On 8/8, you attended your 3rd dental appointment.  During this appointment the hygienist was able to get x-rays of your mouth (1st attempt in March 2015, they didn’t have the machine plugged in); 2nd attempt in November of 2015 they used adult bitewings, so you gagged).  Despite my requests for them to try one more time, we were unsuccessful previous to this.  The results of this appointment and examination revealed that your teeth are very tight together (they should actually be spaced further apart, like picket fences) and that you have significant decay in your back molars requiring extensive dental work to preserve your future dental health.

I find myself feeling discouraged about this, because we do a 20 minute routine of cleaning every night on your teeth — starting with an interdental toothbrush, then a small flosser, a larger flosser, tooth brushing with a Sonic toothbrush, a water pik, a spot shot of mouthwash and then you swish with mouthwash.   I’ve really struggled over the years for myself, and I think your father has, too, that despite the insane amount of time we spend in our own mouths every night cleaning (we joke we should move a couch in and set it on our tongue so we can clean and relax each night in there amidst our teeth, ha), it seems there’s always something that needs to be done.  It appears that trend will continue with you.

Your dentist recommended general anesthesia (“GA”) to enable her to do all the work in one sitting, but after researching the possible risks and side effects of GA, particularly given the amount of time she anticipated you’d be under, your father and I determined that we were not comfortable with that option for you.  We consulted with another dentist for a 2nd opinion.  He concurred with your primary dentist’s treatment plan, and said he understood why she would recommend GA for that work, but he concurred with our decision to do small appointments and break the work up into “quandrants.”  We have scheduled your first treatment appointment for later this month.

Interestingly, you really like your primary dentist and didn’t like the 2nd opinion dentist at all.  Let me add one important detail to that sentence…… rewind ….. You liked your 2nd opinion dentist until you realized he didn’t have TVs or videos for you to watch while you sat in his chair.  ha

Things I want to Remember:

One day with your grandma in Walmart, you apparently saw a battery operated police car.  You really wanted that car and you told your grandma, “Well, I’m not enjoying any of my toys…”  There was a distinct pause as you formulated your next sentence, and then you said, “But if you buy me this I will enjoy them.”  Analyzing that, I thought how clever that was as a negotiation tool.  The only thing you have as tangible currency is your toys, and so it was clear that you didn’t want to give up your current toys, you merely wanted something new to add to your enjoyment of them.

Our routine in the evenings has evolved into me going swimming for a little while and then you and your father joining us.  Sometimes we eat dinner first, other times you and your father go get take out and bring dinner to the pool.  ONe evening you and your father went to Chick-Fil-A and your father later told me that you told him you wanted a picnic at the pool and swimming, instead of staying at Chick-Fil-A and playing in their playground.

The summer Olympics were this past month. They were broadcast from Rio and we watched some of the races.  You recognized our nation’s swimmers by the American flag that was on their swim caps.  Michael Phelps and Katie Ledecky were our top performers for this Olympics.  You were pretty clear about your belief in me as the fastest swimmer, though, even though I wasn’t in the Olympics.  What this translated into our lives, though, is that you started encouraging “races” in the swimming pool and you took the role as narrating our swim races like the Olympic announcers.

One evening we had a lap swimmer in our pool and I told you that you needed to stay out of her (unmarked) lane.  You tried to swim through it a couple of times, and I held you back.  Exasperated, you pushed away from me, swam to the steps, climbed out using the steps, walked around the pool to the other side (thereby avoiding swimming in her lane), hopped into the pool on the other side of her and started swimming with purpose down the side of the pool to the deep end.  You grabbed hold of the wall at the deep end and said, “I’m swimming laps, too, and she has to stay out of MY lane now.”

Dropping you off at your Saddleback Kids class, I give you lots and lots of kisses and tell you that I’m filling you up with love. This helps you handle the separation easily and I know someday you will push me away because you’ll know that I’m being silly. For now though, you love it and soak it up. You push your little face into kisses, and turn your head so I can get both your cheeks, your forehead, your nose and you snuggle your cheek against mine.  While we were waiting one morning, and I was filling you up with love, you turned to the little boy’s mom who was standing behind us in line and he was fussing about not wanting to go in, and you said, “Why don’t you fill him up with love like my mommy does to me?”

Picture: I have a movie to watch!

Your grandma sent me a text that read:  “Just arrived at the little park down the street.  I said, “We’re now at Awesome Park.” William says, a bit sarcastically, “No, we’re not!” His tone of voice was so funny.

Fart humor is big right now in our house.  You correct us if we try to blame farts on anyone other than who did it.  And you hilariously lay ownership to your own.  For example, You: “Oh, goodness sakes!” Me: “What?” You: “Oh, goodness sakes!  I did a big fart!”

Your father was on the couch stretched out relaxing after work one evening.  You walked up and said, “You’re taking up the whole couch!”  You wedged yourself into the couch and said, “Now, look at my cute legs and look at your long legs, daddy.”  As if to say that your cute legs fit the couch better than his long legs.

Playing in the bathtub, you laid your foam bathtub Legos out on their side and said, “Look, I’m playing on my piano!”  More about these foam Legos in your bathtub?  They can be stacked tall and be a Christmas tree, a robot, and many other things in your imagination. Upside down, they sometimes serve as cups for concoctions that your bath water magically turns into, and sometimes your other toys are taking baths in them.  Other times, if laying on their side, they are ships of various sizes.  I have learned to listen carefully before I start getting you washed up, because I don’t want to interrupt the making of a dangerous (imaginary) chemical!

You have become tired of Honey Nut Cheerios in the morning, and now we’ve switched you to Honey Kix.  So, every morning as we leave for work, you hand us two Kix cereal balls with the instructions to think of you. You give your father two, too, with the same instructions.  You have followed up with me when I call you later in the day to find out whether I’ve eaten them or not.

In the waiting room of the dentist we saw for your second opinion, you wanted me to read you a book that they had there.  Unfortunately, I was working on paper work. You said, “Well, what am I gonna do? I can’t read.”

You are ready for Halloween already, the stores and their marketing ploys with holiday stuff out three months early has done their job with you. You tell us, “There is lots of fun stuff coming up!” Because you know that Halloween kind of kicks off the whole holiday season.  And then, one night you told us, “Grandma is scared of Halloween, but I told her I will protect her.”

Grandma D. told me that one day you told her, “That’s for dolts.”  Confused, she asked you, “What? ”  You replied, “Dolts.  That activity is for Dolts.”  And you pointed at a gathering of grown ups playing a game at the park.  Grandma finally translated that you meant ADULTS and, yes, that was indeed what you meant.  This was after our Big Bear weekend where we had explained that the pina colada drink your father was having, despite it being fancy and fun looking was an “adult drink.”

After we ate dinner at Souplantation, you informed me that “the goal is to run in the grass.”  Meaning that you come along and eat with us at Souplantation (or anywhere, really), just because you get to run in the grass.

When we were riding the ferris wheel at the Spectrum, we got buckled in and you told us, “We’re in jail!!”

Back in the car, with you buckled in, you asked for your water, but you forgot to say please.  I reminded you to use your manners, but apparently you were in a contrary mood, so you informed us, “If you don’t give me my water, you won’t be my mommy and daddy anymore.”  It didn’t get you very far, and you still had to say please.

One night, we had pork and beans for dinner and caramel apple for dessert. Outside playing later, you handed your father a bowl and said “here is some caramel apple soup!”

You love coming to my work place.  For many reasons, but the primary of reasons is that my co-workers keeps a jar of Hershey’s Kisses on her desk.  I let you have one of them and then you have a mouth full of chocolate.  The other is that I keep a collection of miniature model cars at my desk and you love to play with those cars.  One day you accompanied me back to my office to pick up something i had forgotten. As we were leaving, your mouth full of chocolate, you looked at an Audi parked in the lot and exclaimed, “It’s an Olympic car!”  Well, I guess Audi’s logo does look like the Olympic’s logo.

Your father received a card in the mail detailing the restaurants that will have free food in honor of veterans.  You overheard from the back seat and asked in an awe-filled voice, “All the restaurants have free food?”  Your father said, “Yes, for veterans.”  You replied, “For vegetables???”  We had to explain the new word, veterans, to you.  ha

Done in the bathroom, you said in a hurried voice, “Let’s get out of here before something else happens!”

Driving home late after dinner, you said “I have tired bones…”

After we got home from Big Bear, you lined up all your ceramic houses on the half wall above your train table and told us that was Big Bear. It does kind of look like the village.

One of the nights recently, after your dentist appointment, we went through our routine of flossing and interdental toothbrush and mouthwash, and we laid in bed to go to sleep and I realized I hadn’t actually BRUSHED your teeth with toothpaste.  Irritated, I asked if you were still asleep, and you answered, so I told you what I’d realized and we needed to brush your teeth.  You played dead log until I said you could spit your mouthwash again.  You immediately said, “Let’s go do it!”  And then you said, “This is strange, getting up to brush my teeth in the middle of the night? Weird.”  The next night, I didn’t forget, but you said, “Let’s get up in the middle of the night and brush my teeth like last time!”

You were playing a game on your iPod and one of our cats hopped up on the arm rest next to you. You started petting the kitty and without looking said, “My Tuggy is liking this.”  Amused, I said, “That’s not Tug… you need to look at the cat you’re petting.”  You were surprised to see that you’d been petting Ripper the whole time.

Along with fart humor, you’ve also had butt humor.  I admit this is likely coming from me, because I measure sizes of room in the amount of butts that can comfortably occupy the room at the same time.  So, you told your father one night, “Daddy Big Butt and William Little Butt!”  Your father asked, “What about mommy?”  You replied, “She’s just mommy butt.”

