Taking it too far?

Andrew loves cars.

No no. I mean - LOVES cars. To a crazy extreme.

The kid pretends to be a car for much of his day. If his socks slouch, he's got a flat tire. He loves to wear dark blue or black socks, to give himself the most believable tires, I guess.

We've used this to our advantage, at times. Requesting a 'pit stop' to go potty. And he's doing great at using the potty most of the day. Even without reminders, he's staying dry pretty much all the time! #2 is another story, but we're working on it.

This brings me to my story. This weekend, Andrew might've taken this analogy too far.

"Mommy, you have to change me. There's something stinky in my trunk."

Um, yeah. Where does he come up with this stuff?

Catch Up

Gosh - this is the hard thing for me. If I can't be consistent about blogging, I avoid it all together. Blah. So here, a couple months have zipped by. Let's recap:

November
Abigail turned 9 months old! She started waving, and towards the end of the month she started saying, "Baaah!" while she waved. She wrinkles her nose and makes some cute faces. She loves to eat finger foods and anything else she can get her hands on. I gave Andrew a half of a banana and she grabbed the other half. And ate it. She started showing some interest in pulling up - but really only by climbing on Mommy and Daddy. Oh - she also learned to throw her arms up in the air for "So big!!"

Andrew turned THREE. Eeks! What a big boy he has become! His imagination amazes me and he says the funniest things every single day. For awhile, he was calling me "honey." He goes potty on his own (for #1) pretty much all the time. He still loves running around in his underwear and wearing the coolest socks he can find. They are his tires, after all.

As a family, we had our first family picture taken. Mommy, Daddy, and Andrew were healthy and in good spirits. Poor Abigail was under the weather and turned out to have an ear infection. Poor thing! We had the pictures taken anyway.



December
Abigail is starting to find her knees, as I like to put it. She's rocking on her knees and testing out real crawling. She's still much faster doing her army crawl, but those knees have helped her pull up on more things. Besides her waving and saying, "Bye!" (even for 'hello', or just for something to do - not exclusively for goodbye-ing), she's started saying "Uh oh!" and babbling up a storm.

This week, both kids were in their chairs eating lunch. Andrew kept saying, "Bike. Bike, bike, bike. B starts with bike. Bike. BIKE!" Out of nowhere, Abigail says, "Bike!" I looked at Andrew and said, "Did you hear that?" Andrew, very unimpressed, says, "Yeah, she said bike." He couldn't care less. Abigail also moved on, to more non-sense babbling.

Andrew's vocabulary is growing like crazy. He uses words like, "creature" and "car transporter." He's loving the Christmas carols right now, and sings them at the top of his lungs. He loves playing with Rugby. Oh - and his birthday present - a train table. Fun stuff! He also got a kids' shovel recently, so he can "help" us clear the sidewalks and driveway.

I will do better about posting. Both of my sweet babes do something just about daily that is blog-worthy. Funny stuff from Andrew. Lots of firsts for Miss Abigail. For now, Merry Christmas!

Quotables

Man, this kid keeps crankin' out the one-liners. Three is going to be a fun year, I can tell!

All from the past 2 days:

Andrew: (speaking gibberish at dinner) "Yuiejhg skjouk wewowom nuquimk blaaa."
Daddy: "Andrew, are you speaking in tongues?"
Andrew: "No, Daddy. I eating my yogurt."



Also at the table - this time it was lunch with Mommy:
Andrew: "Mommy, I funny."
Mommy: "Oh yeah?"
Andrew: "CanIeatasquirrel?!? Moahhahaha!!" (hysterical laughter)
Andrew: "I funny."

On the potty:
Andrew: "Mommy, I stink."
Mommy: "Did you poop?"
Andrew: "No, Mommy. I stink. I just need the fan on."

Are you God?

Andrew and Daddy have been sharing some Bible stories at bedtime. Andrew has a little children's Bible and another book of Bible stories. I'm not sure exactly which one they read at bedtime - or how many stories. I do know that Andrew says a short prayer at dinner time that sounds something like this:

"Thank you God... for my Daddy. For my Mommy. For Abigail. For Rugby. And thank you for Jesus. Aaaaaaaamen."

That's generally what it sounds like, give or take a few 'thank you's'.

So when Ryan came down from bedtime chuckling this weekend, I didn't know what to expect. He had read some stories with Andrew, and then Andrew looked at Daddy and asked:

"Daddy, are you God?"

