eighteen months

I am having a hard time writing this because it is almost like admitting to myself that you are no longer my baby baby. You are turning into a little girl. Your face has lost the baby look. Your actions are that of a very self confident strong willed little girl. You know what you want and when you want it and how to express yourself. You are not walked on by anyone especially your brother.

You are my little shadow. Helping me clean, helping me cook, attempting to correct your brother. You have become very good at counting down to your brother. When he does something you are not happy with, "GEE!! TWO!! UN!!" and if he does not obey you, you promptly start yelling at him in words that I cannot understand but I suspect are not ladylike. Even after I assure you that I as the mommy can handle the situation, you still like to boss him around. I will ask you to go tell your brother it is time for dinner. You will run right up to his face, and yell, "GO!" and point to the kitchen. You love to yell at "Tea" too. In fact you are a very loud little girl.

Your words are coming along. More so in the last month though. Just in the last week you added noodle (noonel) and apple (abble) to your vocabulary. You still call your brother by the last three letters in his name, and refer to your self as Doe Doe. You like to sit and sound out letters with your brother and me and always have a look of sheer pride after we clap for you.

I am not sure if I would call it potty training yet, but your awareness of body functions is certainly there. You like to sit on the big potty and grunt. Nothing has come out yet, but it is fun to watch you grunt. :) You bring me diapers after you "boop." But I know we have a ways and I am not even going to push it.

You could give a rats patooty about the TV. On the rare occasion I let your brother watch tv, you don't give it a second glance. However last Friday night, we watched Charlie and the chocolate factory and you were glued to the tv. You especially liked the chocolate room. That is my favorite part too.

You are still and probably always will be a slight but tall thing. You were a wopping 22 lbs today and 33 1/4 inches long. Which is the 25% and 90%. The Dr. said you could go ahead and drink whole milk as long as you want too. I am not going to have to worry about you being over weight. I think you have gained 1 lb in the last three months.

You are my neat and tidy little girl. Forever straightening up after your brother. And me. We have had an ongoing battle with the nativity scene since I put it out two weeks ago. It is a fisher price one and I bought it so you two could play with it. You do not like it out though. I get it set up with everyone in their proper places and five minutes later you have got them cleaned up and put away in a box or bucket. How do I explain to you that it is okay to have those toys laying out.

I might need to start worrying about vanity and you. You love it when your brother tells you you are pretty. You put your hands up by your face and get a cheesy grin and tilt your head.

You love to try and dress yourself. Your shoes usually end up on the wrong feet and your shirt wrapped around your head, but you are so proud of yourself. You still love to clop around in my shoes.

You are a wonderful sleeper. You go down promptly at eight and sleep until seven thirty. It is glorious. And you still enjoy your morning nursing. Sometimes I fear you are going to be in kindergarten and still breastfeeding...

You love to read. You love books and looking through them on your own. But you love even more cuddling down on your chair and reading before bed.

You love to cuddle. All day long I can always rely on you to crawl up in my arms and cuddle for a good 30 minutes at a time. And you are still a hip rider. Being so small, I have no problem with it either. I get many of my chores done through out the day with you right there on my left hip.

You have just blossomed into a little girl that is stubborn and hard headed but still the sweetest little girl I know.

Be my girl...

3.5

Well I am couple days over due, but I suppose that is okay.

You my dear boy, are a true little boy now. The icky things amuse you. Body noises, boogers, anything gross can always bring a giggle. And sometimes you make up songs about them. I roll my eyes and try to ignore it. Hopefully this is just a phase.

You are not a big eater. Sometimes you go for meals just picking at your food. I wonder how it is you have been able to keep packing on the pounds and gaining height. You still hate meat. It takes you ten minutes to chew one bite of chicken. This is a huge source of contention at meal times.

However you are still growing and I think right now you are on a growth spurt. The past few nights you have woken up with leg cramps. You are well into the 4T size and size 11 shoes. I have to buy you size 5T jammies so that you have room for your toes in the footies. You have reached 39lbs on the scale and are a hair under 42 inches.

You have started recognizing more and more letters and numbers. You blew me away about a week ago when we pulled up to a friends house and you just randomly read me off the numbers on her house. "One-one-three-oh." You also like to point out the giant numbers at Walmart that they have advertising prices. You are starting to sound out very simple words in your bob books with only a few hints every now and then.

You have settled in quite well to your big boy room here at home. We no longer share a wall and I have to admit I miss your wall knocking at night as you are falling asleep.

You have chores that you are responsible for. Your jobs include, folding your underwear and putting all of your clothes in the right drawers. Bringing all of your dirty laundry out to the washer, feeding and watering the dog, loading your dishes in the dishwasher, unloading all of the silverware, bringing the garbage can back from the street on garbage day, picking up your toys before bed and making your bed in the morning. You do most of these things with a happy heart and actually like doing some of them.

You still love to cuddle. Our bedtime ritual is reading about a bazillion books before bed cuddled up on the couch. And even then it is "Just one more mommy!" But I let you pick out one or two and take those to bed to read with your flashlight. We read the more simple books while Bug is still awake and then once she is in bed, we will dive into some more difficult books. I have started reading chapter books that have less and less pictures and you seem to be able to understand because I quiz you periodically to see if you are getting what is going on.