You authored a song this month, as you seem to do every few days. This one is quite the catchy tune and lyrics, it goes, “Daddy’s butt, daddy’s butt, little wooden dump… daddy’s butt, daddy’s butt, little wooden dump.”  I *still* have it stuck in my head and I last heard you sing it on 9/3.

At the dinner table, your father announced, “We’re all going to bed in 5 minutes!”  You responded, “Now daddy… What about dessert?”  Obviously your concern wasn’t bedtime, just missing dessert time.

At the vet, you were allowed to listen to Bug’s lungs and heart.  You said her lungs sounded like “Whooshie, whooshie” and her heart “sounds like a horsey galloping.”

Coinciding with your week of sickness this week, you told me last night (the night of your “month” birthday) that you needed to try and get more sleep, that you are tired.  I nodded my head sagely and said, “That makes sense.  How about we try to get you to bed early tonight, then?”  You agreed.  And so we did your routine a little earlier than usual, and when you got silly, I reminded you that you wanted to go to bed early and how about you try going to sleep instead of being silly and keeping yourself awake.  You agreed and drifted off to dreamland … and as I held you, your sweetness, your warmth, all of YOU, I thought to myself, as I do every night, just how sweet you really are… and that you will always be my baby, my little William, my child… even though you grow up every day and you adamantly tell me (and anyone who asks how old you are) that “I do NOT want to grow up.”  Time seems to march on, quickly, effortlessly, the Big Events of our Life mere pickets on our fence as we blast by it, bumping along on this dusty road we call life, whether we want it to or not.  But despite that, I will always remind you that I love you Ten Times a William.

More pictures from this month can be found here: LINK

Love you forever, sweet William,

Mommy

Dear William,

On July 8th, 2016, you turned 4 years 7 months (or 55 months old).  You are 46 1/2″ tall and weigh 49 pounds 8 ounces.  Despite the extra inches you seem to be gaining each month these days, you are still wearing the same sizes as last month.  You’re just filling them out better.

Things we did this month…

We stayed close to home this past month. Both your father and I are having issues with our cars.  Your father’s car has had intermittent “no starting” issues.  My car has been having overheating and loss of power problems.  We’ve spent a lot of time troubleshooting and doing maintenance, but that means we don’t go too far because we don’t want to get stuck somewhere!  You have enjoyed helping us with all of our car maintenance, and it was really cute when you curled up on your father’s piece of cardboard as he drained my car’s radiator.

We visited the Orange County Zoo one Saturday.  It was kind of a spontaneous trip.  It was hot and we didn’t want to go home, so we just… went to the zoo.

Your Grandma D. consistently takes you to the library craft & story times, as well as various playgrounds.

On June 11th, we went to Chuck E. Cheese.  We hadn’t been for a couple of years, yet somehow you remembered what was in there and were beyond excited to go.  You had a fantastic time, even though some of their games were broken and their car ride with Mr. Cheese was out of paper.

I enrolled you in two swim classes.  The first week it ended up being a private lesson, because no one else showed up for the class. The second week, it was a full class (4 students to 1 teacher), but you still did really well and were focused. I think it helped that you knew it was just the two classes.  I was in shock at how much just those two classes improved your swimming form!  And even though your stroke isn’t perfect, you are going for much longer stretches across the water!

Your Uncle Chris (one of your father’s brothers) came to visit his parents (Grandma & Grandpa H.).  They all came over to celebrate Independence Day here at our home and have a pool party.  You trailed your Uncle Chris everywhere he went.  Your Uncle Chris is a pretty awesome person, and you are very fortunate that you have a lot of really good male role models in your life.

The 4th of July was pretty low key, but still great this year.  As mentioned just above, we had a family get together here at our home.  We did a traditional BBQ and then went up to the pool to cool off.  After that, we came back and did little party poppers, some sparklers and a couple random fireworks we found from our “wild” younger days.  When the family went home, we drove down to the lake in our city where their HOA does a pretty spectacular fireworks show every year at 9 PM.  You were amazed and enjoyed it thoroughly, sitting there on the street in your little fold-up chair, snacking on cut-up apples and corn chips that I had put in little plastic sandwich bags.  You declared the fireworks show the best you had ever seen.

Monthly interview of favorite things…
Color:  Red. Like this strawberry.
Song: The one that has the words all fall down.
Movie: Secret Lives of Pets AND Finding Dory
Food: Chicken
Snack: SUGAAAARRR!
Dessert: Ahhh.  Cupcakes and blueberry cookies.
Fruit: Strawberry and bananas
Vegetable: Broccoli and carrots
Class: Ummm, uh, uh, uh, Vacation Bible School
Teacher: The nice one that loves kids.
Store: Store?? Sprouts.
Restaurant: Ruby’s
Vacation spot: Big Bear
Toy: My favorite toy is my garbage truck.
Favorite Park: Music!  The musical park.
Theme Park: Disneyland, Sea World and Pretend City
Best friend: Uhhh, oh dear, uhm, uhm, Kristin.  At Vacation Bible School.
Favorite Story: Star Wars
Favorite thing to do with Mommy: Go to Disneyland
Favorite thing to do with Daddy: Go to church
Favorite thing to do with Grandma: Go to Library
Favorite Shirt: My favorite shirts starts with SS SSS Sss… can you understand it?  It starts with Star… S S S, can yoiu think what it is?  Star Wars?  Yeah, now can you say it?
What do you think about being 4?  It’s not good.  I would rather be 7.  Because I would just play with toys.  Now I just go to work.  And I don’t like it.  Sometimes I just go home.  I do the same thing at work as you do.

How did you sleep this month…
You’ve been sleeping restlessly this month. It’s been hotter, though, and that seems to make you sleep restlessly.  You’ve also had some trouble falling asleep at night, sometimes taking upwards of an hour.  You say you’re comfortable, and I think that’s true. It seems more as if you’re having trouble turning off your brain.

Things I want to remember about this month…
Your silliness knows no bounds. You pushed your foot into your father and said, “Ha ha, I made you burp.”  And then the “No, you didn’t.” and “Yes, I did.” Argument ensued.

Morning conversation:
William: Daddy is this your work phone?
Daddy: Yes, it is.
William hides it in the drawer.

Your Grandma D. took you to Pretend City. You were so excited and were really enjoying yourself. Your Grandma was sending text message updates about your adventure. Then she sent this: “I told William I need a potty break. He says, “Oh, Grandma, we don’t have time. Can you go standing up?”

Text update from Pretend City day– “A bit overwhelming in a good way. He was buying groceries & running to the kitchen round & round for first half hr.. Now he’s checking the x-rays in the dentist office. Did small boat float. Also did some cutting & gluing.”  He did the theater dance and the microscope. Ended up back in the kitchen & stated “I’m home.”. Now he found the bakery.”

We found a lost kitty one evening.  He came over to the pool area where we were swimming, and we didn’t know who he belonged to, but it was getting to be dusk and I know if I had a kitty who was an outside kitty, I would want him home.  So we called the number on the kitty’s collar, and sure enough, they were looking for him.  When the owners came to pick him up, you cried because “Carlos the Cat’ had to go home.

Friday night… one Friday night, you told us that, “I’m happy because I can sleep and sleep, because tomorrow is a mommy and daddy day.”

One particular morning you whacked me across the face with your Froggy. I had told you once already not to do it, and this is your current ongoing thing, getting in people’s faces with his hands or an object, so I took it away from you and asked him to tell me what he had done. You replied, “I can’t tell you. I just can’t. Because the sun is big and the earth is small. That’s why I can’t tell you.”  I told you that of course, those things were true, but didn’t answer the question I had asked.  That I wanted to be sure that you knew what you had done, that you knew I didn’t like it, and that way I could be sure you knew not to do it again.

Your father and I were talking about our visits to the doctor (we both had sinus issues this past month), and that the doctor had prescribed a nose spray with steroids to help with allergies. You piped up from the back seat, “Did the doctor ask if you wrote Star Wars?” Your father and I laughed and explained, “No, he asked about a type of medication.” You sought clarification, “What did he ask? What was the name of it!?” We had to tell you he was talking about steroids, because it was clear you had heard “Star Wars” and nothing else we were telling you was matching up to what you had heard.

Your big question the last two weeks has been, “What company made this?”  So, anything… your scooter or our plates or candles, you ask what company made this.  Your Grandma D. says you’ve been asking her “What brand is this?”

Photo: Look, the red letters! It says movie theater!

We watched the movie Finding Dory, As we walked out of the theater, you asked if we could go see Secret Lives of Pets the next day. We were sad to inform you that the Secret Lives of Pets movie doesn’t come out until next month

You have this new thing where you cuddle up in your blanket to go to sleep. We had a heat wave this month, where it was around 90° at night. You asked for your blanket and I told you it was too hot. I tried to substitute a lighter blanket and you told me, “I want my blanket back.” I replied, “No, because that’s even more hot.” You replied, “Well, then, I don’t like my bed anymore.”

Swimming with you and your father, you did a flip underwater and grabbed my arm. Surfacing and tugging my arm, you said to your father, “I found a wife for you, daddy! Here you go!”

I quoted a line from a movie and your father got to thinking about it and wondered if it would be OK for you to watch, but that he needed to watch it first to make sure it was OK. You were all excited about possibly getting to see a new movie and repeated back your interpretation of what he had told you. “Daddy is going to watch the movie and see what’s wrong with it.”

