Category Archives: Our Kid is Cute

Dear William,

Today, on August 8, 2015 you turned 44 months old. You are 43 1/2″ tall and weigh 46 pounds, 10 ounces. You are wearing 5T or boys Small in shirts. You are in 5T two-piece pajamas; I don’t know what you are in footed pajamas since it’s summertime, so probably boys Small would be my guess. You are in 5T pants and shorts. Your shoes are size 12/13 (Crocs).

I put your new, larger Crocs on you this month. They look huge, but when I look at your big toe it is right where it supposed to be. Those other ones must’ve been way too small.

FIRSTS:

While we were traveling, we got on the plane and just as the plane was getting ready to back up, you informed me, “I need to go potty.” Terrified that you had a poop up your pike, I passed you to your dad… it was just a pee (thankfully a shorter time up). As soon as you and your father were locked in the bathroom, the flight attendant spoke over the microphone to the entire plane, “One up.” And we all sat there and waited. You delayed an aircraft from taking off.

While traveling, you wanted to assist your father by pulling our luggage from the carousel and out to the curb. Wheeled luggage is a must for any traveling toddler.

You had apple butter for the first time at Cracker Barrel in Iowa. 🙂 You thought it was dessert.

We let you watch some new movies this month… Brother Bear and we started Tarzan and then decided to wait until you were older. Wall.E was a huge hit and you really liked the entire movie.

I’ve had a hand stamp washable ink pad that I’ve used with you since you were very small. This month, I had some thank you cards for you to “sign” and for the first time this month, you did it all by yourself and your hand prints were perfect!

THINGS WE DID:

7/11 — Santa Ana Zoo with Grandma H.
7/18 — Breakfast with Uncle Chris & Grandma & Grandpa H.
7/22 – 7/28 — travel to visit family in Nebraska and Iowa, met friends at the Omaha Zoo & saw model trains at the Lauritzen Gardens
8/1 – Ringling Bros. Circus — too loud!
8/8 – nothing (per your request)

LANGUAGE/THINGS YOU SAY:

One day as we were getting ready to go in the store, I pulled out my Tula carrier to wear you. You said to me, “Grandma D. is going to get litter and littler and littler, and I’ll have to use your carrier to carry her.”

Grandma D. reported that you told her one day after a My Gym class, “Sometimes people don’t like to talk to me.”

You were fascinated with the safety procedure literature from the airplane. Each plane we got on, the first thing you did was reach into the seat pocket, pull out the laminated booklet and review it. You held it up and told me, “I’m gonna take this home and make it a different color. Red! And when I bring it back they will say you changed the color!” Examining the pictures on the plane’s safety procedures, you would point at various ones with the red line across it and exclaim, “Noo… We don’t want that to happen!” On the other pictures with no red line across, you would point and ask, “Is that safe?”

Aunt Marjorie had Bath & Body Works Twisted Peppermint foaming hand soap in her bathroom. You would wash your hands and walk around and make everyone smell them. Same with the strawberry scented hand sanitizer she had on her vanity.

At the airport, you randomly discovered your back pockets in your shorts and walked around saying, “My pockets are behind my butt!”

Road Trip fun: After two hours in the car together, you told us, “You are upsetting the child! Can’t you tell? I’m yelling!”

Listening to music, whenever you hear Elsa in the song “First time in forever,” you say, “I want to hear Elsa happy in Let It Go… this is the song that Elsa is sad.”

Driving roads in Nebraska, you saw enormous windmills in the fields and you said, “Look at the pointing carrots!”

Driving roads in Nebraska, you were excited to see that we were going on a dirt road. You asked, “Are we going off-roading?” (Like in the movie Cars!) When we transferred to a paved road, following the lady’s voice on GPS, you said, “I don’t like the lady! I want to stay on the dirt!”

Driving roads in Nebraska, you saw a body of water and exclaimed, “Look at the ocean!” I replied, “That’s not the ocean.” You said, “Look at the swimming pool then.” I said, “That’s not a swimming pool.” You said, “Then that’s a pond. Look at the pond.”

Driving along Nebraska farm roads, you looked out and saw all the corn growing and said, “That’s corn, like in Planes!”

We stopped at a stoplight that was set on a timer in the middle of nowhere. While waiting for the arbitrary light to change to green, you told me, “Jump out and go get some corn and soybeans, mommy! Go pick some corn!”

After driving awhile, you informed us, “There’s no home here, we’re not in California.”

You stuck your foot up on the center arm rest in our rental car, nudged your father and asked, “Say, What’s between your toes?” You spread your toes and then said, “I have a surprise for you!” Whispering, “It’s a present!”

Watching Toy Story 3 on the airplane, when it got to the Monkey Alarm scenes, you would take your headphones off and wait for the scene to be over.

While at breakfast with family one morning, you were clinking your fork. I immediately stopped you, you took my hand and started clinking on one of my rings, you then told me, “This is my wedding ring.” And in conjunction with that you started singing, “Only you can make me happy… ”

Listening to GPS instructions, you told her, “Thank you.” GPS gave instructions and your father didn’t hear them because you were talking and he asked, “Do I turn left here? You answered before I could, “Yes, yes turn left.”

While we were landing in the airplane, we attempted to teach you how to chew gum for the first time. You chewed for about 30 seconds and then swallowed it. You said you wanted to try it again, and the same thing happened. So, despite you requesting to try it again, I think we need to give it a little more time.

At any Walmart we go to, you say, “I want to see if they have a Prospector or an alien and a cookie, too!” When we were in Iowa and Nebraska, we checked the Walmarts there. Also, a Toys R Us store. The Toys R Us store didn’t have anything of interest and a couple weeks after we were home, you told your Grandma D. that Nebraska didn’t have a good Toys R Us store.

On our way to the zoo in Omaha, your father had bathroom issues that morning. I said to you, “It may just be you and me going to the zoo today.” You replied, “Well, he has long legs, he could catch up with us.”

One Sunday, your father was leaving for his weekly basketball league game. You didn’t want him to go, so you grabbed his hand and said, “Daddy, I want you to lose track of time!”

Playing outside in the sand, you had a Hot Wheels car and you were sliding it around. You said to me, “The cars go on crazy street! See?” You were referencing Lombard Street in San Francisco, which we had walked a couple of times while vacationing there the end of May.

One day you had nectarine juice on your hands, which you then wiped on your pajama shirt. After you were done, you stood up and walked over and stood in front of the fan and said, “I’m drying my shirt.”

Goofing around with you and your father in the car while driving to get your hair cut, I swiped my hand through your father’s hair and made it stand on end. You hollered from the back seat, “You’re in trouble, mommy! You wiped his hair silly!”

While at dinner one night, you were playing with Slinky dog and the slinky disconnected from Slinky’s rear portion. You said, “Slinky doesn’t have his butt! Daddy, you need to fix it!”

In response to a challenge from the local library, your Grandma D. read a bunch of books with you. They gave you a bunch of certificates and gift cards to local restaurants. Red Robin was one of them, for a free kid’s meal. You told us, “I want to go to Red Robin so I could get a cheese sandwich and steamed broccoli and a shake because of the book reading.” Then in a sing-songy voice, you said, “You did a great job! Thanks! Thank you very much!”

Your Uncle Chris made a visit out here this past month. When we drove him to the airport to return home, you talked him into reading you a book. Then, for the next week, you would tell anyone who was reading stories to you, “Uncle Chris is a better reader.”

You have been listening to me when I dictate to Siri on my iPhone. Now, if you are talking to my phone, you say “period” “question mark” at the end of every sentence.

If you don’t finish your meal, you say, “Just put it in the fridge for later.”

You will grab my hand and say, “I’ll tell you a story. This is a story from the prospector. The prospector was in a box. And then he went out on the street, and he didn’t find any cars so he hopped up on the sidewalk. Then there was a swoosh in the sidewalk and Jessie and Buzz were there…”

One day this past month, you actually didn’t have anything to do that day with Grandma D.: no classes, no library. You smiled and said, “I’m so happy! I don’t have any classes.”

One night in the bath tub, we were playing Toy Story and you started lifting your hands in the air. I looked at you questioningly, you said, “Hey, hey, hey. When the movie is done, words go up.”

One night you were pretending you were an alligator. You said, “The alligator pooped! He ate too much food!”

I took my nail polish off my toes, and you told me, “Oh no your toes aren’t pretty anymore.”

You love to call people out if they pass gas and one night, you were on the toilet and you told your father, in a concerned voice, “Oh daddy, you better go to the other bathroom and go poopy, because I’m using this toilet!”

And, last, but not least, if something accidentally hurts you, like your seat belt rubs your neck or something, you will say with great vehemence, “Don’t do that ever again!”

SLEEP:
Sleep has been a real struggle this month. It has been extraordinarily hot and out-of-character humid, and we are conserving electricity. As a result, you’ve had trouble falling asleep this month.

We also traveled to a time zone that is 2 hours ahead of us and that threw your schedule wonky.

Around 2 AM you’ve been waking, terrified and shaking and tell us that you were watching a scary movie (your dreams?). You clutch me and shake, and I lay down with you until you go back to sleep, usually about 15 minutes.

While we traveled, though, and I co-slept with you, you were laughing in your sleep, and that was kind of neat to hear.

You also been waking early… around 5:30 AM. This has been a tough month for you (and us) in the sleep department.

One night, after we had returned home from vacation, i was nursing you to sleep and you unlatched and told me, “No, mommy, I don’t want to fall asleep and go in the boat and over the waves…”  and then you relatched and drifted off to sleep.  Another night, just before you fell asleep, you unlatched and said, “I’m just so very hungry!”  and then you went to sleep.

FOOD & NOURISHMENT:

You have been eating extraordinarily well this month; combined with your behavior and sleep patterns, it seems like another growth spurt.

You have a real love for fruits; plums, nectarines and apricots, in particular. Your Grandma D. told me of a sale that the local Sprouts was having for apricots and I told you we were going go and get some. On the way there, you told me, “I’m going to have an apricot party with Sonia and Dave. I’m going to buy lots and lots of apricots. Apricots are good, really, really good.”

