Christmas

So I've discovered what's worse than being an emotional mom who goes to see "Toy Story 3" in the theaters with her son. Buying the DVD and watching it a MILLION TIMES at home with that same said child. It's one thing to see it, be overwhelmed with my future (we're talking almost 14 years in the future, mind you) and weep as quietly as possible. It's another entirely to have this occur at least once a day for the last 3 days as of course, it's the only movie the boys want to watch. Oh, the humanity! I imagine I will only survive dropping them off at college by being heavily sedated, and possibly hypnotized.

In other news, it snowed here Christmas Day. This made it very festive, but luckily we were not socked the way PA, NJ, etc were. Just a light dusting.

Lots of food was prepared and consumed, lots of love was shared amongst the family's three generations here, and at least one motorized vehicle was assembled for the smallest, youngest member of the group. I hope everyone had as nice a holiday as I did. Except for the part where my back went out...I don't wish that on anyone!

and in other news...

Connor lost his two front teeth somewhere between school and home. Again. We can't seem to be there for a tooth-losing with this kid! He looks adorable and a little silly, and I can't wait to see his grown-up teeth come in to match the lowers he lost in June.

Drew and Tucker have started playing together in a pleasant way. It's no longer stealing toys from each other and blood-curdling screams all the time. That's down to about 25% of it now. But this weekend, they started sharing toys, playing with each other, and chasing each other. I haven't heard them laugh like that before, and I'm so glad! Tucker especially seems to be going on a mad spurt of language growth. He's finally given in and started answering affirmatively. instead of grunting, he now says, "uh-huh" which is still pretty rude but at least it's a yes of sorts! Our favorite is when he says the word cracker He just relishes it, and it comes out, "crack-ker" over and over again while he stomps around. I imagine he will delight the hordes who are arriving in about 10 days for Christmas.

Drew is fully into imagination play now, and he re-enacts movies, tv shows and books.

All in all, pretty good times here. Glad that it coincided with "the season"...

Getting ready for Christmas

When I was growing up, one of my family's traditions was that the tree remained undecorated until Christmas Eve. I'm not sure if this started because my parents wisely wanted to limit the decorations exposure to five wildish young children or some other reason. As we got older, it became the most likely day we would all be together, and decorating the tree together was the only way we could consider it happening. Either way, now that I'm a "grown up" and have my own home, I have my own traditions to start with my children.

We got the tree Thursday evening. Drew and Lee went to buy it while I got dinner pulled together for Connor and Tucker, and got them mostly ready for bed. The tree, of course, was wrapped up and the branches were all at about a 15 degree angle pointing up. We explained to Drew that it needed a night to relax. He barely managed to contain himself. At 6:15 Friday morning, there he was jumping on me in bed, saying, "Time to go decorate the tree!" We managed to talk him down again, but it wasn't easy. But for Heaven's sake, we both had work, and he and Connor both had school!

I missed the train coming home from work, so I had to walk home from the metro instead of catching my ride. By the time I got into the house, I could see that Drew would not wait a moment longer. Lee and Drew put the lights on the tree while I put out the rest of the ornaments. We piled on decorations, letting Drew do his own work but helping him to understand that no matter what you can't hang anything on the very tip of a branch. No matter how many cartoons may look like that. He did drop one decoration, and it broke at his toes. Luckily, it was one of a set I got at Target a few years ago and not one of the heirloom ones my parents gave to me on my first Christmas once I was married. He looked up and said, "Oh, no. Well, it happens."

After a while, I decided it was enough, and Drew put the angel on the top with an assist from Lee. It was the first time he did it. I sense another tradition there. The we shut the lights off in the room to enjoy the tree, and Drew made us stand in a circle, holding hands, and proceeded to lead us in song. The song was a slight derivation of "Welcome, Christmas" from "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" but he's four, and he had the melody down and led us through with grace. This was completely unplanned, and I was unprepared for it. For all the singing my family has ever done, and the amount of love my sibs and I have of the Grinch, never once did we sing in a circle like that, I am certain that we sang along with Christmas music on the stereo or TV or something. It was lovely, and I really hope it becomes part of our tradition.

So much going on...so little time!

What's that sound?? Oh, it's silence! Drew is out with Lee, and Tucker and Connor are both napping, though for how long I'm not sure. What to dooooo? There's cleaning to be done, Christmas shopping to prepare for, a dishwasher to unstack, laundry to fold. I think I'll blog instead.