Text from your Grandma D., “I told William to eat the yam, that vitamin A would help him see in the dark. Then I went in the kitchen & he disappeared. “William, where are you?” He was in the dark bathroom checking if he could see. Ha”

Your sweet little sleepy voice, sweetly asking me, “Will you sleep with me, mommy?”

The first time ever, you finally asked me what will happen if I count to ten and you didn’t do what I asked.  You’ve never thought to ask before.  I just count and you get up and go do whatever I’ve asked you to do.  So, this time, I said, “Can you go to the bathroom, please?  I’ve asked you several times.  If you don’t, I will count to ten.”  Curiously, you asked, “And then what will you do?  Will you shout?”  I replied, “I will pick you up and carry you to the bathroom.”  I was glad I had an answer ready for you.

You stubbed your toe one night, and after your bath, I asked “How is your toe?”  You replied, “Now my arm hurts.”  Surprised, I asked, “Your arm hurts? How did you do that?”  You replied, “Oh, I’m just having problems tonight.”

Photo: The making of your first video

One Saturday morning, you informed me, “Today we’re going to have healthy food, but first we’ll start with dessert, which is hot chocolate. I thought we would have coffee and hot chocolate together. Is that fine?”  To which I replied, “That sounds like a perfect plan to me.”

Because this is what you say to me, I decided to say it to you.  You had been in and out of my private time in the bathroom, so I said, “Can you come wipe my icky poopy butt?”  You were in the kitchen and you shouted back at me, calm as you please, “No, thank you.”

Reminder every time we go in the store that we do grown up shopping list first. So then, walking to the veggie area, you said, “After vegetable island, uh, that’s not the right word… But after vegetable island, on MY shopping list is to check for a cookie. That’s what’s on MY list.”

William: I’m hungry
Daddy: But you ate a good dinner!
William: But don’t forget fudge !!

Photo: Eating your Mackinac island fudge, that we got while on vacation last month.  Your eyes closed, head swaying back and forth.

One morning, you came in and plopped yourself on the bed as I was getting dressed for work.  You sleepily eyed me and asked, “Are those bats on your dress?”  Confused, I replied, “No? They’re really big flowers.”  You were skeptical, but took a second look and finally said, “I don’t think so. I think they’re bats and it’s Halloween today.”  I laughed and said, “Definitely flowers… see here? The orange is the center of the flower.”  You replied, “Oh… OK. So you have flowers and bats.”   I replied, “Sure. We can compromise.”

Photo: “What’s for dinner?” I asked you.  You stuck your lollipop above your head like it was a light bulb and said, “I’m thinking…”

Photo: Every time we go to the store, you love to sniff soaps. I can give you a soap bar with the promise of buying it and it will occupy you the entire time we’re in the store together.  My kid, the Soap Sniffer.

Photo: Before we got to the soaps, you found this car.  And you were driving it around the store telling me, “This car is from 1909!”

Photo: Looking at your piece of chocolate chip cookie pie, you said, “Oh no!  A bee got in my dessert it pooped!”  I replied, “Oh?”  You replied, “Oh, I guess it’s just a chocolate chip.”  And started eating it.  ha

Getting ready to leave, you went to use the restroom.  I was surprised that instead of using the downstairs bathroom, you turned and went upstairs and I thought maybe your father was in the downstairs bathroom. A couple minutes later, you came down carrying your pants and underwear.  I looked at you weird and asked, “What… happened?” You replied, “I went upstairs because of the beautiful water.”  Surprised, I asked, “What beautiful water?”  You said, “The beautiful water in the toilet.”  I went and opened the toilet seat and your father had put blue cleaner in the toilet water.  Knowing that when your father cleans one toilet, he usually does them all, I asked you, “Well, wasn’t the toilet water upstairs beautiful, too?”  You replied, “Yes, but I peed in it anyway.”

I handed you your water to drink and you said, “Let me look down that straw….”  And instead of drinking, you peered down the straw and declared, “OK, it’s all wet.”

From the Cubbie Bear episodes, you sing the intro/ending song as you run to your bedroom after your bath to put your pajamas on.  But, instead of singing, “Here comes Cubbie, it’s a bear in a vest.”  You sing, “Here comes William in his birthday suit!” One night, you changed the song to “See the pony galloping down in the birthday suit!”

Oftentimes when making up stories, you put them to songs.  So you sing your stories.  So hilarious.

One evening I had left in a hurry while you were selecting your treat.  When you had picked one, you put them all back in your treat box and then asked, “Daddy, do you want a treat?”  Your daddy told you, “No, thank you.”  You replied, “Here’s your treat, daddy, it’s kisses.”  And you gave him kisses.

Photo: “My bike was tired, so it sat down. Actually, it accidentally tripped.”

One afternoon, you asked me, “Do you need help with your computer?”  I replied, “Nope, it’s all good.”  You answered, “Welp, if it’s all good, then pay the bill.”  Surprised, I asked, “Pay the bill?”  You replied, “Yep, Twenty Dollars!”  Well, then.

Genetics are a funny thing, and it’s funny the way people are always searching a child’s face for similarities of their parents. With you, depending on who’s holding you (me, your father or your grandma D.), people will say, “He looks just like [you]!” In just the course of 5 minutes at a family event last month, one person told your father that, and 5 minutes later someone told me that. The eye of the beholder, or the angle of your face. Who knows?

When I look at you, you just look like William to me. But there are times it’s like looking in a mirror and seeing a younger me, especially the eyes. Other times there’s something that makes me think I’m seeing a younger version of your father. Then there’s something that makes me think you look like my brother, your uncle. Like this picture, the way you’re sitting with one knee up and the tilt of your head, the first thing I thought of when I saw it was, “Wow, that looks like your Uncle.”  And it’s even funnier, because you’ve only met your uncle once and it was somewhere around 10 or 11 months old.

You did your first Vacation Bible School this past month at the same church where your “new” Awanas is held.  The theme was Mount Everest.  Because you were familiar with the church, you were OK with Grandma D. leaving.  She said she gave you a hug after you got your t-shirt on and you sat down with the other kids.  It was really great to see you doing so well.  It was a natural transition and you did great with the three hours every morning that week.  It was kind of funny, watching the video of the finale show, how you just disappeared and Grandma D. said she looked and looked for you and you had just sat down during the song. She guessed that  you decided you didn’t like the particular song and when one came on that you did like, you stood up to sing it.  Funny kid, whoever you end up growing up to be, you definitely march to the beat of your own drum.  And you are certainly growing up to be a funny, silly boy with a hilarious sense of humor.

Love, Mommy

More pictures from this month can be found here:  LINK

Dear William,

On June 8th, 2016, you turned 4 1/2 years old (or 54 months old).  You are 46″ tall and weigh 49 pounds 8 ounces.  Despite it seeming as if you are getting lanky and your father thinking you were getting stretch marks on your sides (you’re not), you are wearing the same clothing and shoe sizes as last month.

Things we did this month…

• Finished Ms. Robin’s class with a great performance (Road to Rio).  We are now taking a break.
• Completed Tot 2 Ice Skating Class; taking a break.
• Finished the 1st season of Cubbie Bears in Awanas; starts again in September.
• Took a vacation and went to Michigan for a family wedding.

Monthly interview of favorite things…
Color: I have no favorite color… uh, white and red.
Song: It’s about… Who’s Dory
Movie: Finding Nemo
Food: Chicken and chocolate
Snack: Melon balls
Dessert: Cake! Uhh, fudge, actually.  And cake.
Fruit: Grapes … and plums.  And peaches.
Vegetable: Broccoli
Class: Basketball
Teacher: My basketball teacher.
Store: Where they have lots of restaurants and a lot of stores in a building.  A mall.  All of the stores.
Restaurant: All of the restaurants.
Vacation spot: Michigan and Big Bear
Toy: Garbage truck and Big Buzz and Woody, and Big Jessie and Bullseye and Big Rex.  But I couldn’t find him today.
Favorite Park: All of them.
Theme Park: All of them.
Best friend: That girl I found at the park today.
Favorite Story: The Sugar Plum Tree
Favorite thing to do with Mommy: Go to Disneyland
Favorite thing to do with Daddy: Go to church
Favorite thing to do with Grandma: Eat ice Cream
Favorite Shirt: All of the travel shirts.
What do you think about being 4 1/2?  It’s good.  But that girl I met at the park today was 4 1/2, too.

How did you sleep this month…
Sleeping has been great this past month.  Even with the travel we did to a different time zone (East Coast), you slept great.  I was so surprised when you slept until 9 AM at the hotel in Michigan our first night there.  You had trouble falling asleep one of the nights when we were traveling, but that had more to do with the room, than you.  You’ve had a couple nights where you had trouble turning your brain off since we got back, but eventually you did fall asleep on your own (I had to go take care of chores.)

Things I want to remember about this month… 
You greet me when I come home from work with an exuberant, “Hi Sweetheart!”

We were using anything and everything as leverage for you to do well in your aerial show.  We had a credit for 3 admissions at an indoor playground and I came home from work to you telling me this:  “Grandma says she’ll take me to We Play Loud if I do good in my show!”

Our neighbor has a little dog that she carries in a sling when she is outside.  The tiny dog is really old and her youngest son just learned to ride his bicycle without training wheels, so she was on her bike with her dog in the sling and her two boys were riding around her.  You were on your “balance” bike and the only thing you were interested in doing is petting her little dog.  She kept edging away, trying to get her boys back home, but she adores you and kept talking to you and you kept petting her dog.  It was so funny to watch you reel her back to you so you could keep petting her little dog in the sling.