You’ve really been into eating salads this month. One night I brought home a big salad that had been untouched at a meeting at work. You sat at the table and crammed handfuls of the stuff into your mouth. I told you we were getting ready to go out to dinner (it was Friday!!) and you said you wanted to go to Souplantation for more salad, and that you wanted to take some salad with you in the car to eat on the way. So i filled your Shamu bowl with salad and off we went, and when we got there, your Shamu bowl was empty and you were ready to eat more at the restaurant!

The next night, I reminded you that we were eating dinner, because you didn’t seem all that hungry. When it came time for your bath, you declared yourself “so very, very hungry!” And asked what you could eat. I told you salad. You asked, “May I have some dressing on my salad?” I told you that you could, and so you sat in the bath tub and ate a whole big salad. It was absurd and hilarious.

Tonight, I sauteed a plateful of asparagus and another plateful of brussel sprouts, your father had gone to Home Depot and offered to pick up some food while he was out. I accepted, and he was shocked to come home and find us devouring our asparagus and brussel sprouts. And then you ate some of what he brought you, too.

NURSING:

For the most part, you primarily nurse at wake up (morning) and before bed time. I’ve noticed that you rarely nurse to sleep entirely anymore. You usually unlatch and then fall asleep. Although, if I’m around, and you do want to sleep, you seek me out. For example, when we were traveling and were experiencing some flight delays, you sought me out and requested to nurse with the cover over us. We got all set and you passed out on my lap for about 15 minutes… a little boost to get you through the rest of a long, long day.

I switched your Froggy to the ones we sewed, using red thread. One night while you were nursing to sleep you started staring at it. I was concerned you would reject it. So, I asked you what you thought of it. You said, “Look at all those crabs on it. This is my favorite corner!” You like crabs, so I knew all would be well then.

One night, you had finished nursing and suddenly I felt you bumping your nose on my belly… one, two, three times. After the third time, I finally asked you if you wanted to nurse some more. You said you did. I laughed and asked you why you didn’t just ask and why you were kissing my belly instead. You replied, “I wasn’t kissing your belly I was giving zerberts to your belly.”

FAVORITES THIS MONTH:

Color: Red. Brown and white and black and blue.
Song: You’ve Got a Friend in Me
Movie: Toy Story
Food: Grilled cheese sandwich
Snack: Melon balls
Dessert: Cake
Fruit: Apricots
Vegetable: Asparagus and brussel sprouts
Class: MyGym
Teacher: Miss Talli
Store: $.99 Cent Store
Restaurant: Red Robin
Vacation spot: Nebraska
Toy: Big Dumptruck and Big Excavator.
Favorite theme park: LegoLand. We need to go to LegoLand, Mommy and Daddy.

THINGS I WANT TO REMEMBER:

You loved sitting next to me on my Aunt Marjorie’s vanity stool and helping me with my makeup. Sometimes you would disappear and I’d find you sitting on that stool all by yourself looking through her makeup… just like I did at your age. It makes me smile to see the generational similarities.

How I cut up some watermelon one night after you’d gone to bed. I had a snack of it then and put some in a container for you to have the next day. The next night, as you were falling asleep, you told me, “Mommy, I didn’t eat all the watermelon in the bowl. I saved some for you.”

How you really don’t quite understand the concept of the game hide & seek. You understand the literal meaning of it… you go, you hide and people are supposed to “seek” you out. But if someone says, “Where are you?” You are the first to answer with, “I’m over here!”

How your father was working in the attic putting in an attic house fan. You wanted to help him so badly and were running out in the garage to see how he was doing. When he was upstairs, you would go peer up in the attic hole and say, “Daddy? Daddy? Are you up there?” He would say, “Yes, William.” And then you would tell him, “Daddy? I love you.”

How when we were at our family reunion in Nebraska, we played a family trivia Bingo game. I finally completed mine and let you pick the trinket prize. You chose a small vial of lotion and put it on your hands and stuck your face in your hands to smell it, and informed everyone that it smelled good! My cousin laughed and said to me in an undertone, “Your 3 year old smells like an 80 year old woman.” He was right and within 15 minutes, I started getting a headache from it. I told your father that it smelled awful and that you smelled like an old lady. You piped up and emphatically declared, “No, I don’t. I smell good!”

SWIMMING:
You’ve done well with the swim classes, but the classes are filing up because it’s summertime and I just don’t feel it’s a good value for the money at this time. So for the time being, I’ve discontinued your swim classes. Some of the teachers don’t give equal time to the students, and the newer students who are scared and crying get most of the class time, leaving the other students bored at the side of the pool, which usually results in some sort of mischief, whether it be splashing each other or (other students) taking their goggles off, which then results in MORE time for the teacher to help the student put them back on. Some classes have even had FIVE students to one teacher. It’s really exasperating for me to watch the videos of the class and see maybe 4 minutes of instruction and realize that’s it. That’s all you got, and I just paid $16 for that. It’s just not worth it at this time.

DANCING:
Your facility is offering “unlimited” dance classes at this time, so I’ve been putting you in as many as I can. You have expressed a desire to be the Mouse King (from Nutcracker Suite) and to help you work past your fear of Ms. Ofi’s teaching style, I’ve told you that the only teacher who can help you learn how to be the Mouse King is Ms. Ofi. I even made you a special dance shirt with the Mouse King’s picture on it and it says, “Mouse King In Training!” You get to wear that shirt to her class. Ms. Nicole has been wonderful in helping you overcome your general fear of dancing, but I think you’re ready now for a more structured class. In fact, in your dance class with Ms. Nicole on 8/6, you were incredibly rude to her, you weren’t listening and you even yelled “no” at her. She told you to step out of the class and take a little break. Your Grandma D. made the decision that class time was done and made you sit there and watch the remainder of the class. Ms. Ofi may just be the key to help you do better. At least I hope so. Time will tell.

GYMNASTICS:
We have had a bit of a continuing issue with your gymnastics class. Ever since Mr. Steve left, you’ve just not been the same. Mr. Kevin is wonderful, but in the transitional phase between Mr. Steve and Mr. Kevin when things were not organized there , it’s like you whetted your appetite for mischief and you just can’t get your groove back. You do fantastic when you put your mind to it and pay attention, but more often than not, you get busy trying to make friends and get over-excited and you don’t pay attention to what the teachers are telling you, or what the other students are demonstrating and then when you are asked to perform, you have no clue what you’re supposed to do, so you wing it and cover your confusion with silliness. It’s exasperating.

The other thing about you is that, even though your body awareness has improved, you still seem to lack awareness about your size in comparison to other kids your age. Older kids have the coordination and strength to stand their ground with you, kids your size and younger do not. This “body awareness” thing is actually the primary reason I enrolled you in gymnastics. This is likely going to be a continuous thing for you throughout your life, because you aren’t getting any smaller or weaker, and that is why I’m reluctant to pull you out of gymnastics.

This awareness thing really became an issue around three months ago when you were playing at Chick-Fil-A with two older boys. They were pushing each other, and engaged you in the game in the play area, and you started imitating their behavior and thought it was hilarious. When I told you to stop pushing them, they told me it was OK with them, that they had started the game. I regret a thousand times over that I didn’t put my grown up pants on and insist that the behavior stop and to suggest finding another game. Because of that error in my judgment, ever since then, we have had problems with you hugging kids and then pushing them away from you. We are desperately trying to teach you to be gentle with others and it is not OK to push anyone… grown-ups, kids or pets.

So, I’ve spoken with Mr. Kevin and we agreed that going forward, taking it a month at a time, instead of allowing you to get disruptive and then pull you off to the side to sit with Grandma D. in time-outs during class time, I’ve asked Grandma D. to be proactive and go in and sit with you, like she did when you were younger. Hopefully, this will help you focus and learn in a more positive environment, instead of constantly being corrected.

BATH TIME PLAY:

At my Aunt Marjorie’s house the last day we were there, I ran your bath, but didn’t get a very good seal on the bath plug, and it started draining slowly. You have always freaked out when the water drains out of the tub and look around desperately to make sure that your toys are safe. When the water drained and you were in the tub, I guess you thought you were going down the drain. You were terrified, crying frantically, reaching out, and wanted out immediately. Now, two weeks later, you are still scared and request a short bath and don’t want me to leave the bathroom. One of the first nights back home, you saw a dark spot on the bottom of your plastic bath tub where a sticker had gotten stuck under it, and you freaked out about it thinking it was the drain.

ROUTINES:
One of the routines I’ve forgotten to mention, but has been a long-time routine for us is that Sunday mornings, you go to church with your father. Rare occasions I’ll go along, but most often I choose to go swimming and listen to my church’s service online later. Later, I’ll meet up with everyone (you, your father, Grandma and Grandpa H., and whatever friends they bring along) for breakfast (usually at Denny’s).

We have the best conversations when you wake up in the mornings. Some mornings you have lots and lots of questions like, what happens if there’s no clouds? What happens if there is no sun? What happens if there is no bed? What happens if there’s no pillow? What happens if there’s no toys?

Other things you like to talk about when you wake are word association games. You will usually start is by asking, “If I say cloud, you say…?” And I’m supposed to say the first word that comes to mind. So, I say, “Rain… if I say rain, you say…?” And you reply, “H2O. If I say H2O, you say…?” And on and on the game goes. Sometimes I say something that isn’t OK with you and you emphatically correct me and then I explain why it was that I said what I did.

I love our morning routine of waking up and nursing, and on vacation since we co-slept, I got to experience mornings with you every morning. One morning, you told me that you’d been watching movies all night. When I asked you what movie you had watched, you replied, “The Bear Caught a Frog movie.”

I told my mom (your Grandma D.) one evening about how sometimes I miss you at night when you’re sleeping and I’m so tempted to just go crawl in your bed with you for part of the night. She paused, and I wasn’t sure what she was going to say in response, her voice was soft and I could tell she was smiling when she said, “If I were you, I wouldn’t hesitate. He’ll only be small like this once in his life.” I know that’s kind of cliche and is on memes all over the Internet, but I could hear in her voice that the only thing she was thinking about were the two babies that she raised, and how one of them she hasn’t even seen, let alone hugged, in two years and the other one (me), she has hugged more often, but despite that, we both definitely have our own separate lives.

Love,

Mommy and Daddy

More pictures from this month can be found here: LINK

P.S. Your father bought a box of Star Wars graham crackers. You are now able to look at the pictures on the box and name all but one of the characters. The “lost” character is one that you hadn’t been educated on, not a result of your memory. Your father is so proud.