It's been a busy and mostly positive fall here. Drew turned four and has lost a lot of the worst parts of being three already. Unfortunately, he's also lost naps, which makes our weekends a lot harder because we realized we relied on those naps for our own sanity! Luckily, we can still bribe him with quiet time in his room or a video in ours. He's growing like a weed, totally hilarious, and loves just about everything and everyone. He's been in swimming class and he's doing a fantastic job. I'm so proud of him.

Tucker has finally stopped fighting us and started using words! It's still hard to get him to eat dinner, but we've started bribing him with cubes of bread (his favorite food) and it's working, so we're good with that. He's really super funny, tries to make jokes with us even though we've only heard one or two sentences (both declarative) from him. The one I got was, "Put that back!" For the record, I did not.

Connor may be growing faster than the other two boys combined! We've finally found a great additive for his food to bulk up his weight, and it is working! He's getting tall (up past my bellybutton now) and adding pounds. We adjusted his medications again this fall, and fingers crossed, but it's working pretty nicely so far. Only a very few breakthroughs, which is a far cry from the every five nights that was prior to the medication change. He continues to love school, and we love getting good reports. He has a very special friend, Emma, who just loves playing with Connor. We got a great message from his teacher one day telling us that they played a game together where Connor was laid out on his back on the mats in the room, and Emma got big cardboard blocks out and built a tower on his stomach. Then Connor rolled over to knock the tower down, and he smiled and she laughed. They did it over and over again. I honestly thought for a very long time that Connor wouldn't really have any friends, and it's possibly the best way ever to be proven wrong.

Okay, I'm hearing Tucker playing in his crib, which means I should at least get the clean dishes out of the dishwasher before I bring him downstairs for a snack and the usual destruction of order.

Swimming

This year, we finally managed to get Drew into a swimming class. He's done water babies and other toddler classes, but this is his first all alone in the pool class. I mean, there's a teacher, classmates, etc. Just no mom or dad. At first it scared me, but now I'm so proud. He is
a little afraid, but keeps trying. I wish I'd been more into swimming as a child. I'm nervous in water now as an adult, and as such will miss things with my kids since it's likely that Drew and Tucker will both be outswimming me within the next 4 years.

As of tonight, Drew can go underwater and blow bubbles, and crab walk along a wall, and kick around while using a floaty dumbbell. He still refuses to jump in. Oh, and he can float on his back and have a rubber duckie on his forehead for at least 5 seconds.

It's like parenting in a microcosm. Carry them in, help them stay afloat. Teach them to close their eyes and their mouths, to keep water out. One day, you have to let them in the water by themselves, and sit in the bleachers on your hands trying to keep from leaping in, fully dressed in non-pool-friendly gear, and holding them to your chest so that they don't forget that you support them and will protect them from everything.

Oh, swimming lessons are hard on a Mommy.

More milestones

Connor has lost his first tooth. It was actually his first two, and we are pretty sure he knocked them out himself!

Connor's lower front teeth were loose, for a few weeks. We'd been on daily alert to check them and see how close they were to coming out. With his strong bite reflex, retrieving a lost tooth from inside his mouth was going to be challenging. One fine morning, I saw that they were really, really loose, and wrote a note to his teacher and sent a baggie in with his school stuff in case he lost them and she could get them safely.

I arrived home from work, and they were gone! Both had fallen out! Christy said to me, "They were gone when he got off the bus. No blood, though." I raced over to his stroller and backpack, and there was nothing in it. Not even his notebook! They'd been so excited they'd forgotten to include it, I figured.

The plot thickened the next day - his teacher had no idea that he's lost his teeth.

So the only thing we can figure is that he lost them on the school bus home, and that either they were swallowed, or are rolling around on the floor of the bus, never to be left for the tooth fairy in the traditional way. Luckily for us, it did not seem to be very traumatic for him, and his top teeth are already loose we'll try again with the next one. Or ones.

Old School Video

 

Wandering in our photos today looking for a family picture (which I can't find) I did find this video from November 2005. Connor giggles a LOT in it. And when he's been having such a hard time lately, despite his happiness that school has started again, it makes me smile. Hope it makes you smile too. Have a great Sunday, all.

Milestones...

So this week, two very big things happened.

Thing 1: Connor's chair arrived. It was supremely unexpected, and the best surprise I've ever had. It's smooth and he is so comfortable in it - it's the BEST!!! I've already rhapsodized about it but it deserves daily adoration. I looooooooooooooooooooooove Connor's new chair!!