You are a saver. Money, food, broken toys. You will have one swallow of your water in your cup and you will want to put it in the fridge and "save it for later." I let you keep one piece of pizza for a few days to see how long you would nibble away at it. You would take it out every once in a while take a few bites and then put it back to save it for later. I finally threw it away today. I think you have more money in your piggy bank than I have. Every coin you find, you ask if you can have it and it goes straightaway into the piggy.

You love to "mother" your little sister. I constantly find you correcting her and I have to remind you that it is my job to tell her not to jump on the couch.

You have started Cubbies. And with your steel trap memory have had no problem remembering the verses. I can give you a reference today of one of your earlier verses and you spout it right off. One of your favorite games is What time is it Mr Frog and you make me play it at home all the time. The week after you got your vest, you were chosen to hold the flag for the pledge of allegiance. On the way home you told me how proud you were to be able to do that. You are such a proud little American.

We were recently given a trampoline that is maybe 45 inches in diameter. From the time we got it on Sunday, you did not stop jumping for a week except to eat and sleep. And even at that, the first night I woke up in the middle of the night to find you jumping on it. You tell me it is how you get your "hoo haa's" out.

You have such a funny way with words. Just this last week you asked me to come look at your "bad-mamma-jamma" poop, told me you wanted to be a fire truck when you grow up, and told me you had "come from Alabama with a banjo on your knee." I really need to start writing these down in a book.

Your hair is well below your brow line and into your eyes and it does not bother you at all. It doesn't bother me either. You have become acustomed to doing a head flip to get it back. You tell people you love your long beautiful hair because it keeps the sun out of your eyes. I suggest a hair cut and you are very adamant about not getting one. You tell me I can trim the back, but not the front. It is fine. I love your hair.

You are still such a sweet and caring little boy. And when you are not terrorizing your little sister you really can be kind and loving to her.

And each night before I leave your room, you ask me to say one last thing before I close the door;
"I love you baby boy..."

By the grace of God

I had a 100ft tree in my front yard that made me want to stay in a hotel every time the wind blew. So this last week I finally had it taken down. It was quite a process that involved a big truck parked in my front yard, a chipper machine and a man in a bucket, all of this was great entertainment for the kids.

But the real scary part is that my neighbor had a tree in her yard that was a Hemlock and was leaning dangerously over my sons bedroom. She decided to have hers cut down too. We got quite a suprise when they got to the bottom of that tree. The bottom ten feet of the tree looked like this:

But the trees are down and I can sleep easy at night. And now I have a ten foot stump in my front yard that is begging for a tree house to be built on it this summer.

Smarty Pants

After catching her for the fifth time playing in the dog food:

"Keep your hands out of the food!"

I turned back around ten seconds later:

Hands held behind her back, with her WHOLE face in the dog food.

Got me there kiddo.

Letters

Just in the last few days, Bear has been recognizing more and more letters. And it is just randomly. Not even letters we have been working on recently. So we busted out the Bob books and started working away at those. He is starting to sound out really simple words with very little help. Like Mat and sat. He won't be reading War and Peace any time soon, but I think it is a good start and I am so proud of him.
And then tonight him and I were sounding out words and she ran in from her bedroom and shouted, "A B C!" ran back into her room and started laughing. Has to keep up with her brother...
;)

This is not Lawanda's fault...

I keep telling myself that. My friend and fellow blogger Lawanda posted the other day and I have not been able to stop thinking about it since. I would post a hyper-doodly-giggawatts-thingama-jig here but I don't know how, so you can just follow the clicky to the right hand side to her blog.

I want more kids. Plain and simple. I had my heart set on eight of the little boogers a few years ago. I have learned is hard to just let something like that go once you have planned on it. And I don't understand. I wish that God would take away this burning desire and just let me be happy with the two babies I do have. But I want more. I want to have a house full of happy laughing kids (even though I know the reality is more like arguing, pinching, toy snatching, whiny kids.) But see? I have a sense of humor about it. Doesn't that make me a prime candidate for being mother of many? Sigh.

I come from a big family, and I love getting together with my family now that we are all grown up. It is loud and happy and fun.

I had the hardest time getting rid of baby clothes this last summer. I felt that if I did, I would be admitting that I am done. That there will be no more babies. And that hurts my heart. All of the baby paraphanelia is on the front porch waiting for me to make a decision about it.

I see brand new babies in town and my heart longs to be growing my own. I love being pregnant. Well with the exception of the last month when your ankles have become "cankles" and you have to pee every hour during the night and you toss and turn when you aren't peeing trying to get comfortable, and nothing fits you anymore and everything you eat causes you to have heart burn so badly that you buy stock in Tums and chug milk like it is going out of style. But other than that I love being pregnant. I have such easy pregnancies, this is what my body was built for. Baby growing and carrying. And I love breast feeding. Bear breast fed until he was 18 months, she is almost 18 months and shows no sign of stopping.

I just wish that I could get over the fact that this is it and I just need to be happy and thankful for what I have. And I am, I love these kiddos more than myself. And I thank God every day that he gave them to me to raise for Him. But I just can't seem to shake the "sad".