Dear William,

On July 8, 2015 you turned 3 years 7 months old. You are 43 1/2″ tall and weigh 45 pounds. You are wearing the same sizes of clothing as listed last month.

FIRSTS:

Over the July 4th weekend, while we were in Big Bear, you had your first ice cream truck treat. The rest of the weekend, you would wake up, nurse and then say, “When is the ice cream truck getting here?” And then you would stand on the couch and wait, while peering expectantly out the window. Sunday you even declined breakfast because you wanted the ice cream truck. I told you it wouldn’t be there until later when it got hot. You waited a second and said, “It’s hotter now, is the ice cream truck here?”

At LegoLand, you went down the red “adult” slide all by yourself. We watched it for awhile before hand. You climbed all the stairs by yourself, determined. You expressed some concern when the time came to get on the slide, I told you that you didn’t have to do it if you didn’t want to. You climbed in all by yourself. When you came out the other end, you were smiling and proud of yourself. Riders have to be 42″ tall, you were 43″ the day we went (you grew a half an inch in the last couple of weeks).

THINGS WE DID:

6/13, lunch at Ruby’s
6/20, LegoLand Waterpark
6/27, breakfast with your godmother at a local park
7/2, weekend in the mountains with Grandma & Grandpa H.

LANGUAGE/THINGS YOU SAY:

You have started using the sign (along with speaking) for “May I be excused?” and “Dessert.”

Outside, playing with your “diggers” I asked, “What are you building?” You replied, “Not anything, I don’t have sand on my scooper.”

One of your favorite things to tell us is, “I’m telling you the truth! You’re just being silly!”

We see a truck going 70 MPH down the freeway with a load of chickens, their feathers ruffling and they are huddled together in cages. You said to them, “Sorry chickens. I love you chickens! I will catch a grasshopper and feed it to the chickens. The chickens will follow me to get more grasshoppers.”

Driving along, rather than saying “please”, you told your father, “If you turn on tractor tipping [song], I’ll give you Buzz [Lightyear]!”

We leave the house and drive one block, you said excitedly, “We’re that much closer to Legoland!”

You told me one Saturday morning, “I’m your present… You get to keep me!”

Your Grandma D. asked me one evening, “What is with the high-pitched voice? He uses it all day long, I’m starting to think it’s his normal voice.” This is because you are role playing so much, and for your Froggy or queen Elsa (Frozen movie), you adapt a high-pitched voice.

While at Ruby’s eating lunch, a poster on the wall garnered your attention and you asked all sorts of questions that made me think about earthquake insurance, like, “What happens if the poster falls down?” Without pausing for an answer, you asked, “What happens if there’s no glue under it or tape?” I was surprised you didn’t ask about a nail!

Seeing kids out your bedroom window, you stood there and yelled out to them “Hi!” There was no response, and you turned to me and said, “It didn’t work!”

One morning, your father had to leave early for work. He went into your bedroom and kissed you goodbye and gave you lots of hugs. When you heard the garage door open, you frantically opened your curtains and pulled up the shutters as you watched your daddy’s car drive away with tears in your eyes. It was one of the sweetest and saddest things I’ve ever witnessed you do.

We love to give each other Eskimo kisses (rub noses) and one night you asked, “Can we touch noses?” I replied, of course we could. You then asked, “Can we touch tongues?” Uh no. No, we cannot.

Apparently you are learning new songs all the time, one of the songs you sang to me while I was working the kitchen one night went, “Kitchen is a place to make and bake, it all happened there!”

I popped a pan of brownies in the oven one night to bake while we ate our dinner. Halfway through, you stopped, turned around and looked into the kitchen and said, “Oh! Can I have some chocolate??!!” Dinner was ruined, of course, and note to self, brownies have a distinctively and distractedly chocolate smell!

You got on the toilet one night and your father said, “Let mommy know when you’re done!” You replied emphatically, “Oh, when I’m done, I will tell YOU, daddy!” I snickered to myself all the way to the bedroom.

Your father wore a weirdly patterned shirt that made his back look wet. You cried out, concerned, “Ohhhh no! Your back is dirty, Daddy!” We had to explain to you that it was just patterned that way.

Reaching for something, you gave up and encouraged your father to get it for you by saying, “You are very tall, Daddy, you can reach it!” You paused and then said, “But… Is it too heavy?”

You customized the Amen song by singing, “Corn men, grape men, Corn men, grape men, corn men!” You were quite pleased with your creativity.

One Saturday morning, you came downstairs for a minute and explained yourself to the cats by saying, “Sorry kitties, I’m just getting my toys!” Oh, yes, I was certain the cats were sad… as I heard them all breathe out a collective sad sigh. ha

One night, we were talking about the 5 senses and the topic of your Grandma D. not being able to smell certain things came up. I asked, “Do you want to hear something sad?” You said, “Yes!” I told you that your Grandma D. couldn’t smell certain things. You said, “I want to hear something sadder than that.” And then, you got curious and asked, “Why can’t grandma smell things? Is there something in her nose? Does she have a plug?”

I handed you a fruit pouch with carrots, mango and apple in it. I tasted it first and told you, “Mmmm, that is good. If you don’t want it, I will eat it. You tasted it and said, “I’m going to buy that. If I find it in the store I’m going to buy one of them every single day.”

Tuggy waits for you, sitting on my desk chair, and meows for you to come down in the mornings.

We went to dinner one night and you proclaimed you had to go to the restroom. It was a one-person bathroom, so I stood there and waited and then realized that I, too, needed to go. I asked if you were done yet, you said no. I waited and waited and you WERE going, but sometimes these things take time. You grinned at me and cheekily said, “I’m going to make you pee your skirt!”

You saw a baseball in my car and asked, “Where’s the hitter?”

You scrunched your body into a little ball one morning and told me, “I’m trying to make this little so I’ll be a little baby.”

One day in Big Bear, you were getting crazier and crazier, dancing around, not paying attention to a movie that you wanted and I asked you if you had to go potty, you denied it. And then you made a mad dash to the restroom. Oh, yes, you did, too, need to go… and then you had the audacity to say, “Oh, that’s much better.”

Setting out food on the deck in Big Bear for dinner, you crawled up on the bench and dug in. You looked at me, as you guarded the food and pointed off yonder and said, “You can have the dirt for dinner.”

Talking to your Froggy lovey, you told him, “It’s OK Froggy I’m here to protect you. I always come back, Froggy.”

You have a fondness for pulling chairs around, climbing up, and reaching for something that’s higher up, that sometimes I’m not thrilled for you to get your hands on. One night, I had just told you that I didn’t want you to play with something that was on top of my dresser.  You went and grabbed a chair and just as I was getting ready to say something, you said in just the right tone of voice between exasperation and sarcasm, “I’m just grabbing a chair to sit on it. I’m not going to grab something, Mommy.” Huh, guess my suspicion was easily readable on my face?

You like to put a wad of bread in your mouth and around it, say, “That’s my new teeth!”

I told you I had a treat for you if you got in your car seat. Your father was loading the car to leave Big Bear and I looked out to see that you had crawled up in the back of your father’s car. You looked at me expectantly and said, “I’m in my car seat!”

SLEEP:

You’ve been doing fairly well with your sleep. You do occasionally wake and cry out, “Daddy protect me!” Your fear is real!

When we went to Big Bear, as we usually do, we bed share. You woke in the wee hours of the morning and said, “Mommy?” “Yes, I’m right here,” I replied. You rolled over to me, shaking, and said, “Hold me. Hold me really tight!” You curled into me and fell back to sleep, 5 minutes later you jerked awake and said, “Keep holding me tight!”  It reminded me that you are so very vulnerable and precious.  I wonder what dreams you are having that make you feel so scared?

FOOD & NOURISHMENT:

When you proclaim you’re done eating and ask to be excused, I love to ask you, “How is your belly?” You always reply, “It’s rock hard. But I still have room for dessert.” One day you’d had a donut earlier (daddy!) and you replied, “That was just a donut. I want something better than that!”

NURSING:

For the most part, you primarily nurse at wake up (morning) and before bed time.

There have been occasions that you seek me out. One time at your grandparent’s house, you were playing outside with everyone and all of a sudden you stopped and said you were going inside. You called for me, I was trying to take a nap in the back bedroom. You found me and asked to nurse and then realized you didn’t have your Froggy. So, you single-mindedly went and got it from your father and then returned to nurse. After about 10 minutes, you happily proclaimed, “I finished my nah-nahs!” And off you went.

One morning, after we’d been separated from each other, you crawled in my lap and whispered, “Mommy your nah nahs smell good. I want some.”

These sweet moments, as we nurse in the “golden” years of our nursing relationship are precious to me.

FAVORITES THIS MONTH:

Color: Red. Brown and white and black and blue.
Song: Jesus died on the cross.
Movie: Cars and the yellow car part of it.
Food: Grilled cheese sandwich
Snack: Melon balls
Dessert: Porcupine. Zurg house. Zurg Cake.
Fruit: Turtle. No, no, no… grapes and cocoa. No, cherries & grapes and I want lots of them!
Vegetable: Carrots. Broccoli
Class: MyGym, because it’s not dance class.
Teacher: Miss Talli
Store: Poopy store. No, Walmart! Because it has cars in it!
Restaurant: Outback Steakhouse!
Vacation spot: Big Bear
Toy: Big Dumptruck and Big Excavator.
Favorite theme park: Disneyland

THINGS I WANT TO REMEMBER:

You’ve been very into smells this month. One morning you told me that I smell like vanilla. When I asked you what you smelled like, you said gingerbread. Then you told me that your daddy smelled “awful” and your Grandma D. smelled “stinky awful.” I checked with you periodically over the weekend (random pop quizzes) on this topic and your answers were always the same.

You hauled my basket of lotions out several times this month and sat there, opened every bottle, sniffed it and closed the bottle and put it away, and then hauled the entire basket back to its living spot. You told me you were having a smelling party.

You have several of your own bottles of soap in your bathroom. Some of them are Big Kids kind of soap and you got into them one night and one of the bottles “popped” when you opened it and it squirted soap in your eye. You screamed and cried and we wiped and rinsed. You finally told me, “Please, can you put nah-nahs in my eye?” I shrugged and said sure, we had already tried everything else and it wasn’t working. Miraculously, “nah-nahs” soothed the stinging eye immediately upon contact. Sadly, that incident did end your bath, though.