Heh. Not exactly, little buddy. Ryan explained that Jesus is God. God is in heaven. Some of those basics. But how do you begin to explain this to a two-year-old? This is new territory.


Cloud-watching this summer


Oh - and one more. Just tonight I was giving the kids a bath. I start bathing the kiddos, then Ryan comes and takes one of them and gets them in pajamas and whatnot. Tonight he came and got clean Andrew out of the tub. He wrapped him up in a big towel and picked him up.Andrew was all swaddled up and he LOVES this. "Aww, baby Andrew," Daddy teased him. "Are you a baby?"

"I'm baby Moses!" Andrew says. Silly kid. Gotta give him credit. He's got a great memory!

Woopty Woop

Ahh... I've experienced many funny speech things in my work. Now it's my turn to see these silly speech patterns at home, in my own children. Here's a conversation I had with Andrew today:

"Wook, Mommy! I made a woopty woop!" He's made a circle out of train tracks. A loopty loop, of course.

"Oh, wow! You made a woopty woop?" Bad modeling, mama. But it sounded so cute, I couldn't resist saying it back to him in his cute way.

"NO! Not a woopty woop. A WOOPTY WOOP." Like, duh, mom.

Hee hee... it's so much funnier when it's your own kid!

Trucks!

Last weekend we went to a local "Touch a Truck" day. All sorts of community vehicles were there and kids could climb up and sit in them. And honk them. It was a bit loud.

Andrew was in his element. He loved all the big trucks, diggers, dozers, semis, etc. Here are some highlights.

Summer's End

This is my last week of summer vacation. Next week I start back to work. And, while I'm excited to be working just three days per week instead of five, I'm still feeling blue about summer ending. When Andrew was a peanut, that first summer, I had a hard time being home. No routine, no structure, nowhere to go? I don't know, but I felt restless. Last summer I was newly pregnant and very ill. It was mostly a blur.

But this summer. This has been pure joy. I'm not a brand new mommy anymore - I found the guts to travel all over with two wee ones. Everywhere except the grocery store. I'm still not that brave. But we went to beaches - big and little, the zoo, children's museums, parks, picnics, walks, blueberry picking, visiting family, and much much more. The blissful part of summer is that we could do all that but still not feel rushed or hurried. It has been wonderful.

So last night I told Ryan, "This is my last week at home. I don't know if I should try to cram it full of lots of fun things. Or if I should just stay at home and play with my babies." Today we stayed home. Played outside. Made a chalk racetrack for Andrew to "ride" his bike (read: sit on it and walk with his feet).






Before the day really got going, before the racetrack and lunch and tantrums around naptime, we had a sweet morning. Abigail dozed off on me and I reclined a bit on the couch. Andrew came over with his favorite yellow blanket and cuddled up with us. Awww... how long will both of my babies fit on me like that? Hopefully they'll still fit next summer. Cuz mommy isn't ready to give that up.

Blueberries

I really wanted to pick some blueberries this summer. Some to enjoy now, some to freeze for later. My mom and I went this week with FOUR kids ages 3 and under. Call us crazy, but it worked out okay. I didn't get quite as many berries as I'd hoped, but I'm not sure if that is because of the kiddos or because it's a little too early in the season. I hope to get back out there in another week or so - possibly kid-free - to get more blueberries.



I have to say, Andrew took this blueberry picking thing quite seriously. For being 2 and a half, he had more focus than I thought he might. He really searched for the blue ones - and got excited when he found one.

Letting go

What a big boy you're becoming, Andrew! You've summoned the courage to go down slides by yourself. You have always been a cautious kid - not one to run right to the edge or tumble down stairs. But I take the blame for your hesitation at the playground. Last summer you were the perfect age to climb and explore and be a rough 'n tumble boy. You were 18 months - 2 years old. You had lots of energy to burn.

But last summer we learned that our family would be growing. You would be a big brother soon. And, for mommy, that meant a sick tummy and trouble getting off the couch for those beautiful summer days. Daddy took you to the park sometimes. So did some of our family and friends.



It wasn't until this spring that I really saw you try to tackle a slide and a playground. And my oh my - you were nervous. Slowly, the fearful cries turned into "Mommy, you slide with me?" and then "Hold my hand, Mommy." Finally, mid-summer, you've built up your confidence enough to go it alone.



What a big boy you are! I'm proud of you for doing what seems so hard for me to do - letting go. When you finally did let go, your face lit up like a Christmas tree. I love that you're careful and cautious, but I hope you keep learning when it's okay to let go.