Our big boy is 6 today!  He (barely) consented to let me take some pictures of him this morning to celebrate.  We had a fun day filled with William kinds of things: we spent the morning at the Science Museum checking out their dinosaur exhibit with our favorite dino guy, Jeff.  We ate pizza for lunch, opened presents, played games (battleship and guess who?), we read books, ate dinner at the restaurant of his choice (Panera), and had cake and ice cream at home.  It was a good day.  Even with a crabby start.

William is super into dinosaurs right now and is just so interested in learning more about them.  I wasn't super excited when he was in to Thomas the train, but I'm not sure I'm liking this any better.  In my opinion, there aren't very many dinosaur encyclopedias that make very good bedtime reading - which is William's number one choice right now.  He is also interested in just about everything else for roughly 7 seconds.  If you can't make it exciting in the first few moments, then he is Done.  Game over.

In other staggering news, I had William put on a size 7 pair of jeans this morning...and they fit.  I about fell over. (William does NOT try on clothes.  He will wear what ever I ask him to most days, but he will not change clothes multiple times to see what fits or to humor his mother.  Even if he looks ridiculous.  Which, is why more than once I have sent him off to school with some very short looking pants in the last month or so.)

So, he appearently fits into size 6/7 in clothes and is getting all big and grown up.

William has weathered a lot of change this last year.  He gained a baby sister, started kindergarten, rides the bus to school, switch the room he sleeps in, lost a tooth, among other smaller changes.  I am always impressed how he just rolls with the changes and takes it all in stride.  I work hard to keep my worries and anxiety to myself and he just continues to make it all look so....easy.  I will say it isn't always perfect, but overall, William is a very flexible kiddo.

Kindergarten continues to go well.  From all reports, William is a social butterfly who knows and plays with everyone.  He enjoys seeing his new friends every day although I suspect he is somewhat bored by the curriculum at times.  His teacher and I have been together off and on to continue to challenge him appropriately.  It's a work in progress!

Oh.  And John wanted me to add that William requested a vanilla cake with vanilla frosting and vanilla ice cream.  Boring.  I considered it.  Really.  Then I found a recipe for chocolate, chocolate chip cake with powdered sugar topping.  Sorry buddy.  Your mama has a chocolate problem.  He rolled with it and I totally plan on getting him his vanilla-ey request for his small friends birthday party next weekend.  I promise.

Babble On

This last week Gemma has found her voice and put it to very good use. She is babbling a steady stream or vowels and a few consonant sounds. It is adorable. And loud. We may never have a moment of peace in this house again.

Today:

Gemma: aaaaaaaaaahhh....(raspberry sounds)
Amelia: mom! Mom! Gemma spitted on me! She needs a time out!*

*no time out is given

-----little later
Gemma: aaaaaaaaa.....gaaAaaaaaa.....dadadaaaaaa

Mama: (uh oh) no! Gemma! Say mamamama! Say mamamama! Not dadadaaaaaa!

Gemma: (giggle). Dadadaaaaaa!

Naughty baby.


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5 for a little bit more

William celebrated his birthday at school today with his classmates. Lucky for him, it was also a school holiday- the 100th day of school. So, the day was full of special activities based on the number 100. I was fully anticipating the dreaded "bring 100 of something to school for sharing" assignment and had prepped with several options (Cheerios, pennies, milk lids, stickers). And alas, my time was wasted as no such assignment ever materialized. Tomorrow we have some Plans to do Fun things with our boy. Hopefully, he will agree because at dinner tonight, he informed us that the birthday boy gets to decide EVERYTHING on their birthday.

"Everything, mom. Really!"

This mama is not buying, but nice try kiddo. He will be able to pick his clothes, the meal tomorrow evening (from several choices) and a few other things. He will not, sadly, be able to drive the car as he is planning. We're so mean.

Giggly baby

Here you can see Gemma is wearing out or getting overstimulated. William on the other hand is still going strong with his silly antics. Anything to make his sweet baby sister laugh!

More giggly baby

More video from Monday night of silly William making Gemma laugh.

Giggles

Gemma loves her brother and sister. Her brother, in particular, can get her laughing so hard! They are so fun to watch together. This evening I was supposed to be putting away laundry and then reading to Amelia.

What happened? Gemma and William were being so cute, I didn't put any laundry away and poor Amelia started reading to herself (you can hear her in the background). This subject likely needs its own post, but Amelia is starting to read on her own. She has been very motivated by watching William work on his school work and read on his own. Not surprisingly, once Amelia decides to do something, you can consider it done. She is one determined little cookie.

Saturday night

Want a fun family activity to do on a Friday night? Replace your toilet seat! Fun for everyone!