How one day you said you needed to go potty, and so I quick grabbed the homemade PooPourri spray that I put together and sprayed it in the toilet. You looked at me, curious, and said, “What is it that you sprayed, mommy?” I told you it was spray to make poopy not stink. You sniffed appreciatively and said, “That smells like oranges. It smells good.”

I was wearing a belt one day and you walked up to me and pressed the circle on my belt to make a bubble around me, like Buzz.

SWIMMING:
I switched you to a Wednesday class with Ms. Michelle. Mr. Jordan’s Friday class was getting too full and many of the kids in that class are constantly playing with their goggles and that time takes away from your swim instruction time.

Your teacher has been using you as an example for new kids in her swim class, which I’m sure just tickles you pink. 🙂 You play well with the swim toys that are sitting behind you on the deck when you’re not actively swimming.

DANCING:
For the months of July and August, your dance place is offering unlimited classes. I have been able to get you into two additional dance classes each week, which I think it helping you over your emotional hurdle with the class. One of the classes I get you in is a late class, so I’m able to get there to pick you up, which surprises you every time. Watching you do the routine, there is a part where you hold hands and jump in a circle. When that part if over, you don’t want to let go of the hands and keep trying to hold the girls hands longer. When they don’t cooperate, you moved over to another set of girls and tried again.

GYMNASTICS:
You continue to have issues with red circle time. We’ve now found the most effective strategy is for your Grandma D. to go out on the floor and get you at the one minute notice time and take you over to the red circle. We discussed various scenarios and this is more in-line with our goals of helping you learn to transition yourself vs. taking away something (MyGym class) you love because you’re having trouble with one or two parts of it. We were encouraged that a couple times you went to red circle all on your own.

One day your Grandma D. sent me this text: “Priceless! Girl next to Wm and Wm were bothering each other. Kevin stopped it. A min later, the girl leaned over & kissed Wm on the cheek. no reaction from Wm.”

BATH TIME PLAY:
This continues to be something you love to do. You articulate various stories and sing songs to your bath toy characters. You re-enact various movie scenes and create your own storyline with your toys.

One of your bath stories you told me, “One day an elephant was swimming in the water and came across a blue box and in the box was Siamese cats. And that’s it.”

Playing with your bath toys, “Oh no! It’s a shark! Don’t worry, I’ll use my bad breath to blow him away!” Repeat for scary monster…

“Oh, the string is a curb. Buzz and Woody and Daisy can’t cross the curb but bull’s-eye and Rex can because the curb doesn’t go in front of them. What are we going to do?” You problem-solved to have Bull’s-eye and Daisy go and then the others slide to their spots.

Every night when I drain the bath tub of water, you are very concerned that all your bath toys are out of the water and you stare at the drain the entire time it drains to make sure no one goes down the drain!

ROUTINES:
Our morning routine, after I’m finished nursing you, is that I tell you about the things I’ve already done. It usually goes something like this, “This morning when I went downstairs, Buggy was sitting at the gate. When she saw me, she said, “MEOWWW!” and then she ran downstairs as fast as she could. I saw Slasher in the living room and Tuggy was sitting on your chair. When I went in the garage to put my stuff in my car, Ripper was in the litter box. Then when I went back upstairs, Buggy almost tripped me. When I was putting my make up on, I heard, “MOMMY!” And then I came in here to say good morning to my little boy!” Some mornings the story varies, and you love to try to help tell the story when things happened in a different sequence than they normally do.

Part of our coming home routine is that I set you on the counter, get you a tiny piece of chocolate and then a vitamin. Then you piggy back on me back to the couch and you say, “Let’s talk about what you did today!” One day, your story was this, “I didn’t go to dance class today. I decided to walk around the lake. I saw a kitty there in the plants. He was like Snuggy, but nicer. He licked me. Grandma said he had a collar. I saw Canadian geese, too. The $.99 cent store was out of round cookies so I got a donut instead. It was chocolate.” Remarkably, it was all true.

You examined my hair one evening, noting its length you asked me, “Have you ever, EVER had your hair sticking up in space?” I told you that my hair has never been in space. But my love for you regularly goes to space and back because there’s not enough room in the world for it, so it has to expand out into space. I like to tell you that one of the reasons we decided to have you in our lives is because daddy and I have way too much love for each other and we needed someone else to give it to, so that’s why we have our William!

Love,

Mommy and Daddy

More pictures from this month can be found here: LINK

Dear William,

On June 8, 2015, you turned 42 months old. You weigh 45 pounds and are 43″ tall. You are in size 6 boys footed sleepers, size 5T pants/shorts, size 5T shirts (or 4-6 boys/Boys S shirts).

You’ve been going through a klutzy stage, where you’re bonking your head on all sorts of things. Between that and your increased appetite the last couple weeks, I wouldn’t be surprised if you grow taller here in the next month or so.

Firsts:
5/16, First Dance Recital (Cal Elite)

Things we did:
Saturday, 5/9 – Sea World!
Sunday, 5/10 – Breakfast w/ both Grandmas (Mother’s Day) at Souplantation
Saturday, 5/16 – Dance Recital
Saturday, 5/23 to 5/26 – San Francisco!
Saturday, 5/30 – visited the local mall
Saturday, 6/6 – Sea World

Language Development:

I love how you say the word “Weinerschnitzel” in a German accent.

Sleep:
You intermittently are waking in the middle of the night and requesting snuggles or bathroom assistance. The eve of your 2 1/2 year birthday, your father lowered the sides of your bed so we can get in and out easier to be with you.

Food and Nourishment:
You do pretty well with eating. You’re fairly willing to taste anything once. I had to laugh at you, you have become such a little chocoholic… I found some cookies I had baked and put in the freezer in 2011. I thought they might be OK, so I warmed them up. They were stale, but had chocolate in them. You wrinkled your nose and said, “These are weird, but the chocolate is good.” I took them from you because they just weren’t good at all and you were quite upset about that.

Nursing…

One evening this past week, you told us, “I don’t want to go to sleep. I just want to nurse and nurse, all night long.” I guess if ever there was a question about your feelings on nursing, that pretty much cleared them up.

One of your favorite things to do while nursing is to hum songs to me. One morning this past week, you started humming Christmas songs to me. I was kind of surprised to hear Joy to the World in June!

The other thing you like to tell me is how good I smell. When I ask you what exactly I smell like, you respond with, “Nah nahs.” Which makes me wonder if I really smell like milk after all this time, or if you just equate me and whatever I normally smell like with the smell of nah-nahs.

We heard a baby crying one day, and you told me that baby needed to nurse. You then looked at me and asked me if I was going to give that baby nah-nahs. It was a sweet question, given that several of our friends are either expecting or have recently had babies, I think you were wondering about having to share something that has been exclusively for you all this time.

When we went on vacation to San Francisco, your father’s cousin graciously allowed us to stay in her home. She is expecting her first child, and she was asking me questions about nursing. At the end of the conversation, we all stood up and you reached up and gently pointed at her breast and asked, “Is your baby going to get nah-nahs?” She stood there for a half second, translating in her mind what exactly “nah-nahs” meant and then responded with a smile, “I sure hope so!”

Favorites this month:

Color: Red
Song: Lightning Lost
Movie: Uh, let me think…Toy Story 2
Food: Grilled Cheese sandwich
Snack: Peanut butter pretzel nuggets
Dessert: Mini ice cream sundae (from Weinerschnitzel)
Fruit: Cherries
Vegetable: Carrots
Class: MyGym
Teacher: Mr. Steve (the old owner at MyGym); you told me he was your favorite, and Grandma D. later told me you said you missed him.
Store: Toys R Us
Restaurant: Outback Steakhouse
Vacation spot: San Francisco
Toy: Back yard dump truck at my house
Favorite theme park: Zoo

Things I want to remember:

How sometimes you’ll be snuggling with me and you’ll look up at me and ask, “Do you want a Froggy corner?” Since you were about 4 months old, the thing you do to your Froggy is to find one of the corners of its handkerchief and rub it between your fingers. It’s very soothing to you and it’s very special to you. I’m touched that you’re willing to offer me one of your Froggy’s corners.

How one of the videos your Grandma D. lets you watch is a monster truck video that counts in English and Spanish. One morning as we went down the stairs together, I counted, “One, two, three…” and you were counting, “Uno, dose, thres…” all the way up to 10. I was kind of surprised that you knew Spanish numbers.

How you loved San Francisco so much and we got home after the trip and you were so thrilled to have all your toys around you. But then, once the joy of being home wore off (about 2 hours), you crawled up next to me on the couch, looked at me and said, “I don’t want any of my toys. I don’t want any food. I don’t want anything. I just want to go back to San Francisco.”

How you told the waitress at the place we go for Taco Tuesday that when you grow up, you’re going to move to San Francisco and cook chocolate at The Ghirardelli Factory. From there, you branched out and told her you were going to work at Outback Steakhouse and make grilled cheese sandwiches. And Scoma’s to make salmon. But most definitely the Ghirardelli Factory to cook chocolate.

How you weren’t feeling well earlier this month, and you coughed and coughed. Then you sat up and told me, “Oh! I coughed up Froggy!” Surprised, I repeated, “You coughed up Froggy?” You replied and said, “No, actually, I coughed up a bed!”

How we went by Toys R Us one Sunday after church to look around. They have a big wooden train table in there. You happily played with the trains and then another little girl came along and started playing. Then a little boy came along. You seemed to be doing OK with it, but when we got out to the car, you got really upset. When I asked you what was wrong, you told me, “I’m not happy with the boys and girls they broke my heart by playing with the trains. I’m going to kick them out by their sandals and I’m done with them!” Then you added, “I don’t like him! I’m gonna throw them into the tree and play with the trains all by myself.”

How the day before we were to leave on vacation to San Francisco, you woke up running a fever. Concerned, I decided to take you to the doctor that afternoon, just to make sure your ears were OK and get cleared to fly. You piped up and said, “Are we going to San Francisco? I want to go to San Francisco… I’m all better now!” As if you could will it away. We called in “sick” to your classes that day, and was glad we did. For the first time in two years you fell asleep in your Grandma D.’s arms at 9:30 AM and slept for an hour and a half, ON THE COUCH. Unheard of.