You have all these plastic bugs that your Godmother gave you when you were about a year old.  You love them and role play with them now.  You were putting them in the birdhouses that we decorated a couple years ago, and I don’t allow you to play with mine because I have tiny, breakable furniture in it.  So you told it, “I’m sorry, Cricket, but you have to sleep somewhere else tonight.”

Monday mornings are never easy for you, or for us, as adults, either.  Some mornings you sleep through our morning snuggles, or fall back asleep.  One Monday morning, your Grandma D. reported this to me via text:  “Mommy?”  “Daddy?”  “Oh.  It’s YOU again!”  — these were William’s words as he woke up a few minutes ago.  I thought it was hilarious!

You like to watch the Signing Time videos, and sometimes they’re kind of like a game show spelling bee.  One night, you told me, “Lollipop, it’s like you’re holding the stick and sucking on it. Lollipop.”

One of our friends has a new baby, so I asked you what you would tell a mommy who wants to nurse her new baby.  You responded, “I think she should let her baby suck on the nah-nahs whenever the baby wants to. It’s very good.”

Your father and I always try to get as many snuggles from you as we can.  You kind of skimped your father on the hugs one day and your daddy asked, “When will I get more snuggles?”  You replied, “When I get dessert.”

One night you asked us, “Where are we going to eat tonight?  Rubios?”  Then you asked with a huge grin on your face, “Is it Taco Wednesday?”

We took you to the doctor to have your ears checked, because you were complaining of ear pain.  Afterward, outside, you spotted a sea gull who was hanging out near the fountains.  You started to chase him, and I admonished you not to chase the bird.  You said, “I’m not chasing the bird.  I’m doing a fast dance.  See?”

You said to me, “Whoa, Whoa!!”  I said, “What’s that?”  You said, “It’s like a Spanish word.”  haha

Driving down the freeway to a little petting zoo, your father said, “We’re almost to our exit on the freeway, and then what are we gonna do?”  You replied, “Go to the zoo and poo!”

Just this last week, you told me, “I’m tired of summer. I just want it to be Halloween now.”

After our visit to Mackinac Island, you were playing with my five legged camera pod.  You twisted and bent it all around and then told me, pointing at it, “This is the island, here’s the fort and the flag… We’re right here right now.”

Reading the menu on the airplane, you pointed at the picture and said, “I want the chocolate dinner.”

We went to breakfast one Sunday morning, and the wait for our food was interminable.  You were looking for something to play with and you asked for some cars.  We didn’t have any, and so you told your father, “Daddy, if you don’t go home right now and get my cars, I’m going to be a bad boy.”  That threat didn’t work out for you at all, of course, but nonetheless, we found it to be quite funny.

Out of the blue last week, you told me, “I miss Awanas, mommy.  I want to do Awanas again.”

There have been a couple of times this past month when I’ve purchased various items with the intention of doling them out as a treat, or I purchased some figurines on sale for the upcoming movie, Secret Lives of Pets, and I left them on my lounge couch in a plastic bag.  The curiousness that is you has asked, “What are these?”  I smile at you without answering and you ask, “Are they surprises?”  When I answer in the affirmative, you happily walk away, without investigating further.  This is an amazing thing to me, because it’s not something that I’ve really thought about all that much, but you are accepting of the fact that it’s a surprise, therefore you WILL get it sometime in the future, and you’re willing to wait until that time.

Another interesting example of this is that one weekend we went to Walmart with you on a Saturday, all three of us. You requested to visit the toy department and we reminded you of our rule that we take care of our shopping list first.  Well, we didn’t end up visiting the toy department that day, because we ended up on the other side of the store and we all forgot about ti.  We went again on Sunday, just you and me, and you again made your request about seeing the toys, and I reminded you that we had to take care of our list first.  Again, both of us forgot about it.  On Monday, your Grandma D. took you to Walmart and you requested to go to see toys, she took you to visit the aisles and you had the best of times… and you even thanked her for taking you to the aisles.  I told her what had happened over the weekend and she was so surprised and so pleased that she had been able to make the time to take you.   She shared that she had even asked you to go get her a shopping cart to help her out (watching you, of course, the whole while) and that your reward for doing that would be a visit to the toys.   Of course, when your father asked you about your day, you told us that you hadn’t gone to Walmart.  Furthering the cliche of what happens with Grandma stays with Grandma.  haha

And, finally, it is noteworthy to me that life lessons start this young, as evidenced by this text my mom sent me one day about a couple of older boys who were being generally unkind to you (they took your shoes away from where you had left them to climb a structure, and then laughed at you when you got upset) and were just looking for ways to get into trouble… “William learned about trouble makers today…two little boys at the park. I tried to teach him about getting in with the wrong crowd as i took his hand & we left for a different park.”

There are times when all I can see in this world is the evil, the scary, the terrifying and the frightening.  It can all be overwhelming sometimes as an adult.  I’ve often made the joke to your father that the reason I don’t watch TV or the news is because I’m always left with the sense that it’s a miracle there are even people alive any more, and the news seems to revel in reporting the most horrific ways a person can lose their life.  Horrifying stories about shootings, acts of terrorism and, even, devastation that crawls and wiggles its way into a family vacation in the form of an alligator in Disneyland, leaving a family bereft of a child that is younger than you.  My reaction to these stories is to hold you longer when I put you to bed, to feel your heart beating more often, to seek to watch you laugh more often, I bend down to hear your words more frequently, I hold onto the miracle of the time that we have with you and each other as a family.  I pray more passionately to God for your protection, for our protection, and that He will guide the path of our lives.  I know that no matter the safety precautions in place that the very act of living, of having a heart beating inside a human body, is a miracle.

Love, Mommy

More pictures from this month can be found here:  LINK

Dear William,

On May 8, 2016, you turned 53 months old.  You are 45-3/4 tall and weigh 49.5 pounds.  Sizing is the same as last month.

Things We Did This Month:
Recurring things: Library, Awanas, KinderCirque, Ice Skating Class
4/9 – Tai-Kwon-Do Birthday party
4/16 – Big Bear weekend
4/20 – Disneyland
5/7 – Breakfast at Grandma D.’s condo
5/8 – Breakfast at Grandma H.’s house

Monthly Interview of Favorite Things:
Color: Black
Song: Pirates life for me, pirates life for me, pirates life for meeeeee
Movie: Peter Pan
Food: Treats
Snack: Cake!
Dessert: Cake!
Fruit: Cake!
Vegetable: Cake!
Class: Guitar class, piano class and basketball class!
Teacher: Miss Robin
Store: Sprouts!
Restaurant: Rubios
Vacation spot: Big Bear and Nebraska
Toy: Play kitchen (at Grandma’s condo)
Favorite Park: Awesome park
Theme Park: Disneyland
Best friend: MacKenzie (she was in ice skating class)
Favorite Story: The Little Mermaid
Favorite thing to do with Mommy: Go to Disneyland
Favorite thing to do with Daddy: Go to Disneyland
Grandma: Go to her condo
Favorite Shirt: Elmo Shirt
What do you think about being 4?  Four is NOT good.

Sleeping:
Sleeping has been great this past month.  I’m so grateful for that!

William’s Prayers:
You now always pray for a good night’s sleep with no bad dreams.   If I forget, you don’t.

Classes:

Aerial Arts:
You struggled again with paying attention in this class.  As a result, we removed all privileges:  desserts, treats, movies and games on your iPod.  Those are your currencies, so that’s what we focused on.  Our goal was to encourage you to listen, work hard and finish the season (2 weeks & a show).  You were not happy about this, but you understood the restriction and what it meant (i.e., mommy, daddy, other people could have those things, but you could not) and that you had to make good choices to earn it back.

Your father had the grand idea to actually eat a cake pop in front of you one night. We planned it out the day before and everything.  When the time came, I nonchalantly agreed when he offered it to me, like it was no big deal.  You came over and looked at it and said, “I can’t have one because I made bad choices.  Can I smell it?”  So, I let you, and the thought occurred to me that you might take a bite, but you are always honest about that stuff, and you didn’t, but you sure did inhale deeply.

For the duration of those two weeks, anything you liked became a treat and you would intentionally rub it in.  At Awanas, the snack was plain Cheerios and a half banana.  All the way home, I heard about , “Those were honey Cheerios and sugar on the banana.  It was sooooooo sweet!  I think it was a treat, mommy!”  Or at dinner a couple nights later we had steamed broccoli with butter and salt.   Your response was, “Mmmm, I think the broccoli is sweet because there’s butter on it.  Is this a treat?”

Text from your Grandma D.  “At library story time, he asked Ms. Mary what books she was going to read. Later he asked other questions and then told her that he likes her class. He told her that mommy won’t let him have dessert cause he didn’t do well in Ms Robins class. Everybody heard, of course.

Ice Skating:
With this class, you seem to be flat out bored, excepting the social aspect of it.  The day before Mother’s day, I skated an open session with you and your teacher happened to be on the ice.  We started talking while you skated around us, as I was curious why she had rated you low on a couple of the skills — preparation for snow plow stop and moving swizzle — she explained that you would do the skills if she stands in front of you and makes you, in a 1-on-1 setting, but that you won’t do them if she tells the class to do them.  To demonstrate her point, she got your attention and asked you to do those two skills, and you immediately did it flawlessly, but she said you won’t do it in a class setting.  I have a feeling that this will be a lifelong issue with you and I’m not sure how to deal with it.