Thing 2: You know how you spend months trying to build up your young child's confidence in toilet training? You know how one of your prouder moments as a parent is when your child finally toilets properly, and you can see the end of diapers as you know it? I hear it's a beautiful thing. Drew has been making real progress lately, and I'm super proud of him. However, tonight we reached a pinnacle I had just not ever imagined. We had friends over for pizza tonight, and after dinner we were sitting on the deck while Drew and his friends ran around playing in the yard. It was lovely and peaceful, and then. Then...then Drew came up to me on the deck and said, "Mommy, I pooped behind the tree." We all laughed, and I said I think he meant peed. He walked me over to the tree on the other side of the yard. No. He had, in fact, pooped on the yard. We got him cleaned up (it didn't take much - he was very proud) and got a plastic bag to put it in the garbage.

Really. Really? Drew goes from diapers to dog-toileting?

I led him back inside and we talked about the fact that he did a great job not going in his pants, but that next time, he should come inside quickly and use the toilet. Because then he gets his Thomas bribe-toys.

Words

Sometimes, I forget about words. I forget about how they are a building block for everything. You would think this would not be a problem for me, 'cause I like words. I've been overusing them since a very young age.

Tucker has started using some words. His current favorites are "uh-oh!" and "Dad-deeeeeeee" which applies to most of us. We're all Daddy, apparently, to him.

This morning, though, a really interesting and exciting thing happened. Lee and I got Connor and Drew downstairs, and while I was getting the coffee made (and the milks warmed up) Connor was sitting in his chair ya-ya-ing in his usual way. I couldn't really hear him over the whirr and chunk of the coffee grinder. Drew, however, was right by him, and he jumped up and exclaimed (really - that's the perfect word for this!) "He said words, Mommy! He said, `Oh, yeah!' He said it!"

Drew was delighted that Connor has said words. We have spoken with Drew a few times about how Connor communicates without using regular words, and in his own way he seems to understand. But his unbridled excitement that his big brother had learned something was a great way to start a week. Of course, logically I know that Connor wasn't deliberately using language, and that's all right because it's what I know I can expect. If I could bottle the best of Drew, this would be in there. He loves Connor so much that he tells us at least two times a week now that he wishes he still shared a room with him. He never asks to share a room with Tucker. Well, not yet.

These little boys. They just fill up my heart.

A little crack in a little heart

Last night, our routine was unroutinely interrupted. On most nights, Drew and I read with Tucker, then with Connor, then just the two of us together in his room. Some nights, Tucker is already asleep by the time baths are complete, like last night. So into Connor's room we went to read his library book from school, named "Harry the Dirty Dog". We've read this book 5 times already, once each night (one night Connor was asleep, so we just read in Drew's room). I don't remember this book from my childhood, but it's obviously old enough that I could have read it as a small one. In the book, Harry, a white dog with black spots, hears the bath running and doesn't want to be bathed, so he buries the scrubbing brush and runs away from home for the day to play around town. During the course of the day, he gets so dirty, he becomes a black dog with white spots. Drew thinks this is very funny. At the end of the day, he goes back home and the family wonders who the new dog is, and where their Harry has gotten off to. Well, he does his tricks to show them that he's Harry, including "playing dead".

Last night, Drew stopped me on that page, saying, "What's that?"
"What, honey?" I hedged, dreading the worst.
"What's dead?" he replied. I have arrived unexpectedly at...the worst.
"Huh. Well, that's hard to explain," I said, my mind spinning as I tried to find an easy, non-upsetting explanation of `dead'. Guess what? I came up emtpy. So I plowed on, "Well, dead is when you aren't alive any more. Right now, you and Mommy and Connor and Daddy and Tucker, we're all alive and we get to be together and play together. When you are dead, you don't get to play or be with someone any more." He sat there, a stoic expression on his face, and looked at me very hard. I waited a minute, collected myself, and said, "Are you okay, honey? Do you want to ask Mommy something?" He said no. I asked if we should keep reading. He said yes. We finished the book, and said good-night to Connor.

When I was about to tuck him in, the waterworks started, but he couldn't tell me what was making him cry. I am SURE it was the conversation we had about what "dead" is. The fact is, it's likely Drew and Tucker will learn about dead earlier than some of their compatriots. Actually, what's likely is that I will feel a compulsion to prepare them for death, since it's entirely possible that Connor will not live as long as I do. This has fostered in me a desperate desire to keep them from knowing about death. My preferred language has been to use "not alive" in place of "dead" - sure, it's a hairsplit but one that made me more comfortable.