How at your doctor appointment that afternoon, the doctor wanted to do a strep throat test. The nurse couldn’t get the required swab and was threatening to hold you down. I calmly asked for the doctor to come back in and try, suggesting that maybe she had a trick or something. You are very much into “tricks” these days, so you picked up on that and were over the moon excited to find out what trick the doctor had, and while we waited, you wanted a “yucky wooden stick that tasted like a piece of wood” so you could practice. As it turns out, the doctor sure did have a trick, she made you pant like a dog and while you were doing that, she got your throat swab… and then she swabbed your Froggy’s throat, too. When we left her office, you were laughing and smiling. A neat trick, indeed, and FAR better than holding you down! She also had the nurse watch so she could learn the trick, and that made ME happy.

How when we visited Alcatraz Island, your first impression of the place was, “Daddy will be very busy if he has to clean all the bird poop up!” We determined that was very true, since Alcatraz Island is overrun with bird poop.

How when we went to dinner at Scoma’s (in San Francisco), your father asked you while reading off the kid’s menu whether you wanted spaghetti or a grilled cheese sandwich. You replied, without even thinking about it, “Shrimp! I want shrimp, please?” And then, while we were eating dinner, you looked at my plate and exclaimed, “That’s a dead fish! It’s not swimming anymore. Eating a live fish would tickle!”

How you really loved our rental car in SF; it played movies. When we got home, your father pulled up in our regular car at the airport, you exclaimed, “Hey! Where did our new car go?” And then the next day, our neighbors pulled out of the garage and it was the same car/color, you said, “Did they drive our car from San Francisco for us?”

When we got home, you were able to get some play time in with your neighbor, Josh. Their house is the same floor plan as ours, just reversed. As a result, you knew exactly where to go to find Josh’s bedroom. They had to leave to go somewhere and you were devastated. You told me, “When I grow up and Josh’s mom gets older, and Josh’s daddy gets older, and Josh gets older and I get older, I can go play at Josh’s house all day long.”

We’ve really had problems getting you to drink water during the day time hours, and then dinner and bath time come along and that’s all you want to do, is drink water. So your Grandma D. thought she would try another path and educate you about what exactly water does for your body. So, one night at dinner, you informed us, as you sucked on your water straw, “I need to drink lotsa water because it’s good for my brain!” Then I rattled off other things it’s good for, your heart, liver and poopy. After each one, you said, “Yes.” In a tone of voice that indicated I was repeating something you already knew and to get on with it already.

How various things have gone missing, like your swim goggles that I clearly remembered putting on top of the red wagon to dry… or one of your Froggys that Grandma D. clearly remembered putting on the couch. Turns out, you’ve been going around and relocating things. The Froggy was found hiding in your Trunki and your swim goggles were found outside on the patio table.

One of my radios has a weather button. You love to push that button and listen to the weather.

How one morning, I told you, “I love you so much. Do you know why?” You responded, “Because I’m so cute!” ha

How your Grandma D. took you to the park one day and you were playing with a 4 year old girl. You told her that you were 5 and that you had been to San Francisco and Nebraska. She told you she had been to Colorado. I guess traveling is a topic of conversation not only to be held between adults, but children as well!

Swimming…
You continue to do so well in these classes and just really, really love swimming. Our lower community pool has a broken heater, so we’ve been trekking across the street and up the hill to the other pool, which caters to a denser population, so is more busy than ours. At one point you told me, “I really like swimming, but I don’t like all these strangers in the pool, they’re just… BLAH!” This is when parenting is tough for me, because I kind of felt the same way.

Dancing…
You had your first dance recital and it was so cute and so much fun! The interesting thing was, you really had no idea that there was going to be an entire show going on behind your class while you performed, and so you spent most of the time facing backwards from the audience, amazed at the aerial acrobatics that were going on behind you. Someone mentioned to my mom that I should get you for the “between” performances so you could see the show, otherwise you would just be sitting in a dark area behind stage. So I sought you out and you looked at me like I was heaven on earth… it worked out perfectly, you got to see some of the performances, and do your performances, too.

Gymnastics…
You had a bit of a rough spot this past month with your gymnastics and listening to the teachers. I’m really not sure what is going on with you and this class, you say you love going, but you don’t like red circle time. Despite the “magic” Mr. Kevin works on you, one class you had to be sent to sit by grandma D. because you were pestering the other children. It’s likely you had trouble coming off your vacation high, but I wanted you to understand the seriousness of how disrespectful you were. So when I had your full, undivided attention (while nursing seems to be the best time for “talks” of this nature), I told you if you didn’t listen to your teachers, I would stop your MyGym classes. No more MyGym. You were understandably upset, as was I. The next class, you were like a different person. Listening, minding, not pestering other kids… and when I got home, I told you how proud I was and listed off all the things you had done right. You snuggled into me and said, “Thank you, mommy… what do I get?” Huh. I’m thinking you “get” to keep going to MyGym and, also, I’m pretty sure you “got” your round cookie already from Grandma D.

Bath time play…
You love to play out the Ghostlight scene from the Cars movie.
You love to play scenes from Toy STory.

Routines…

The afternoon of Mother’s day, we stopped by a Walmart that we don’t usually visit. In the toy section, a bunch of characters from Planes were on clearance. Your father bought you four of them because they were so cheap. On the way home, you declared, “Happy Toy Day, mommy!” Which morphed into “Boy Day!” by the time we got home.

My cat, Tug, has a tendency to nip if given a chance. I overheard you correcting him when you were petting him with, “No, no, Tug, just kisses or licks.”

One morning, Grandma D had arrived and was on the phone. You hollered over the balcony, “Grandma, get off the phone now. You’re supposed to be spending time with me!”

I love our life with you. The joy you bring us, the challenges you share with us, all of it makes us grow together as individuals, and as a family. How do I thank you for being who you are, when you’re just … you? So I find myself thanking God above every night for the precious boy that I hold in my arms and for the trust you place in us to be the best parents we can be. It’s a trust that I find myself almost reverent of, because we are your world and I’m constantly striving to make sure your trust isn’t misplaced. There is nothing in this world that makes me feel more humbled than your little eyes looking up at me, through all the emotions you feel every day, in complete and utter trust. Whatever else life may throw at you, I pray that you will always feel that kind of trust toward us, your parents.

Love, Momma

More pictures from this month can be found here:  LINK

Dear William,

On May 8, 2015, you turned 41 months old. You weigh 44.5 pounds and are 43″ tall. You are in size 6 boys footed sleepers, size 5T pants/shorts, size 5T shirts (or 4-6 boys/XS shirts).

Firsts:

You locked the bathroom door for the first time when using the restroom for privacy. That was quite concerning for Grandma D. who was trying to make sure you were on time for your swim class.

Things we did:
Thursday, 4/9, you visited me at work (and got a collectible car from my boss) and then went and saw airplanes landing at the airport w/ Grandma D.
Saturday, 4/11, we attended swim class & MyGym with you.
Friday, 4/24 through Sunday, 4/26, we went to the mountain cabin.
Saturday, 5/2, breakfast w/ your Godparents at Chick-Fil-A
Played at your grandparents house

Monday, Wednesday & Friday – swim class
Wednesday & Friday – MyGym
Tuesday, pre-k library story time and craft
Thursday, dance class w/ Miss Nicole

Language Development:

This month you have been sampling with rhyming words. For example, a song that I started writing you on the eve of your 3rd birthday (a work in progress), I sing as the last song of the medley I sing you each night, and usually you’re asleep by the time I get to it (or so I thought).  You started singing it to me one day, except you changed the word “hold” to “told” and laughed at me when I attempted to correct you.

If you call me “mom” I call you “Sim.” When you correct my name to “mommy,” I call you “Simba” (from Lion King movie). You think this is a hilarious game to play.

You’ve always been a verbal child, and the last couple months I’ve seen that you will make up stories and play with your toys for upwards of a half an hour, sometimes 45 minutes, with each toy carrying it’s own side of the conversation. Sometimes, you’ll have one of the “characters” belt out a song, as loud as “they” can and endearingly off-key.

You still say words pronouncing an “L” with a “W”, which is pretty funny when you’re talking about Cars 2. Referencing the lemon cars, you will say, “These women cars are bad. These womens are going to get you, McMissile!”

You’ve also been watching Planes and Planes 2 movies, and I hear you talking to your toys with emphatic, “I told you copy dot… COPY DOT!” Meaning, of course, “copy that.”

When playing with the Potato Head family, you kept referring to the “Smooshstache”, which meant “mustache.”

You requested to watch the movie, “Monsters a virgin yet?” You meant “Monsters University.”

In Toy Story 2, Buzz’s dad’s name is Zerg. You refer to him as “Jerk.” Your father was very confused when you kept calling him Jerk one night when he got home… until he realized you were role playing from Toy Story.

At the restaurant one night, we ordered chips and salsa. You said, laughing, “Are we getting Mufasa?” I said, “No, we’re getting chips and salsa?” You said, “No, Mufasa!” (Thanks Lion King movie!)

About singing… it appears as if you’ve inherited your parents’ love for music, but did not inherit my ability to sing. I’m kind of sad about that. But, boy, do you have musical passion! I love when you get so into a song, you raise up your little fist and sing into it like it’s a microphone! (You call it your “singer.”)

Sleep:

You’ve seemed to need extra reassurance this past month in middle of the night, often requesting one of us to lie down with you if you wake up. The last week has been back to “normal” sleeping, all the way through the night. So, it appears as if we’re on the other side of the developmental progress you’ve been working through for the last 6-8 weeks.

Then, just this last week after sleeping through the night two nights in a row, as I was nursing you to sleep, you unlatched and told me, “Mommy, when I wake tonight, I want you to come to me, not daddy.” I was a little scared (ha!), but you slept through that night, too. Thankfully.

I’ve mentioned before, but when we travel, I co-sleep with you.  So, when we went to the mountains, I crawled in your bed and you immediately plastered yourself to me.  No matter where I went in the bed, I would wake up to you plastered to me.  I finally managed to  put my back to the wall (cold) and you to my front (hot) and was comfortable.  Even though I was tired in the morning (innumerable times you woke and went back to sleep), it was one of the best things in the world to hold you while you slept.