The irony of this conversation to me was that the next to the last class of the season, a substitute teacher was there.  He was brilliant.  He turned the entire class into a game and no one was standing around on little circles for 70% of the class.  There were no cute hearts or things drawn on the ice that you were supposed to skate around for 20% of the class.  It was all movement and games, and all the kids in your class were sailing across the ice in an effort to catch the teacher, while laughing hysterically about it.  You performed all the skills necessary as part of the games.  Unfortunately, that teacher travels a lot and just does subbing when he’s in town.  An observation of that would be that teaching styles can have a lot to do with how children perform, that it’s not always a student’s skill level, that often times a student’s skill level can be a direct reflection of the teacher’s ability.

Other Sports:

You have been very active this month with other physical activities.  You are learning to balance on a bike that your daddy removed the pedals from (a self-made balance bike) and you’re doing really well with learning to glide and balance.

You are doing better and better with scootering and with rollerblading.

Swimming, you are so silly.  You refuse to use your big arms and big kickers unless I prompt you and threaten to put you in swim class.  You are working on underwater swimming, and you are doing really well with getting dive toys.  You have also started doing flips/somersaults in the pool.  Funny thing, you have discovered that if it’s too hard to get your dive toy, you’ll get out and jump back in from the side of the pool because you’ve figured out that takes you to the bottom of the pool with because of gravity.

Awanas:
You really love your new Awanas, and was sad when they had a week’s break on 5/5.  What’s even sadder to me is that every single time we go to our new Awanas, you ask in a concerned voice, “We’re going to the new Awanas, right?  Not the old Awanas?”

At one of the Awana classes, there was a magic show.  You were enthralled.  For the next week, you were putting on magic shows for me, showing me four fingers, blowing on them and telling me it was two fingers.  Showing me food and making it disappear after you ate it.

Things I want to Remember:

You love your Bible story app, and you memorize the script of the stories.  You act out those stories with any prop you can find.  At a restaurant, stacking jelly, you say, “Who can fight me today?  I’m stacking jelly, and this is Goliath!”

Picture:  “I’m a rhino!”

Sometimes you just are silly beyond all boundaries, and usually it’s related to you not wanting to go to the restroom.  In exasperation, I will ask you, “Why are you being so nuts?”  I never know what response I’ll receive from you, and this particular time you replied, “Because I want to be funny!!”

Picture: “It’s naked William with glasses!”

Getting ready to drive up to the mountains, we stopped at Chick-Fil-A for dinner to go.  We’re in the drive-thru line placing our order, and you in the back seat talking loudly over us, “I want chicken with French fries. LOTS OF FRENCH FRIES, PLEASE. No, NOT a medium ice tea, a medium KID’S water with LOTS of ice!”  I’m in the passenger seat up front looking at your father asking him where the button for the soundproof barrier is.

When we drive to the mountains, I wait for you to ask for your iPod.  Sometimes you do, sometimes you don’t.  This particular time, we drove up Friday night, so it was late and dark, and you didn’t want to fall asleep, so you asked for it about halfway through the drive.  There were some vehicles ahead of us who were having road rage issues, they were passing in no-passing zones, and were driving in a hazardous, illegal manner.  You opened the piano app on your iPod and started playing horror type music.  Amused, I asked you what you were doing.  You replied, “I’m playing this music because it’s scary and dangerous!!”  So, basically, you were “scoring” our drive up the mountain.

Picture: Digging in the dirt at our cabin, you were saying, “It must be here somewhere.” Curious, I asked, “What?” You replied, “Money!”

Whenever we come home from somewhere as a family, you announce, “It’s Monstro! He’s opening his mouth!  We’re going into Monstro!”  This hales from the movie Pinocchio, and our garage is Monstro the whale.

When we were talking about Disneyland, and you were asking to go and we were telling you we couldn’t because a lot of it is under construction, your solution to this problem was, “I wish they could just sew boards together and be done with it… I want to see the new Star Wars Disneyland!”

Picture:  Driving around, you placed Froggy on a pillow and informed us that “Froggy is asleep in his bed. I will wake him up when we get there.”

As a treat, I bought you some chewy granola bars with tiny chocolate chips in them. I saw the mischievous gleam in your eyes, and I told you to eat the granola bar in bites, do not get your fingers messy by picking things out of it.  I looked around at you, and you were delicately taking tiny bites out of it.  I must have given you the Mom Look, because in a defensive tone you said, “What?  My teeth were picking out the chocolate chips!”

One of the highlights of this past month was a surprise “family day” to go to Disneyland.  Our good friend (who works there) made arrangements for us to go.  You were SO surprised and SO excited!  Even the drive there, as we got near and saw shuttle buses driving around that had Disney characters painted on the side, you were exclaiming, “That’s a Toy story bus!  Amazing!”

On the walk from the parking structure into Disneyland, there were blooming honeysuckle vines.  I picked some and let you taste the honeysuckle.

One of our last rides at Disneyland was the haunted mansion.  You didn’t like it and asked us to cover your eyes and your ears.  We did and regretted our decision to go on it through the entire ride.  When it was over, we let you walk out, and you kept staring at the ghostly image of the woman that told us goodbye.  When we got outside you told us, “That was a good ride, let’s do it again!” We didn’t, of course, but the next day you told me, “That lady told us to come back, that’s why I wanted to go again.”

The next day, your Grandma D. texted me, “He woke right after you left. He’s telling me all about yesterday. We want your patio to become Disneyland & play out there every day.”  You STILL talk about our day at Disneyland, even nearly a month later.

At Denny’s there was a bird hopping around the patio looking for leftovers to eat.  You wanted to pet the bird, and so you were following it around talking to it, saying, “Come here little guy, I’m not going to eat you!”

After breakfast, I gave you some instructions and you responded, “OK.  Well, I’ll listen to you just this time.”

I guess one day, you and Grandma D. had been learning about the Statue of Liberty, because I arrived home to find you standing on your tall Ikea chair (pedestal), with the paper crown you had made at Awanas on your head, holding a Pez dispenser in your raised hand, and a paper with a bunch of combined WMWMW written on it as the law, and you saying, “People are climbing up inside of me.”  It was quite hilarious.

At Taco Tuesday, you were giving us a report of your day that went like this, “Grandma let me watch a movie… Sleeping beauty. She paused it when daddy got home and then we watched the Prince and the Pauper!” I sent Grandma a text with that information and she replied, “No, we did not.”  I read that aloud. You clarified, “No, no. That was a lie.” Your father said, “Thanks for admitting your lie.”  You clarified further, “No, GRANDMA told a lie.”

One Saturday, you went into our shower and started making noises and saying “Oh, this feels so nice! It feels so nice and warm. It feels so good! I’m gonna play with my ducky!” I looked in over the shower door and you were sitting in a totally dry bath tub pretending that you were taking a shower.

We bought a hand shower for your shower, and on late nights like Awana nights, or if we are out late, we give you a shower. On other nights, you get a bath, however, you have started telling us that you prefer the shower.

At Walmart, you were being silly in the parking lot in daddy’s car. You saw people walking past and, ever the extrovert, said to them, “I will see you inside.” When inside, we had gone to the store, and you saw the lady you had talked to outside in the parking lot shopping in the candy aisle as we were walking past the and you said, “There’s the lady in the black shirt, I need to go say hi.”

One Saturday, I was vacuuming the stairs, and you decided it would be a fun idea to slide down them.   I grabbed your legs and pulled you to get you out of the way, and you turned it into a game… “Ow ow owwwww” you would say, laughing, and then “Let’s do that again!”  I didn’t get much vacuuming done that day, but we had some laughs.

You opened your own business selling withered leaves that have dropped to the ground. Your Grandma D. bargained and bought $.75 worth of them and you immediately left your station to go put the money in your piggy bank. You tried to sell me some and I told you I didn’t have any money (true, I spent it on a balloon artist who made you a balloon Buzz Lightyear that morning). You said, “Oh, that’s OK, mommy. You can use these leaves as pretend money!”

On your razor scooter, you push with your leg and then kick your leg back really far.  It’s so silly and I demonstrate the correct way to do it, and then you do it your way and tell me,  “I am kicking my butt!”  I guess you learned that trick from doing the trampoline at Ms. Robin’s class.

Text from your Grandma D. “Before storytime starts, kids work with puzzles. William grabs 2 magnetic boards…one to give to another & one for himself. Then he says to the other kid, “I’ll show you how it works.”

We have a bag in a cabinet where we store our recyclables.  When I smoosh plastic water bottles, as a joke I toss them on the ground.  In response, you run over and grab them and put them in the bag in the cabinet.  You also ask me when I come home if I have any bottles for you in my car.

You have become obsessed with my toothpaste.  I use Arm & Hammer’s Sensitive Teeth toothpaste and every night, after I floss your teeth you yell out, “Daddy? Please get mommy’s mint!”  And you want your teeth brushed with my toothpaste.  I finally told you I was going to get you your own mint toothpaste.  So the next time we went to Walmart, you reminded me to get me your mint toothpaste.  We held hands to the toothpaste aisle and I set  you loose and said to pick your toothpaste.  I was a bit flabbergasted when, you looked around at all the boxes of toothpaste, even the regular Arm & Hammer toothpastes and picked the box with the sensitive teeth.

In Big Lots, you found a nickel on the ground.  You recognized it as being money, so you picked it up and attempted to turn it into the cashier.  She suggested that you keep it and I suggested you put it in your pocket and put it in your piggy bank when you got home.  So, you stuck it in your pocket, and then you went to show your father your find and, man, is there anything cuter than a 4 year old digging in his pocket for money?