This morning, Drew woke up upset still. In a way, I hate that I was a party to the first hard thing he tried to learn. He's a very emotional young boy and I don't want to encourage him to tamp down those emotions. Genetically speaking, he's a little hosed. I am surprisingly sentimental, and Lee is at times hyperbolically emotional.

At the same time, I would have hated myself if I wasn't there with him for his first major emotional lesson. I want him to know every day that we will always be there together.

Wombat. Wombat, Wombat, Wombat!!!

Glory Hallelujah! I would cry about this except I am at work and that's just so inappropriate.

Today I had confirmed for me that the order for Connor's Wombat Tilt-in-Space chair was placed 4/13/10, approved by insurance.

Connor has been waiting for this chair since April 2008. Connor shouldn't have to wait for things. Drew can wait for more Thomas toys. Tucker can wait for Mommy to pick him up until her hands are empty. Connor cannot wait. Every moment of every day is a little different for him than it is his brothers, and to be near the end of this long, stupidly delayed process fills me with little bubbles of joy. It's like my blood is suddenly carbonated!

I've never been more pleased to hear the word wombat in my life. And I love funny words.

This is the end....this is the e-e-e-e-end...of the infancy

If you are now hearing a set of chords from the 80s played by Bruce Hornsby, then you are right on the money - totally took over that great song he wrote for Don Henley there in the title. It's appropriate today, because today Tucker is one, and there will be no more infants in my household to whom I personally gave birth.

Tucker's first year has been a really hectic and special one for us. He arrived a little early, 2 days prior to expectation/schedule. When he was delivered, and Dr. Elliot showed him to me over the sterile drape, I gasped and said, "Oh, he looks just like Drew!" Which is hilarious if you take into account that I look practically identical to one of my sisters, and yet it never occurred to me until I saw Tucker in person for the first time that the same "phenomenon of genetics" could happen with my offspring. I know - it's like tunnel vision except with the brain. Tunnel brain.

The day we left the hospital with him, I insisted that Lee stop at our partially renovated house - I wanted Tucker to be home first, even if we would only be there a few minutes before heading over to the rental house and his very excited brothers and grandparents who were waiting there for us.

Tucker has been an easy and genial child. He never seemed to have much trouble with sleeping - it was only 2 months when I started getting 9 hour stretches at night. He cries when he's hurt or extremely, extremely tired. He laughs almost constantly, and you can turn his tears into laughter with minimal effort. It usually takes Drew only one "Peekaboo!" to bring Tucker back to his sunny disposition. He started crawling before he was 8 months old, and walking in his 11th month. His first tooth broke in his 7th month, and now he has 6! He has said "dada", "mama", "megan", "hi", "uh oh", "blah, blah, blah" and "gerry" though not always on purpose.

He has started to discover Connor, and it will be interesting to see how he absorbs the difference of Connor into himself, and to see how it is similar to Drew and how it is different.

He seems to think that Drew is the best thing ever. I wish Drew felt the same way all the time instead of taking toys away from him.

I cannot wait to see what the rest of the years will bring. I am so grateful and happy that he has had such an amazing first year. No doctor visits other than well-baby checkups. No major falls, like off the stairs or a bed.

But...I miss my baby already.

The Return of Joefish

So when I was young, and my brother was younger, there was a small contingency of people (his friends) who couldn't pronounce his name right and called him "Joefish" for a while instead of Joseph. He eventually shortened to Joe, which then got accidentally re-lengthened to Joemybrother, but that's another story and not one for a blog with updates about my boys.

Last night, I was giving Drew and Tucker a bath - now every time there is a bath to be had it's together. They both truly seem to enjoy sharing the "boyo tub" as Drew calls it. Tucker loves the bath. LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVES it. It's so entertaining to watch him enjoy himself so thoroughly. So on this particular night, Tucker managed to wiggle-scootch past Drew and ended up down by the spigot. He kept looking at the drain pull cover, which is reflective and just about head-height for him when he's sitting in the tub. Finally, he started to try to bite or suck on the plate cover. Each time he leaned in, I said, "Tucker, no," and he would look at me over his shoulder and stop. I must have said it more than five times. Suddenly Drew chimed in, "Tucker Joefish, stop! Don't do that!"

I had to sit back on my heels and stifle combined laughter. Tucker's middle name is not Joefish, or even Joseph. It's Smith. Drew's middle name is Joseph, but as far as he's concerned, it's the word that gets used when he's in trouble. Hence his lecturing tone and admonishing attitude towards poor little Tucker! I am not sure why he mispronounced it. He does hear "Andrew Joseph" with fair frequency.

Anyway, it was great, and I laughed a lot about it today. Lee didn't get it at all. But he never had a Joefish, or a Joemybrother, either.