Food and Nourishment:

You continue to do well with food. I’ve adopted the mantra of, after you’ve tasted something, “You don’t have to eat it.” You do have to wait for us to be done eating, because we like your company at the dinner table. When you ask to be excused, I always ask you to tell me if you’re full, which is usually answered with a resounding, “Yes!” And then I ask, how is your tummy… only because I like to see you take your hand and press on your belly and say, “It’s rock hard!”

I recently made some waffles and put some tiny chocolate chips in them. You sat down to eat them, not knowing what I’d done and exclaimed in pure wonder, “I found the chocolate!”

After your classes one Saturday, I took you to Baja Fresh and ordered you a kid’s meal of some taquitos, rice and apple sauce. Your spoon trailed from the apple sauce to sample the rice and they got mixed together. You tasted it with a curious look on your face and looked up at me and proclaimed, “Apple sauce and rice are good together!”

We visited your grandparents last weekend and I laid a picnic blanket on their lawn.  Your grandpa brought you a couple snacks of strawberries and you would mention something else you liked and your grandpa kept leaving and coming back with what you had mentioned. Before I knew it, you had a picnic of snacks for lunch… quite the spread of carrots, broccoli, almonds, strawberries… and you were delicately feeding them to your Grandma H.

After eating some broccoli, you gradually stood up and went all the way up on your tip toes.  You said that eating the tree made you grow big and tall.

You’ve been getting some crazy food lately.  You take a bite and start shaking your head back and forth and swaying like you’re Stevie Wonder.  Upon those occasions, you inform us that you ate “crazy grapes” or “crazy grilled cheese.”  Then your father samples it, and you both go crazy together.

Nursing continues to be a joy for us. It’s very different nursing a toddler than a newborn, though. You come to me when you’re hurt or if you’re sad, or feeling insecure, or just need to cuddle. You love to nurse if you’re watching a movie, I joke that nursing is your popcorn. Your favorite nursing session seems to be your “wake up” nursing, as that is generally when you nurse the longest. I look forward to our leisurely Saturday morning wake-ups. Sometimes if you’re tired and really struggling, you’ll ask to nurse when you get out of the bathtub, before we floss/brush your teeth. It’s usually on those nights that you fall asleep within 2-3 minutes, so a pre-nursing is just fine with me. It’s very rare for you to nurse in the middle of the night anymore, you usually request your daddy to snuggle with you. It is bittersweet to me; because for the first 3 years I handled most night wakings by nursing you back to sleep, and now I generally get to sleep through the night and your daddy gets extra snuggles with you. It is fascinating to see how our nursing relationship is evolving as you get older.

One afternoon you stuck your face in my chest, took a deep breath and declared, “That smells like nah-nahs.”

I was working on an irrigation project and was frustrated I couldn’t find a part I needed in my inventory.  You said, “Oh mommy, you just need to give me nah-nahs. That will help you feel better.”

Favorites this month:

Color: Red
Song: I Just Can’t Wait to be King (Lion King)
Movie: Lion King and Toy Story 2
Food: Grilled Cheese sandwich
Snack: “Melon Balls” (Greek yogurt covered granola bites)
Dessert: Mini ice cream sundae (from Weinerschnitzel)
Fruit: Grapes and Avocado
Vegetable: Broccoli
Class: MyGym
Teacher: Mr. Kevin (the new owner at MyGym)
Store: 99¢ Store
Restaurant: Outback Steakhouse
Vacation spot: Big Bear
Toy: Firetruck and Buzz Lightyear

Things I want to remember:

Swim classes have been a great success.  I see the progress on the videos your Grandma D. takes, or when we get to take you to your class. You are a child obsessed with swimming when we take you to our community pool, lately now you will swim from the side of the pool to the steps and back again, over and over, sometimes even doing a u-turn in the water to do it.  You are so very excited to go to the pool, and impatient to get in the water. You tell me, “Let me go!”  You role play that you are your other classmates, Logan and Millie, and you pretend to take their turn, but when you’re swimming as them, you usually mess something up and then “William” has to show them how it’s done. I’m not Miss Mommy anymore… according to you, I’m Miss Michelle.  Also, you really don’t like to get out of the pool when it’s time to go.  Sometimes I think you would happily swim all night long.

You did work through a bit of fear this month with respect to swimming.  We aren’t sure what triggered it, but suddenly you were afraid to swim out to the teacher from the step and wasted 15 minutes of your class time, sitting on the side of the pool, scared to go in.  We worked with you for an hour in the community pool that night, building up your confidence again.  At the end of the session, you earned Slinky Dog.  You were beyond thrilled and it was an awesome positive reinforcement for work well done.

Something clicked for you this past month and you are much more cooperative and actively participate now in your dance class. We enrolled you in the recital that is set for 5/16 and I’m looking forward to seeing the routine you’ve learned. Part of your routine is that you dance in a circle with one of the little girls, and in your practice you two bonked heads and had to walk it off. I heard that she was bragging to her mom about how she got to dance with you, so I guess the whole head bonking thing wasn’t too traumatic for her.

I am constantly amazed at how well you navigate the iPhone 4 that I have your apps on. I use this as a tool to keep you awake when we nurse around 5pm. I start you with the Bible Stories for Kids app, and when I get the phone back from you, it usually has between 5-7 apps open, all from your exploring. Sometimes you even manage to make your way into the videos folder and you’re always so amazed to find “Rachel and the TreeSchoolers” in there.

We went to Walmart last week and I found Jessie (from Toy Story 2). I managed to keep you from seeing it (a feat in itself, it seems you can spot a toy anywhere, whether it’s triple bagged, you still somehow know what it is) until we got outside to the parking lot. When I gave her to you, you were so vocal in your excitement and were laughing and saying over and over again, “It’s Jessie! Oh my goodness, it’s Jessie!!” It was like you were greeting a long lost friend!  Let me tell you something, if you react that way to any present you get for the rest of your life? I promise you, your life will be overflowing with bounty. People love to give gifts that are so exuberantly received!

Your bath time play has, over the past year, become one of my favorite times of day with you. I love interacting with you and seeing your imagination at work. I now try really hard to incorporate at least 30 minutes for you to have bath time play. We have tried many things in the past to transition you out of the tub, including a kitchen timer. What really seems to work best is after we’re done playing, I’ll gradually put all the toys back in their basket, soap you up and then have you stand up for rinsing. Then I scoop you out and put you on my lap to floss your teeth, and then your father comes in and brushes your teeth. While he brushes your teeth, I usually put lotion on you or clip your nails. Then it’s time for pajamas, a book (if there’s time), devotions and prayers. It is a seamless routine and it has been working well for many months now. Although, you have told me a couple times this past month that, “I don’t like nah-nahs.” When asked why, you said, “Because that means I go to sleep. I don’t want to go to sleep.”

In the last couple months, we’ve been broaching the topic of strangers with you… gently, trying to find the balance of knowledge and not scare you. The reason being, earlier this year, we went to the Irvine Spectrum, and they had installed some astroturf for kids to run around on, lined with a few Adirondack chairs here and there for parents to sit on. When we were there, I was keeping an eagle eye on you and noticed you approach one of the other kid’s dads repeatedly, engaging him. And I couldn’t help but think to myself, what if that guy were someone who intended to harm you? He wasn’t, but he could’ve been. Then I looked around at all the parents sitting in their chairs and not a single one of them was watching their kids. Their eyes were fixated on their phones and it really freaked me out to realize how very easy it would be for someone with nefarious intent to walk away with a child and it wouldn’t even be noticed for several minutes. I guess you’ve been listening, because we arrived at the pool one evening and there was a neighbor holding a pool party there. You looked around and in the volume only a 3 year old could pull off, you asked, “Are these people strangers? Why are they in my pool?”

When we were recently at your grandparent’s house, you were playing in their front bedroom (aka William’s toy room) and you opened a cabinet. Inside you discovered a zippered bag and in the zippered bag, you discovered a Potato Head family. Your Grandma H. told me they had been left behind from your cousins, Huck and Milo, and she put them in the bag to keep them tidy.  You were beyond excited and spent an hour rearranging their faces, their mouths and ears and accessories.  I overheard you to say, when Mrs. Potato Head fell over, “Look at the sky, lady!”  And, “Here woman, do you need glasses?”  And to Mr. Potato Head, “Here.  Do you want to suck on the pipe?”

One day last month, I had some moles removed from my face. I had a grand total of 8 small band aids applied, 5 of which were on my face. I was curious how you would react, especially because the receptionist at the doctor’s office told me I looked like I’d been through a war. When I got home, you crawled on my lap, I wasn’t even able to get out of my car. You peered intently at my face for a moment and then asked, “Do you have band-aids on your face?” Upon my confirmation of that, you said, “Do you have owies under your band-aids?” I again confirmed that. And then you kissed my band-aids, as you counted them.  “One owie,” *kiss* “Two owies,” *kiss*  All the way up to five.

For the last couple of months, CalElite has been offering unlimited swim classes. We were able to take advantage of that and were able to “sample” their teachers. Two of them I really, really liked and now that the unlimited part is done, I’m struggling with who I want to continue with. I chose the male teacher (for now), just because you seem to cooperate better with him and you get silly with him.

When I took you to one of your swim classes last month, I was sitting in the glass viewing room and then admonished myself as to why I was doing that? It wasn’t where I wanted to be, which was at the pool side with you, listening to the teacher. So, I broke the rules (I guess?) and went to the pool side and sat behind you, leaning against the wall. You turned to look for me in the glass room, and got a concerned expression on your face. I touched your shoulder and you turned to look at me with a broad smile and told everyone, “That’s my mommy right there. I love you, mommy.” That made up for all the times you tell me you don’t love me and don’t want my love, either… which, sadly, is something you tell me about once a week when you’re really, really tired after your bath at night.

Although, when I come in your room first thing in the morning,  you tell me in a sweet, sleepy voice as you sit up from being asleep all night, “I love you, mommy…”

We’ve had quite an issue with your gymnastics class the last couple of months. I wasn’t sure how I was going to handle it, but the thing was, you had really bonded with the former owner of MyGym (Mr. Steve) and then there was some turmoil and an interim manager who didn’t really have the knack for working with younger kids. You, in turn, started failing to listen, started “playing” and sometimes in your playing would bother the other kids, and sometimes would just refuse to participate. You were spending the entire class time being corrected or cajoled into participating, and that is not my goal or why I spend money on the class. Since it was pretty much isolated to MyGym, I gave notice to discontinue. However, the new owner (Mr. Kevin) has resurrected the place and in two weeks time has really turned the place around and you are actually listening and if you’re not, he somehow works magic and you end up participating within about 30 seconds. I think I need to take classes from him so I know what magic to use on you!