We had dinner at Mimi’s cafe the night before Mother’s day (thanks, BOGO coupon!!) and there was another family sitting next to us who had a little girl named Ava. You two were going on and on and on with a silly conversation game, you would ask her, “Did you say… booth?”  She would reply, “Nooooo, did you say … red?”  You would reply, “Noooo, did you say flower?”  On and on it went.  She got silly and flipped herself over and poked her butt in the air.  You laughed and laughed and exclaimed, “Look at that cute little butt sticking up in the air. Hahaha”  I kind of wanted to die and laugh all at the same time.  I looked at Ava’s mom and she was laughing so hard she was starting to cry.  She shrugged and said, “Well, he’s right.”

Grandma D. has shown you that we send kisses and hugs to you via text message by using  X’s and O’s.  Now she lets you send us text messages by pressing X’s and O’s and says, “from William” after them.  We get lots of those types of text messages now and I love every single one of them knowing that you typed them in.

One night, I had nursed and snuggled you to sleep in my arms, as I do every single night.  I listened to your breathing even out, and your entire body relaxed against me, warm and snuggly.  I sniffed the top of your head, kissed your forehead, and just held you for a few minutes, as I do every single night.  Savoring your trust in me.  After a bit, I lifted you and stood up to put you in your bed.  You turned your head and sleepily kissed my arm and whispered, “I love you so much, mommy.”

I whispered back, “I love you, too, sweetheart.”  And I lowered you into your bed, gave you your second Froggy and kissed your forehead as I left.

Love you forever, little one.

Love, Mommy

More pictures from this month can be found here:  LINK

Dear William,

On April 8, 2016, you turned 52 months old.  You are 45-1/4″ tall and weigh 49 pounds.  You are wearing size 5 (boys) pants, size 6 shirts (boys) and size 1 (boys) shoes.

Things We Did This Month:

Recurring things:  Library storytime; Awanas; Aerial Arts; Ice Skating
Special with Grandma D.:  She has been taking you to the beach during the day this past month.

3/13 – Legoland
3/19 – Green Dinner (Annual St. Patrick’s dinner at church)
3/26 – Breakfast with Elmo and Friend at Sea World
3/27 – Easter egg hunt at Grandparent’s house
4/2 – Breakfast at the Irvine Spectrum with friends

Monthly Interview of Favorite Things:
Color: Blue and Red.
Song: El Shaddai
Movie: Pinocchio
Food: Hash browns and Rudolph pancakes
Snack: My favorite snack is melon balls and peanut butter pretzels.
Dessert: Mmmm, good one.  Rudolph pancakes.  Uhhh, actually, my favorite dessert is mint-n-chip ice cream.
Fruit: Cherries
Vegetable: Broccoli
Class: Miss Robin’s class and ice skating
Teacher: Miss Robin
Store: Good one!  Sprouts!
Restaurant: Good one!  Denny’s.  This one.
Vacation spot: Nebraska… Big Bear
Toy: My little toy garbage truck (he got it at Awanas Carnival night)
Favorite Park: Awesome park or the sports park
Theme Park: Disneyland
Best friend: MacKenzie (she is in ice skating class)
Favorite Story: The Prince and the Pauper and the bumpy little pumpkin
Favorite thing to do with Mommy: Go to Disneyland
Favorite thing to do with Daddy: Play doctor
Grandma: Go to the park
Favorite Shirt: Catalina Island shirt
What do you think about being 4?  Four is good.

Classes:

Aerial Arts:
Overall you are doing well in this class, but you are consistently challenged.  Your Grandma D. asked you after the last class why she kept hearing Miss Robin call your name.  You responded that you didn’t want to do the hard things she was asking you to do.  Grandma D. told you that if you do the hard things then they become easy.  You responded, “Yeah, but then she gives me harder things to do.”

Ice Skating:
You are doing amazing in this class.  You successfully completed the Tot 1 class on 3/11.  The instructors said you were ready for the Tot 2 class and you said you wanted to continue with ice skating.  So, I enrolled you in the next level. You have a friend, a little girl named MacKenzie, who is in the Tot 3 class (you are in Tot 2).  After your class is over, you two seek each other out and practice skating together.  If she’s not around or leaves early, then you’re not interested in continuing to skate.

Awanas:
You love Awanas.  You learn your verse so fast that I find it hard to believe that you actually have it memorized, but you do.  We watch YouTube episodes to reinforce the learning, and this past week I brought up the current episode and you told me you didn’t want to see that one because it is boring.  I told you that you can watch whichever episode you want to as long as you tell me the verse.  You looked at me and without any hesitation said the verse and then said, “Now I want to watch the episode where he’s hiding from me.”

On YouTube, someone created supplementary puppet shows with Cubbie Bear (the mascot for your age group at Awanas).  However, they didn’t create one for the last three lessons, nor for Easter.  So, we borrowed a stuffed bear from our Awanas teacher and filmed the missing episodes.  You love being Cubbie Bear’s helper in the videos… and after they’re done filming, I’ve seen you go get the bear and “pretend” film the episodes.

One evening at Awanas, you walked around the playground and were drawing the letters “i” and “o” and happy faces in the sand.

Your father brought home some brownies that were leftover from a meeting at his work. I split one with you. I took the rest of them to Awanas for snack time, and you had another one there. When you got home, you told your father, “Mommy snuck me a brownie, and then Awanas snuck me a brownie, too!”

There was something that broke and I called your father’s name, “Tony!” but you misheard me and thought I said your Awana teacher’s name. Confused you asked, “Tawny? Tawny? She’s someone at Awanas. She tells stories. Does she also fix things??”

Your imagination again… on Awana night, you crawled into your car seat and started fake-crying. I asked what you were doing, you told me you were a baby. I snickered at you. Half way there you told me you were growing up. When we arrived, you told me you were all grown up as you could be. You stepped out of the car acting all mature and then reality struck and you took off to the sanctuary for the start of Awanas like the excited 4 year old boy you are.

We arrived home one evening after Awanas and your father’s car was in the garage. I hadn’t expected him to be there, because he’d had a prior commitment that night. You stared at it, and asked about it, and you went in the house and called for “Daddy” with no response. You burst into tears because his car was there and daddy wasn’t. I told you that maybe one of his friends came by to take him. You weren’t having that at all. We went upstairs and it turned out that daddy had been in the shower.

Things I want to Remember:

One morning you awakened early, and I went in and you requested to nurse. Relaxed, you went back to sleep. When I got up a couple hours later, I decided to leave for work without nursing you. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I wanted you to get the sleep you needed.  Apparently, you woke up when you heard the garage door go up (your room is directly over it) and you ran down the stairs to try to go outside to catch me. Your father was still there, and when he got to you, you were sobbing and told him “Mommy didn’t goodbye nurse me.” I knew it meant a lot to you, but I guess I didn’t realize just how much it meant to you.  I know now.

One Saturday morning, you inquired of us, “Mommy and daddy? Today is a William day… does that make you happy?”

You were playing and you walked over nonchalantly with a coin and dropped it in your piggy bank and went back to playing. I asked you where you had found it, you shrugged said, “I don’t know.” I guess if someone visits, they better not leave coinage out, or it’s yours!

Anything at all is a possibility for imaginative play these days… your etch-a-sketch was a map one evening, with the dots at each end of your diagram being a character running away from each other.  Your Squigz all stuck together were “fighters” who were fighting each other.

We took you to evening mass one Saturday.  During prayer time, you knelt and I overheard you praying, “Thank you God for cake, thank you God for candy, thank you God for cookies…”

I’m teaching you how to make my coffee and your own hot chocolate with my Keurig machine.  Even though you’ve got it pretty much down, I supervise you because you forget to put the cup underneath.  haha  You like to call the K-cup that holds the hot chocolate “chocolate salt” because when you shake it, it sounds like a salt shaker.

I’ve had some problems with my car this past month, and your father was watching a YouTube to tutor himself in advance of changing the fuel filter.  You parked yourself in the chair and watched the video of that on repeat 3 or 4 more times and informed me that you were going to fix my car in the middle of the night.

With my hair still wet from taking a shower, you cuddled me and suddenly started sniffing.  You announced, “It smells in here… ”  Curious, I asked, is it a good smell or a bad smell?”  You answered, “A good smell, like mint and chip ice cream.” I laughed because I’ve started using peppermint conditioner.

Driving to LegoLand, we passed the nuclear power plant and you pointed and said, “That is the tents that look like nah nahs.”

You’ve been working on your beat boxing skills… you love to watch a video taken a couple years ago of us where your father and I are beat boxing while driving somewhere and it has inspired you to practice your beat boxing again.  You have improved and are now able to make all the rhythm sounds, too.

You are working on phonetics these days and your favorite letter to say is the “P” sound.  You do it all the time and it’s like a game show. “P P P brain, no that’s not right, cross it out… P P P  Pot, yes, that’s right, I colored it.”  You like to do the words that start with an incorrect letter just to make us laugh.

On our way to LegoLand, without consulting anyone in the car, your father pulled into Jack in the Box. From the back seat, we heard you say, “I don’t want this, I want an egg mcmuffin.” I shrugged.  No one was behind us, so your father backed out of the drive-thru and we went to McDonald’s. You ended up eating 3/4 of it and finished the egg part completely, so I guess you really did want one.

The morning after the time change, I was listening to the radio while I put my makeup on. You were seated next to me and the DJ was talking about how to help your body adjust easier to the time change. She said, “Light exercise, keep hydrated, take a nap, but keep it short…” You immediately perked up, turned to me and said, “I’m NOT taking a nap. Do I have to take a nap?”