Tucker walks, baby

T is almost 1 - one week away! I can't believe how fast he went from 8 pound nugget curled up in my arm to the big, robust and happy toddler he is on the edge of becoming! He is so very cheerful. Now that he walks some, Drew can just taste that tag is right around the corner. He is a great big brother. This morning, he told Tucker, "No, that's not nice. You should say sorry. Say you're sorry, Tucker." but it was teaching and not mean or yelling! I laughed and said, "Honey, Tucker can't say sorry yet! He can't even say Mama!"

That said, he does say a few things: frequently Dada, just recently he started repeating Blah blah blah and yesterday he said Megan to Miss Megan when she was leaving after her appointment with Connor.

Speaking of the C-Man, he's had a rough week. He wasn't feeling so hot a week ago, and has struggled at school this week to get his feet back under him. The good news, no, the GREAT NEWS, is that yesterday we got a letter stating that the new chair we've been trying for TWO YEARS to get for him through insurance has been approved! Finally! And he's only a foot taller! Giggle. We'll remeasure him and get the correct size made for him. We were so surprised to get a "yes" letter after so many no's, we had to read it several times.

That's all from this end. We have this fancy new camera I don't know how to use, so I'll have to cool it on the pics a little bit. I'll try and get some good recents up soon.

Two firsts...

It was a pouring rainy first day of daylight savings time. Drew decided today would be the best day to not nap, destroy my willpower, AND shove something up his nose for the first time. It happened at snacktime, when I made some popcorn for us. He found an unpopped kernel in his bowl, which of course I should have pulled out but apparently I failed to. All innocently, he asked, "Mommy, what is this?" and I told him what it was and that he wasn't to put it in his mouth and to give it to me. To his credit, he did not put it in his mouth. However, he immediately placed it ever so delicately into hsi left nostril, and then waited to see how I would handle it. I calmly pushed it out of his nose, threw is in the trash, and told him that if he ever, ever, ever shoved anything up his nose again I was taking away his toys. Calm heads did not prevail there.

Then, as I tucked him in, he said, "Mommy, I'm scared." I asked him what was scaring him, and he pointed to the closet. He informed me that there was a monster in there. I checked, showed him, and swore I would never let a monster in there. No threats this time. Apparently the beer I drank at dinner had diminished my propensity for flagrant threats which I would likely never keep.

Things Tucker will smear on himself - Sunday edition

Tucker is still fantastically awesome. Today has been an especially, um, tactile day, and here's a brief list of the stuff he's covered himself in so far...

1. banana
2. syrup
3. baby cereal/peaches
4. syrup again
5. french toast
6. baby spaghetti

It's all over his face, in his hair, etc. Incredibly adorable, but also sticky as the dickens. Good thing he loves the bath - I see one in his near future...

Music and my boys

This evening was a lot of fun. There have been all kinds if crazy predictions of the looming snowstorm (will it actually be historic??) and we were in a bit of a pre-snow tizzy while getting dinner together. So we sat down to porky pasta and ate together. Connor fell asleep at the table very nicely. Tucker sat in his chair at the other end and ate some baby food (turkey and sweet potatoes, I think) and Drew inhaled the pasta as fast as he could. Lord, that child loves spaghetti.

After dinner, Lee pulled out the guitar, and we sang "I'm Yours" together. Drew danced and sang the "yourssssss-ah" parts - his favorites. Tucker looked at the guitar in abject wonder. Connor continued to sleep.

Lee moved on to "Wanted (Dead or Alive)", and I noticed as we started singing the song that Connor started smiling in his sleep, and smiled for the whole first verse and chorus. Connor has a lifeling history with that song. When I was expecting him, I was also practicing for the band's anniversary, and we had decided to pull that song out and sing it. Fast forward a few months, and I discovered that the best song to soothe my cranky newborn Connor was "Wanted (Dead or Alive") which was simultaneously awesome and so very sad. I'm sure he doesn't know why that song makes him smile, but it sure made me glad to know that it's still something that brings him joy.

After bathtime, Drew serenaded me with some Swedish Chef music (bork bork bork!) and then Puff the Magic Dragon. Nothing in this world makes me happier than hearing him sing a song and be so proud of himself. I guess if I was an author I would be excited when he wrote something, or an artist, when he drew a discernable object. But I'm a singer, so to hear him sing proves to me that I have managed to pass something along that he can share with anyone and everyone he chooses. I hope they find it as wonderful as I do.

Now, if only he inherited my projection abilities...