You recently realized that I have a crap-ton of stuffed animals above my closet and begged for my little Stitch doll.  You held him up to show him my starry night pajamas (it has moon and the stars on them) and said, “Stitch, I will show you night.  Look at mommy’s shirt.”  Then you followed up with, “Look at the stars… I’m teaching you to be king.”  (Thanks, Lion King movie.)

More memories:

Playing in the bath tub, you were driving your Sheriff squeeze toy through the bubbles and said (as if you were him, “Stop putting things on my face. I’m trying to see things on my computer.”

How you attended mass with me and your father was serving mass. You wanted to go see him and I told you that you had to wait until mass was over. You pulled out the kneeling prayer bench, knelt down on it and said, “Then I’m going to pray that mass is over now.”

How you love our coming home routine (and I do, too). We nurse and then we go in the kitchen and I lift you up to sit on the counter. I then open the pantry and pull out a couple chocolate chips or some sort of chocolate bit. While you eat that, you select which vitamin you’ll be eating (either a Frozen vitamin or a Cars vitamin), and then you hop on my back and I piggy back you to the couch and you say, “Now, let’s talk about what we did today. What did you do today, mommy?”

You take great joy in the cats getting in trouble. Anytime you hear their name called, you pop up from where ever you are and say, “What did he do?”

One morning you woke up with a stuffy nose and started bonking yourself in the face with your hand.  Concerned, I asked, “What are you doing?”  You replied, “I am hitting the germs!”  And then, sadly and with some desperation, you said, “It’s not working. Will nah-nahs make it better and make the germs go away?”

We’ve been pushing you to drink more water during the day and, often, your response is, “If I drink water, then I’ll have go pee! I don’t want to go pee!”

One morning, after you were done nursing, you turned into me and said, “Mommy, I’m a burrito.” I asked if you were a beef or chicken burrito.  You said, “I’m a beef burrito with white rice.  I’m delicious.  YOU SHOULD EAT ME!”  It was particularly hilarious because I didn’t even know you knew burritos have rice in them.  Even funnier, your father and I always order brown rice.  When I left the room a few minutes later, you followed me out pretending you were Woody calling for slinky dog and the soldiers. haha

One evening, you had lost Woody and Buzz.  Your father found Buzz, but couldn’t find Woody.  He was walking around, opening and closing things, asking “Where is Woody?  William, where did you put Woody?”  You were following him around saying, “Don’t worry, he’s coming.”  Then, your father was digging in the toy chest and you said, “Stop digging!  Those are NOT your toys!”

If I ask you what you think about a new food that you like, you will tell me, “I think it’s better than honey.”

Your Grandma D. reported the following to me one day, “William calls it Awesome Park. We were at the slide where he got stung that time with you. William said there is a bee on it. And there WAS! We are now at the tunnel slide. Other kids here.”

One morning when I got sad that I had to leave for work, you told me “It’s okay mommy, daddy is still here.”

If we ever ask you what you want for dinner, you say, “It’s taco Tuesday!”  If we tell you it’s not Tuesday, you ask, “Can I have a grilled cheese sandwich then?”

One day, I was gently correcting you on something and you said, “Don’t call the police man.  I know you’re getting frustrated, but don’t call the police man.”

If we get somewhere and you realize we didn’t bring something you want, you’ll say, “You didn’t bring my _____ because I didn’t remind you.”

You threw one of your toys and you looked up guiltily and asked, “Will my toys come and get me now?”

At MyGym your Grandma D. reported, “William jumped for the monkey bar  & said, “To infinity & beyond!”

At Yogurtland, a little girl walked by saying repeatedly to her mom, “I want chocolate.”  Her mom kept telling her she could have strawberry.  The girl was insistent on chocolate.  You piped up and said, “I love that child.”

In your car seat, you were reaching for something and were saying “I’ve got to get the brown thing.”  Confused, I asked you “What brown thing?”  You kept repeating yourself and I did, too, and finally, in exasperation, you said, “The brown thing on the butt wiper!”  You were referring to a picture on the baby wipes wrapper.  I think you thought it was a toy.  But, seriously, butt wiper?

When we had a party, you looked over the balcony as you went to your bath and said, “Good night, everyone!”  And I always have visions of the Sound of Music children singing their goodnight song when you do that.  The next morning, you looked over the balcony and asked mournfully, “Where’d all my friends go?” You are the only kid I know who cries when other kids leave the park to go home and totally guilt trip other kid’s parents into staying longer.

Grandma D. reported, “I suggested William pull the wagon & I sit in it. His answer: “Your butt is too big.”

A new tradition was born last month with your daddy “giving you his love” in your right hand.  You then bring your left hand up to my mouth for me to kiss.  Then you bring your hands together over your head to put our love together. From there, you lift up Froggy and put your right hand to your heart to put our love in your heart. Every single night.

…and every single night, you melt our hearts.

Love, Momma

More pictures from this month can be found here:  LINK

Dear William,

On April 8, 2015, you turned 40 months old.

You weigh 44 pounds and are 42 1/2″ tall You are in size 5T footed sleepers (getting too small), size 4T pants/shorts, size 5T shirts (or 4-6 boys/XS shirts).

Things we did:

03/12 – Taste of Jay’s catering event
03/13 – Irvine Spectrum, ferris wheel and train
03/14 – first real train ride (Amtrak!)
03/14 – Zoomars petting zoo
03/14 – Annual Green Dinner (with Irish dancers)
03/22 – Sea World/Breakfast with Elmo & Friends
03/28 – Bunny Blast (our city’s Easter event)
04/04 – Lunch at Johnny Rockets and visit some friends
04/05 – Easter!  (Mass w/ daddy, egg hunt at Grandparent’s house)

Monday, Wednesday & Friday – swim class
Monday, Wednesday & Friday – MyGym
Tuesday, pre-k library story time and craft
Thursday, dance class w/ Miss Nicole

Firsts:

03/24 – With your father’s help, you cleaned up your first cat poopy. HA!
03/28 – First port-a-potty usage
04/04 – played your first pinball game (Star Wars)

Language Development:

Sometimes you call Toy Story, “Stoy Tory.”
Girl is “Grirl.”
Mebraska is Nebraska
Abby from Sesame is Street is “Butterfly Grirl.” She gave you a hug and a pat on the head at the Elmo and Friends breakfast, and you are totally enamored with her now.

Sleep:

This past month has been challenging for us. A few nights you’ve had trouble unwinding/falling asleep.  It seems like you have a lot on your mind sometimes.  You’ve been waking in the middle of the night to go pee, sometimes twice, and then sometimes waking early.   I suppose it’s likely that you’re having some sort of developmental leap, as the inability to relax has always been one of the signals for you.

Food and Nourishment:

You are still obsessed with grilled cheese sandwiches, so that’s an easy meal if we’re being lazy.  We’ve been getting trays of fresh vegetables, we keep finding deals on them… big trays of crudites, and since your father and I are crunching away on them, you’ve started doing it, too.

Your creativity is extending to your food… on leftover night, you had (surprisingly haha) a grilled cheese sandwich. You took some mac-n-cheese from the bowl and put it on top of  your sandwich and informed us, “I’m having a mac-n-cheese sandwich now!”

Nursing continues to be a joy for us.  I’ve noticed that I’m using our nursing pillow for only 2 sessions… the arrival home and the bedtime.  All the other sessions, we’ve finally figured out how to nurse comfortably without the pillow.

Favorites this month:

Color: Red
Song: Siamese song from Lady & the Tramp; Also, El Shaddai (Amy Grant)
Movie: Lion King
Food: Grilled Cheese sandwich
Snack: Greek yogurt covered granola bites (aka melon balls)
Dessert: Chocolate
Fruit: Honeydew
Vegetable: Asparagus & soybeans
Class: Swimming
Teacher: Miss Michelle (swim class)
Store: Walmart

Things I want to remember:

How you woke one morning (3/25) and were singing El Shaddai and Thy Word (both Amy Grant songs) to yourself at 6 AM. I asked you what you were doing, you said, “Singing to Jesus.” I told you Jesus likes to hear you singing.

How we went to Taco Tuesday (it’s a local “family” style bar) and you really wanted to bring your music player in and listen to your songs.  We told you that you wouldn’t even be able to hear your songs because it is so loud in there.  You were insistent, and we shrugged… picking our battles.  So you set your player on the table and were looking around at all the TVs in there and you stared at one TV in particular and said, “Oh my goodness, that’s Amy Grant!”  I looked at the TV and it was on commercial, but I saw no Amy Grant.  It wasn’t until a few minutes later that I realized you were talking about your music player… I had just put a few Amy Grant songs on it the night before, and you didn’t know I had done that.

How sometimes you just start doing stuff that drives me up the wall and I realize that everything I’m saying to you is a correction of some sort. So I just take you outside and then everything I’m telling you is a fun thing to do. I’ve heard this referred to as a “Yes Space” and I love that name for it.

How one day, I tried to pick you up and you were all limp. I told you that you were a noodle. You thought that was pretty funny. I put you in the Tula and as I leaned in the car to turn off the engine, you got a blast of air in your mouth from the A/C. You said, “The noodle ate some air! The noodle likes air!” Then as we walked through the store, you asked me to blow in your mouth so you could eat some more air.

How sometimes when we watch a movie on the weekend, we will nurse and then when you were done nursing, I turned on my stomach/side to take a nap on the couch. You fit yourself to me like a little puzzle piece. It was one of the best naps I’ve ever taken… although you didn’t.  You tell me you can’t sleep when the sun is awake.

We let you have your first Lifesaver from an Easter egg this month.  You finished one, and we left for dinner.  You asked where your egg was, I told you it was at home.  You replied with great urgency, “Oh!  Drive back to home and get the egg!  I need more!”

You love the Old Oak Tree song, “One little owl says who who, two little owls say who who, three little owls say who who as they sat in the old oak tree”  Now you’ve started correcting me if I put silly things, like cars, in the old oak tree with, “Oh, silly mommy, cars don’t sit in the oak tree, they drive on the street!”