When I had changed to go swimming, I had left my earrings on the counter in your bathroom. You saw them and asked, “What are these?” I replied, “They’re my earrings…” You picked them up and carried them away. I followed you, and you reached up and pulled out my earring drawer and put them in there. It made me laugh, because I remember when you were smaller, you would relocate things all over the house to the wrong places. Apparently, you now do that, but you relocate them to where they belong.

One morning before work, you said, “Today I want to go to Grandma’s house … because of all the new foods.” Surprised, I asked, “All the new foods?” You replied, “Yes, all the new PLAY foods.”  Apparently, your Grandma D. has been finding all sorts of new play foods at the Goodwill.

You, “I want to color Easter eggs and then eat the candy. Me, “Well, these are real eggs, not candy eggs.” You, “Oh…. OK, so buy me some WHITE play eggs and I’ll color them then and we can put candy in them and I’ll eat the candy.”

Grandma, “Do you know how to cook eggs so they don’t explode?” William, “I know how to color them without the shell exploding.”

Somewhere you’ve picked up the expression of, “Better get crackin’” and you use it all the time for starting something.  Need to leave?  Need to eat dinner?  Need to read a book? “Let’s get crackin’!” You say.

You had a popped blister on your toe and I took a picture of it to show your father when he got home. The next day, I was flipping through pictures on my phone and you saw that picture and you said, “Awww…” in sympathy like it was someone else’s toe.

One afternoon we were out in the garage playing and I got the hiccups. Surprised, you asked, “Mommy? What is that? Do you have the hiccups?”  An awful, gut wrenching hiccup sounded from me and I replied, “Yes, I do.”
Concerned, you said, ‘Oh dear, oh me. I guess you need a pill. Open your mouth.”  You picked up a blueberry and put it in my mouth.  We waited, I’ll be doggone if the hiccups didn’t up and go away!  You said, “Well, I guess I’m a doctor.”

I handed down my old Razor scooter to you this past month and you’ve been working on your scootering skills.  When your father came outside to hang out with us, you gave him your old, 3-wheeled scooter and told him, “Mommy gave me her old scooter, so you get my old, OLD scooter.”

We got in the car to go somewhere and I got you all buckled in and you asked me, “Do you have a surprise for me?”  Confused, I replied, “No, why would I have a surprise for you?”  You replied, “Welllll, because I like surprises…”

At the mall, we took the escalator.  After watching it, you observed, “It’s sucking up the steps!”

You climbed to the top of your playhouse and with an impish grin said, “Daddy’s mad is getting worser!”

At Sea World, we took you on the Atlantis ride.  It was pretty wild and we got soaked.  We pulled into the unloading area and you said with a sigh and a little frowny face, water dripping off of your nose, “Well… that was exhausting.”

One Saturday morning we were making cranberry muffins for breakfast and you were helping me, you told me, “Oh, mommy… we’re having a love day!”  After I bit, we had cleaned up, and I had put dishes in the sink.  I put the muffins in the oven to bake and heard a clunk behind me, which turned out to be  you, climbing on the counter, grabbing the bowl with the leftover batter to finish eating it… while sitting on the counter.

Text from your Grandma D.  “Were discussing going to Miss Robin’s class right now. I mentioned a yogurt treat after. William said Mommy is his treat.”

I was texting with your Grandma D. and teasingly texted that I was going to eat your chicken wing (meaning your elbow).  Grandma D. replied, “I asked William where his chicken wing is. He showed me one. Said the other is lost outside.”

Sometimes when you get hungry or tired, you’ll get upset and when that happens, I tell you that you need an attitude adjustment.  One day you were particularly grumpy while we were driving and you headed me off when I turned around to ask you about it.  You said,  “I don’t WANT to adjust my attitude.  My attitude adjustment fell out the car… absolutely, yes, it did, because that was a scary turn!!”

In the bathtub one night, out of nowhere you asked, “Is daddy home?”  “No,” I replied, “He left 10 minutes ago.”  Disappointed, you said, “Oh… well, I heard something squeak like *made a sound imitating the garage door*”

Another night, you heard your Aladdin book that was downstairs sitting on your toy box start singing. You asked, “Is daddy playing with my Aladdin book?”  I told you that your father had left awhile ago… and I went and looked, and there were 3 cats all sitting around your toy box with really big eyes.  Apparently one of them had jumped up there and accidentally stepped on the button.

At breakfast you made an uneven stack of the various jelly squares. You roared, “Who can fight me today?” You then explained yourself, “I’m stacking jelly like David and Goliath.”

Joking around at Walmart one day, you were pretending you were a toy on the shelf.  Your father teased you and told you that you were an interactive toy and he turned the switch to off, so you had to be quiet.  You started talking and said, “I’m defective, I turned myself on!”  Your father teasingly started to take you to the return line and you were giggling so hard.  We got in the car to leave and you informed me, “You are NOT returnable, mommy, because you have nah-nahs. But daddy is returnable.”

In the mornings when you wake, the first thing you say to me in your sleepy little voice is, “Oh mommy… I love you so much.” You love to stroke my cheeks and comb my hair. I told a friend who has a 13 year old boy about all these sweet things you’ve started doing the last few months, she smiled tenderly and said, “Ohhhh, you’re in THAT phase. He’s in love with his mommy.” I think she’s right and I have to say, I really hope this phase lasts a long, long time.

Love you forever,

Mommy

More pictures from this month can be found here:   Link

Dear William,

On March 8, 2016, you turned 51 months old.  You are 45″ tall and weigh 49 pounds (as of 3/14/16). You had a smidge of a growth spurt this past month at some point.

Things We Did This Month:

02/13 – Mountain Cabin
2/20 – bought you some rollerblades; turned a hand-me-down bicycle into a balance bike; let you clean my car

Recurring things: Aerial Arts Class; Awanas; Ice Skating Class; Various Library Story & Crafts

Monthly Interview of Favorite Things:
Color: Brown and red!
Song: Goliath fell down
Movie: Snow White
Food: Meat and red potatoes… and hot sauce. But pretend hot sauce. And what else?
Snack: Crackers, cheese, cheerios… umm, vitamins. Umm, stretchy candy.
Dessert: Mint & chip ice cream and chocolate chip cookies!
Fruit: Grapes!
Vegetable: Broccoli and carrots
Class: MyGym. Uh, no, swimming class. Uh, actually, nothing. No one. Nothing. (Said in Eeyore voice)
Me, OK, let’s take a break. A few minutes go by… OK, now, what’s your favorite class? William: Silks.
Teacher: Miss Robin
Store: Sprouts!!
Restaurant: Denny’s
Vacation spot: Big Bear
Toy: Fire truck!
Theme Park: Disneyland
Best Friend: Jesus!! (Has also said Ryan and Uncle Al are his best friends this month.)
Favorite thing to do with Mommy? Copying! Printing!
Favorite thing to do with Daddy? Go to Disneyland.
Favorite thing to do with Grandma? Go to stores.
Favorite Shirt: Catalina Islands shirt.
Favorite Story Book: Pinocchio
Anything else? Ummmm, What’s my favorite fruit and my vegetable… grapes and broccoli, carrots… hey, I see a fish in there. It’s not a real fish. It’s just a little fish. It’s a… see? See in there? There it is, there it is right there. Is that a picture? I hope so. His tail’s not moving. Now you don’t see anything. Ruh roh, we can’t get that fish away… let me drink it. (All this was about a Smart Water bottle sitting in front of him.)

Sleeping:

This past month there were a couple nights that you intentionally put yourself to sleep. You unlatched from nursing and asked to be put in bed.  You reached for the blanket, pulled it up over yourself and went to sleep. All by yourself.

Sometimes you do have trouble falling asleep, and you love to talk about what’s on your mind.  Usually, I’ll let you talk for 10 minutes or so before shushing you and telling you it’s time to turn off your brain.  Your thoughts are so sweet and so funny and I just love hearing what’s going on in your brain.  One night you were asking me what angels look like, what God looks like, and when you go to Heaven, will you get to meet Rachael and Noah and David, because they all seemed like nice people, you said.

Morning Conversations:

“What do you want to do today?” I asked. You replied, “I want to own a cow.  We can keep it in the living room.”  “What will you feed it?” I asked.  “Food.” You answered.  “I don’t think we can keep a cow in our living room.  It’s too big.”  You answered, “We can keep it in our back yard then.”  “Hmmm, well, cows like to eat grass.  We don’t have any grass in our back yard.”  You replied, “We can keep it at the park.”  You were pretty sad when I told you we would have to visit your cousin’s cows, that we couldn’t have our own cow.

Classes:

Aerial Arts:

All of a sudden you decided that you didn’t like this class and didn’t want to participate. You spent 3/4 of the class bawling and flopping down on the mat, saying “I can’t do this!” and then when the teacher moved to the next activity, you bawled some more because you missed your turn. At my wits end, after two or three classes of this behavior, I dropped the class and emailed your teacher to explain myself. Your teacher emailed me back and requested that I keep you in the class. She reworked her schedule and moved your class to Thursdays (instead of Mondays). She moved her other student to a different class, so you are her only student in that particular class for now. She said she would credit my account, which completely surprised me. She believes you are going through some sort of funk and that you will move through it within the next few weeks and will be back to your normal, happy self. I guess time will tell.