Or, turn a quick job into something much more time consuming by

Child one: curious. Wants to know how it works. Is astonished that the toilet seat can be removed. Do not be surprised if you find toilet seat detached sometime in near future when he decides to try out his new skill.

Child two: curious. Wants to hold all the parts, pieces and tools. Also is concerned that her brother is getting some unfair advantage or allowed more turns at something. The situation clearly must be monitored.

Child three: hey! Everyone is in this room! I want to play too! What's everyone looking at? Let me see! Why does everyone get all worked up when I try and pull up to standing on the side of this toilet?

* sometime last week the lid to this toilet cracked. I can think of many more exciting things to spend my money on than a toilet seat, so I was planning on not replacing it. The situation quickly deteriorated and I changed my stance to toilets need lids with a baby around.

I can brush my teeth!

Mom and dad finally got me my own toothbrush for my 4 little teeth!

Melt my heart

I'm book marking this one for when the kids are teenagers and driving me crazy.

William and Amelia are in bed. Currently, they are sharing a bedroom and have the same bed time. Amelia usually falls asleep within minutes. William takes a little longer- sometimes more than an hour if he has a good book in his hands (he is like his mama that way).

Tonight Amelia is already asleep and The Daddy and I are enjoying what we call "cute baby time". It is really the only time of day Gemma is the center of attention and we enjoy the few minutes of her babyhood before we put her to bed also (for the first time at least).

Gemma took off crawling and John and I just watched her down the hallway (90% to tired to go get her and 10% enjoying). She turned into the big kid room and erupted into giggles. I heard her crawl a little further and then I heard William laugh.

William: hey geemie*! What are you doing in here!

Gemma: giggles and then vocalizes what I think will turn into "hi" (as is has an "I" ending sound, has the hi inflection and she frequently does it when she is waving.)

William: giggles, then laughs

The next 5-6 minutes, all we can here are giggles of delight from our oldest and youngest child. Delight in having found each other and delight in each other's laughter.

Precious, precious children. Precious, precious memories.

John finally went in to get the baby when things started getting a little loud and William said: My cheeks hurt from laughing and smiling SO much Daddy. I just love Gemma SO much Dad.

Melts. My. Heart.

*William calls her Gee-me. Why? Who knows.

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You are what you eat

William: (looking at the menu at a restaurant) hey dad?

John: yes William?

William: do buffalo really have wings?

John: whaaaat?

William: (points to menu item)

John: oh! No! Buffalo don't have wings. It's just called that.

William: why?

John: (considers looking it up) I don't really know.

William: you don't?

John: nope.

-moments later-

William: dad? Do people really eat babies?

John: no, why?

William: (points to menu item)

John: no, baby back ribs is just a name for a kind of ribs.

William: why?

John: (considers looking it up). If I look it up William, you won't listen to my reasons any way, will you?

William: what? Have you seen my red crayon?

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Shark tooth

Here it is!

Shark tooth

Williams's lower front tooth is starting to poke through and the baby tooth is still there. So, there are two teeth where there should just be one. Technically, this is called a shark tooth.

On Wednesday, I was flossing Williams's teeth when I noticed there is an entire big molar that has broken through. Amazing! Although maybe this would explain his less than stellar behavior as of late...

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Uh oh!

Gemma tipped over our (faux) tree and had big handfuls of twiggy faux mulch. When I spied her in this position, I told her "No!" Loudly and hurried aver to where she was at. Gemma's response? Shove the mulch in her mouth and cackle at my look of horror.

Saturday is brrr...

It was almost 60 degrees here on Friday and when we got up, the sun was shining on Saturday morning. Seemed like a perfect excuse to get out to the woods and do some walking!

So, we packed everyone up with a picnic lunch and headed out to Cuivre River state park. When we arrived, We discovered our favorite playground was not open and therefore our favorite trail wasn't open either. So... We improvised. We ate our lunch in the car and then hit the trails. Which is when we discovered that is was only 40 degrees outside and a few of us were terribly under dressed. Oh well! Hike on!

It was a gorgeous, crisp afternoon and just what we needed after a busy week. Although halfway through the hike I think John and I both questioned why we were doing it. Two complaining kids can make even a peaceful,pretty walk a tortuous affair! By the end, one of them was sobbing because they were convinced we wouldn't ever see the car again. The other was alternating between crying about a wet shoe and having cold hands. Making family memories!

How to...

Crawl and carry things. It is hard to crawl and carry something in your hand. Much easier to just carry your favorite sock in your mouth. Yummy!

Pantry

Oh Hello!
 