You were role playing the characters of Frozen.  You tripped and fell down.  In concern, I asked you what had happened.  You matter-of-factly said, “I melted.”  Obviously, you were Olaf.

While we were waiting for our food at Sonic after the Bunny Blast event, in the interest of keeping you occupied by something other than your hunger, I told you to count the cars going by.  So you said, “1, 2, 3… that car is in trouble.  1, 2, 3… that car is in trouble, too.”  I wondered how every third car felt about being in trouble. haha

Hilarious kid that you are, we were eating dinner in the back yard.  In excitement, you got up to look at something, I told you it was dinnertime and to get back in your chair.  So you grabbed your chair and held it up to your rear end and started walking around.  Cheeky little thing!

Your father has an awful time taking you down off of his shoulders.  Sometimes it takes him 2 or 3 tries!  Why?  Because you clamp your legs around his neck and holler, “No!  I’m sticky!”  And then after that happens, you find yourself afflicted with “stickiness” and often end up stuck to my legs or daddy’s legs.  Such a terrible thing to happen to you!

Swim classes have been a great success.  I see the progress on the videos your Grandma D. takes and also when we take you to our community pool.  You are excited to get in the water, so very happy.  You tell me, “Let me go!”  You role play that you are your other classmates, Logan and Millie, and you pretend to take their turn, willingly flipping over and floating on your back.  You call your legs and feet “kickers” and say, “Where’s my kickers?”  You also call me Miss Mommy during “class.”

How you like to lie flat on your belly in the bath tub and blow bubbles with your mouth, and then you say you are going to be a swim teacher when you grow up.  I tell you you need to get a bit bigger.  Then you said, “I’m bigger now and I’m the swim teacher. I am Miss Michelle. Today we are only blowing bubbles, we are not putting our eyes in the water today, OK?”

Your dance class is going better now that we’ve switched teachers.  While you still don’t love it like you do your swim class, you really like your teacher.  In fact, I think you tolerate the class because you like the teacher so much.  For some reason in your new dance class, the teacher uses different color spots for the kids to stand on.  After one day of you being traumatized by someone switching spots and taking “yours”, you now use your Froggy to save your spot for you.  You have almost become preoccupied with it.

When you start to feel overwhelmed with something the dance teacher is doing, she backs off, gives you a bit of space and lets you observe for awhile before requesting your participation.  And then she comes alongside you and helps guide you.  I am grateful to her for her patience and intuitive handling of you.   When I asked you this past week if you dance with the other little girls, you emphatically declared, “NO! No, I don’t.  I dance with Miss Nicole.”  Which tells me you are very possessive of your teacher.

Grandma forgot to bring Froggy to one of your dance classes.  You got about halfway there and she remembered and told you, “Oh dear, if we go back to get it, we’ll be late to class.”  You responded, “Take the freeway then!”

How proud of you I am that you willingly and happily let me floss your teeth (we started doing this after your dentist visit a couple months ago).  It helps that I found some kid flosser sticks with different colored animals.  Your favorite is the red crab, next is the orange monkey, next is the green dolphin and least favorite (sadly to me) is the blue elephant.

One night while you were in the bathtub, your father and I started chasing each other in the hallway outside of your bathroom.  You started laughing hysterically and when I looked in on you, you were “running” in the bathtub and were splashing water everywhere with your legs.

I bought a neat spinning thing at Big Lots, which you played with and when I leaned over to buckle you into your car seat,  it got stuck in my hair.  I managed to pull it out (with some hair loss of course), and your father fixed it and put it up on top of my dresser.  You spotted it, pulled up a chair, got it, brought it to me and informed me, “I found this! It isn’t in your hair anymore!”

It truly is amazing the things you notice, like, you were eating lunch with your Grandma D. in front of the library before story time one day.  You said, “Hey, there’s a bear on that flag!”  Of course, there would be. There is a bear on the California flag which was flying there.  Or, one morning, you said, “You’re not wearing your purple and black socks. Those are red and green stripes.”  Yep, sure enough, I had switched socks that morning.

How we came out of Walmart one day and the person who had parked in the handicapped spot had parked half in their spot and half in the wheelchair unloading area.  You looked at it for a minute and then asked, “Is somebody sick or something?”  I said, “I don’t know, why do you ask?”  You pointed and declared, “Their wheel is on the side that says ‘No parking’  they must be sick or something.”

You got water in your shoe one day from going through a puddle, and when the water streamed out of it with your next step you said, “Oh no! That’s pee coming out of my shoe!”

Sitting on the toilet at church, you said, “Get out poopy!”  After a moment, you turned and told me, “The poopy says no.”

Imitating the Frozen song, Let it Go, you sang, “Here I poop, and here I’ll stay.”

Eating a slider at the taste test event, you asked, “This is a slider?”  Yes, you were told.  You asked, peering curiously at the bun, “Is there a slide in there?”

You discovered a hole in my pajamas where a seam is coming loose.  You stared at it for a second, poked your finger in it and then informed me that I needed to go to the tailors.  I asked you why, thinking I could just fix it myself.  You replied, “Because you broke your clothes, mommy.  The tailor fixes broken clothes!”

You’ve started calling me “mom” (instead of mommy) just because you’re being mischievous.  In response, I’ll call you “Sim” (short for Simba from the Lion King movie).  You’ll say, “No, no, momMY…, it’s SimBA!”  You know exactly what you’re doing, and you know exactly why I’m shortening your name, too.  Smarty pants.

When you role play the toys in Toy Story, you jump off the top of your toy chest onto the entry way.  Before you do it, you yell, “To infinity and beyond!” Spread out your arms and then go.  One day after you jumped, you told me, ” I am a cool toy!”

How we were going through some of your toys and you came across a woolly mammoth toy.  You held him up and with a confused look on your face asked, “What movie do I live in?”

I took you into a local children’s resale shop and you excitedly asked as we entered, “Can I go look at all the broken toys?”  I said you could.  After a few minutes perusing the toys, you said, “Mommy, these toys… none of these toys are broken!”

More of the influence of the Bible for Kids app, you were role playing the other night and you informed us, “I’m Jesus and, daddy?  You are a Roman soldier.”  Before you could name me, I asked you if I could be Mary.  “Yes, yes, you may be Mary, mommy.”  I was grateful because I didn’t want to have to do reprogramming of you that I’m your mommy, which is what your father faced after an hour of him being a Roman soldier trying to convince you that he is actually Joseph.  ha

If I pull toilet paper off the roll to wipe you, you are quick to admonish me, “Don’t take too much! That’s wasteful!”  Same if I turn the water on to wash your hands, you’ll say, “Not that much. You’re just wasting water!”  And then the soap squirter, “Just a little soap.  My hands aren’t that big.”

You still love to be told parts of a movie like it’s a story.  Like, if you’re upset or being uncooperative or just need to have your mind on something else, I’ll start a story with, “Did you hear about Frank?”  And then launch into the story of Frank in the field and being awakened by Lightning and Tow Mater tractor tipping (Cars movie)… or the story about the Siamese cats coming out of the basket and causing a ruckus (Lady & the Tramp).  I’ll probably be adding something from Toy Story to my repertoire.

At an outing this past weekend, there was a fountain.  You walked around it, up stairs, down stairs, another little boy walked up to it and started putting his hands in the water. You walked up to him before I could get to you and told him, “Hey, you! Stop that! That’s my water!  You’re getting on my nerve!”  (I am being totally serious when I say, I really don’t know where you get some of these things you say.  They are NOT things that any of your caregivers say around you.  I just did a search of the Toy Story movie script, and apparently “getting on my nerves” and “stop that” are part of the script… Toy Story is one of your favorite movies right now.)

You love to help wash dishes and I usually manage to get you interested in doing it by nonchalantly asking you to help me clear the table after dinner.  Before I know it, you’ve got a chair pulled up to the sink and are rinsing everything off.

Before bath time, you get to run around upstairs in your underwear.  One evening, your father said, “You have a couple minutes to run around.  Don’t blow it.”  You started walking around, blowing air from your mouth in long gusts and short puffs.

One of my favorite things to do is to watch you play with your toys… whether your outside toys, your inside toys, or your bath toys.  Quietly watching you play gives me such insight to what you’re learning, but also to areas that I need to improve myself… because I hear myself (and others) in the words you tell your toys, how you treat the cats, and even how you treat other kids.  I can also see the influence of the movies  you’re watching come out in how you behave toward others.

I really enjoy my weekend mornings with you and our leisurely morning nursings… and how after you’re done nursing you’ll start talking and making up stories… like, one morning you decided to role play Thomas and the bee story, but you mingled in a practical joke about Spencer hauling a “septic” trailer and when he got where he was going he found he’d been hauling poop.

When we got  home from your grandparents house on Easter, you looked at me mournfully and said, “Oh no! We forgot to bring my bunny ears!”  I asked you, “What bunny ears?”  You said, “MY bunny ears.  The ones I wear for Easter!”  And then I remembered, you DO have a pair of bunny ears for Easter.  I think they’re in the bottom of your toy chest somewhere.

I love that your Grandma D. takes videos of your activities that you do. It’s such a blessing to us … all of us as a family. Not only does it help you do better in classes.  Often, we will watch your videos of the day after dinner, before bath time, together as a family. Not only is it constructive for you to see yourself, but it allows us to give you positive feedback. Also, sometimes when I miss you after you’ve gone to sleep, I will watch the videos and it helps me feel better, more often than not, I’ll turn around and your father will be standing behind me watching as well.

Your Grandma D. shared a little story with me this past week, how one Monday you had a really rough time after we had left for work.  She said you told her, “I don’t want Rachel (Signing Time), I don’t want food, I don’t want toys, I don’t want anything!  I just want mommy and daddy.”  The story is both sweet and sad and makes me hurt and melt at the same time.

Your father touched your hand one night before he left the room giving it an extra squeeze of love. You brought your other hand over your head and touched your other hand.  I asked, “What is that?”  You replied, “That’s where daddy gave me his love.”  You then put your hand and touched your chest.  You said, “I’m putting Daddy’s love in my heart.”  Then you  brought your hand from your heart to my heart and told me, “I’m putting daddy’s love in your heart now.”

Love, Momma

More pictures from this month can be found here:  LINK