Ice Skating:

You LOVE your ice skating class. Your Grandma D. takes you and I arrive mid-class (due to my work schedule) and every time I arrive, you are happily participating in the activities of the class. You tell me anytime I ask you about it that you want to be an ice hockey player. You love watching the hockey players line up to get on the ice after your class, and you love to wave hello to them. But when they take the ice, you say you want to leave, because watching them on the ice makes you sad… because you wish you were out there.

Awanas:

I am just astonished how smoothly this new Awanas goes every week.  You just love it there & you do so well. You literally race inside to the sanctuary each week, and dance and sing your verses. Even when the Leader says she’s flustered and thinks she did poorly, she is actually doing a thousand times better than your old Awanas. Your “homework” is to hear the accompanying story out of your workbook and learn your Bible verse. This isn’t a problem, as you beg to watch the Cubbie Bear videos online every night. Your new teachers have dubbed your Pastor William because anytime prayers are requested, you verbosely begin praying and thanking God for things; mostly cake or cookies, and I imagine God smiling about that.

One night, after Awanas, your father asked what you had learned. You summed it up by saying, “Tonight’s lesson was on truth. The difference between truth and not truth.”

Always Learning:

Your Grandma D. tells me that time just goes by so quickly, she hardly knows how it gets to the end of the day.  She shared one morning’s adventures, that you two “flew” to Jerusalem together. Wearing your pajamas and using imagination, you started out at “mommy’s airport” (by my work) and flew to New York.  During your “layover” she told you that you better go potty before the long portion of your flight started, because airplane bathrooms are very small. You agreed that was a good idea, so during your “layover,” you used the restroom and changed into your day clothes, and then continued your “flight” to Jerusalem.

You: “There was an earthquake on the newspaper last night. It was in Taiwan. But everybody was OK. There was a rainstorm also, there was hail. Hail, water, soil. Sunshine. Sun. Little donuts…fell down from heaven.”  Your father looked at me and I said, “Uhh, maybe he means manna from the Old Testament in the Bible? Not sure about the earthquake thing.”  Your father replied, “Well, there was an earthquake in Taiwan, maybe your mom read him the story?”  I replied, “I guess he’s mixing his studies at Awanas into modern calamities?”

While at the park, you were playing with some children the “mermaid game.”  You didn’t really know what mermaids or mermen were, so later we introduced you to the movie The Little Mermaid.  Turns out, you like the movie trailer better than the movie itself.

Text from Grandma D. “We’ve been talking about the planets & space. Big news: Einstein’s theory of gravitational waves have now been detected & may revolutionize astronomy!”

You like to attempt to spell things. One night you told us, “There’s dangerous raccoon out there. Very dangerous raccoons, lions and goats. That’s P-I-N, goats.”

Your father was suggesting that we watch a movie, and instead of saying it, he said, “Shall we W-A-T-C-H a M-O-V-I-E?” Without missing a beat, you asked, “Does that spell movie? Because I want to see Pinocchio.”

Things I Want to Remember:

“Webodejo whoop…” You paused, I looked at you weird.  You clarified for me, “That’s the Spanish Buzz Lightyear.”

“Mommy!” you called.  I went to find you and there you were on the toilet.  “Yes?”  I asked.  “Smell, mommy.”  So I sniffed and said, “You sprayed the toilet spray.”  You said, “Yes, I did it right.”  I said “Oh, OK.”  You said, “OK,” and dismissed me by saying, “Now you can go back to your job…”

“Oh no!! My water fell in the water!!!” (Your drinking cup fell in the bath water.)

Going up the mountain to Big Bear, I had forgotten the external Bluetooth speaker. You were using your father’s OneSpace to watch a movie and I said, “The computer is not very loud.”  You said, “That’s OK, I can put the butt phones on.”  Incredulous, I asked, “Butt phones??”  You replied, “Pants phones or is it head phones?  Actually, let’s don’t use phones, I’ll just listen.”  And I’m just staring out the windshield laughing.

Going down the mountain, you were watching a movie, and you looked up after you finished and asked for another. I told you we were almost home.  You looked around and said, “This was the short way home… ”  Then you said you wanted something from your snack bag.  I informed you that there was nothing left, you’d eaten it all.  Disbelieving, you asked, “Can I see?”  If there were ever proof needed that movies make a person brain dead, I think this would qualify.

Trying a new toothpaste, you said, “This is weird toothpaste, it doesn’t taste like the picture looks. Maybe I’ll give this to daddy. I think maybe it’s grown up toothpaste.”

Your Grandma D. shared a story about your mustache glasses that you acquired after your last dental visit.  You put them on and looked in the mirror and said it looks like the guy at Weinerschnitzel and, grandma laughed, because sure enough, with those glasses on, you did look like the manager at our local Weinerschnitzel.

I was using my camera stabilizer, which has five legs, and you were fascinated by it. You finally told me that it looks like Mr. Waternoose’s legs from Monsters inc. You were right about that, too!

You woke up on February 14th and I asked you what day it was. You enthusiastically responded, “Valentine’s Day!!” I asked you what valentines day is about. You responded even more enthusiastically, “Eating candy!!!”

You asked if you could have candy for breakfast and I told you that you could have it later. A minute went by and you asked, “Is it later now??” I told you it wasn’t later, and you had to wait longer. You replied, “OK, well if you exist.” (Meaning insist.) I don’t know how you take anything I say seriously, because it is so hard not to laugh at all your responses.

One afternoon, you said, “I want apple, Mommy. Oh no, I forgot my manners didn’t I? Please, mommy, please may I have apples cut up in my cup?” And I pondered that perhaps the manners we are teaching you are getting through after all.

Every night, before your bath, you strip yourself down… lately you’ve taken to throwing your underwear on the floor and telling your father, “That’s a treat for you. You’re welcome!”

I sneezed pretty loudly one night in the bedroom while you were taking your bath. I heard you respond, “Dry Pee!”

You had something on your nose and you wouldn’t let me wipe it off. I shrugged, so you left and then came back and said, “I’m here to fight about my nose again!”

On our way to dinner, you wanted some snack food I told you not right now. You replied, “How could you do that to a little fellow like my body? The body is sad now.”

Overheard driving around, while you played with some toys in your car seat, “This is an actual phenomenon… The whale of the deep, the whale of the deep. Pinocchio movie…”

After our friend’s birthday party, I was consoling you about leaving, and told how you’re all full with good food and cake… and you said, “and joy?”  I said, “Sure, joy, too.”  You replied by singing, “I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart, where?, down in my heart, where?” song.

While at the party, our friend brought a serving tray out of deviled eggs. You took one of them and took a bite, eating half of a half. You chewed and finished it. I offered the second half, you politely and calmly said “No, thank you, I thought they were cupcakes.”

After showing you the Mary Poppins movie, I dug out my vinyl record and I think Grandma D. plays it for you occasionally.  I know I do.  Somewhere you’re hearing it, because you walk around singing the Chim-Chimney, SuperCaliFragilisticExpiAlidocious and Love the Laugh songs.

You scribbled on the front of a library book with a crayon, Grandma D. told you that she was going to pay for it out of your piggy bank. You immediately ran over and grabbed your piggy bank and ran upstairs with it. Fortunately, Magic Eraser took the crayon markings off the book.

Your father bought you a traveling art packet, it has markers and paper in it for drawing, and we added a small packet of water paints.  You love this thing and one day driving around, you took a piece of paper out and drew a bunch of circles and squares on it.  You put it up to your ear and started talking, and told us, “I drew a cell phone.”

You asked to go to Disneyland. I told you it was too much money. You responded with your solution by telling me, “I will pay for us to go, we can use my piggy bank.”

You love the scent aisle in stores… I know I’ve shared that before.  My last foray into TJ Maxx, we visited the soap aisle first thing, and I told you I would buy you your favorite bar of soap and you could put it in one of your dresser drawers. You took your assignment very seriously and ended up choosing a pineapple bar of soap.  You then proceeded to sit in the shopping cart for the rest of my shopping time, unboxing your bar of soap, sniffing it, and reboxing it.  Repeat for 45 minutes.  We even walked through the toy section and you didn’t even notice.

One morning you were cuddling the cats. You told me, “Tug is my brother and Bug is my sister. Snuggy and Ripper are nothing to me.”

One afternoon we both got on our scooters and were heading down to the park in our neighborhood. It’s quite a ways and you switch which legs you use to push your scooter along. Halfway there, you stopped and turned around and looked back at our house and said, “Look at how many legs we’ve gone!”

There was some concern about a Green Dinner happening this year at your father’s church. This is an annual St. Patrick’s event that we have dubbed “Green Dinner.” When we told you that there might not be one this year, you immediately replied, “If there’s no green dinner, then I will be very sad and starve.” Fortunately, your Grandpa H. has the ear of the coordinators of the event, so one was eventually scheduled.

You love to play hide-n-seek and if your father has gone somewhere, you like to go hide for him to find us in the house.  All the while you are shushing me for snickering about it.  “Shush, mommy, daddy will hear you!” You take this VERY seriously.

You are so gregarious, silly and such a jokester, and can often pull off a joke with a totally serious face.  You will also exuberantly continue with a joke long after other people are done with it, so I find myself being conscious of this and reining you in.  Several people have commented to me over the last couple of months how happy, social and full of smiles you usually are, including your ice skating teachers. As is usually the case with people who have this type of personality, there is also a serious and sensitive side to you that isn’t always readily apparent.  Sometimes I find myself asking you if you’re joking or serious, because I don’t want to misinterpret something as a joke if you meant it seriously.   You have always been an exuberantly happy child, and I’m finding it fascinating to watch the depths of your personality refine itself.

Love, Mommy & Daddy

More pictures from this month can be found here:  LINK