This is my favorite place!  It is fun to pull up and has so many things to look at and chew on.  Makes Mom pretty nervous, but I think she should quit worrying.  I totally have this standing up thing!  Just don't look too closely at the bumps and scrapes on my face... 

An experiment..

In an effort to get Gemma sleeping somewhere other than my closet, we have put the two big kids together in the same room.

Will we regret it?

Will anyone ever sleep again?

They are both sleeping here, which surprisingly wasn't as hard as we thought it might be. Which only means tomorrow we will think it will be a piece of cake and it will be awful.

It's still a pretty rough set up. Neither John or I were certain enough to so massive amounts of furniture rearranging and moving. We shall see...

Conversations

In the car, we drive by a small war memorial in our city just about anytime we go anywhere. There is a plaque, many pairs of metal boot sculptures lining the pavement, a burning torch, and a small parking area. We talk about it from time to time and this weekend as we were driving by, the following conversation happened.

William: mom, dad?
Dad: yes William?
William: sometimes I feel sad. I feel sad for all those people over there who lost their boots in Missouri. I hope they find their boots soon.
Mom: (laughing) (John and I cannot look at each other without bursting out laughing)

....................

Today at lunch:

William: but what did she look like? (Grandma Heidt)
John: oh... Well (distracted by helping Amelia with her lunch)
William: what color was her hair?
John: it was shiny and dark brown. Sometimes it looked black.
William: what color were her eyes?
John: gray. Sometimes they were blue, but most of the time they were gray.
William: what color was her skin?
John: white.
William: what?
John: her skin was the same color as ours William. Whatever you want to call it.
William: my skin is peachy colored. I'm peach. Was grandma peachy too?*




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Gemma wants to dance

Here is Gemma peeking in the doorway to the dance studio. She would love to be with the big girls!

Trigonometry is next

The last few nights have been tiring. Monday night Gemma was up every 30-45 minutes for no explainable cause. Then Tuesday night, she slept better- only up twice. However, William was up 3 different times with painful foot cramps. So, I was up 5 times. I think. Kind of all runs together.

On Wednesday, we were driving to ballet class in our minivan (Gemma, Amelia, mom). Amelia is vigorously kicking the back off Gemma's seat.

Mom: Amelia please stop kicking please.

Amelia: mom! I'm not kicking! I'm stomping.

Mom: Amelia! Stop stomping then.

Amelia: ok (kicking noise stops)

(Kicking noise resumes, although to a different rhythm.)

Mom/ (tired, patience gone): Amelia! Stop! Kicking!

Amelia: but mom! I'm not kicking. I'm dancing ( even though she is 2 rows behind me, I can tell she is smiling)!

Mom(arg! Is it bedtime?): Amelia! Keep your feet quiet!


(Quiet for a moment, then very soft kicking noise resumes)

Mom: AMELIA! (I'd like to tell you it wasn't shrieking, but I'm afraid it was)

Amelia: my feet just wanted to go for a quiet walk mom.

(Head exploding, silently praying for patience)

Amelia: what is 3+3?

Mom (what? I'm still busy talking myself down off of a cliff here and trying to see a color other than red)
What?

Amelia: what is 3+3?

Mom: I don't know? What is 3+3?

Amelia: 3+3 is 6!
Mom: you are right! 3+3 IS 6!
Amelia: that means there are 6! Seats! In our van!

Mom: whaaaat? (Am confused..)

Amelia: there are 3 seats on this side of the van (points to the left) and 3 seats on that side (points to the right). That means there are 6 seats in our van.

Mom: mouth hanging open. Yes! Yes! 6 seats in the van! (Seriously? Addition, word problem, grouping numbers together? There are MANY mathematical skills involved in this little statement here)



*this is what parenting is like for me. It is 90% the absolutely hardest work I've ever done....and then there are these moments of clarity and brilliance that remind me about everything. Why I'm working so hard, why this is so important, how special these kiddos are, etc. But the late wake up calls, mountains of laundry and constant fighting? This job isn't glamorous y'all.


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The highlights of today

I just discovered this entry in my "drafts" folder from September.  Enjoy!



Today is Monday.  Sure, the clock and calendar officially now read Tuesday, but I'm still working on Monday.  We did have several blog worthy items for you today, so here they are:


A dinner conversation:

William: Issac Newton invented the color wheel....(long winded, convoluted lecture on primary colors, color wheels, etc, etc, etc)...Did you know you can mix colors? (who had art today?)  Mixing colors is so interesting!  What does red and yellow make daddy? (without waiting for an answer) ORANGE!  (we continue on in this vein for a few more minutes discussing what color makes what when mixed with...you get the idea, right?)

Amelia: Hey!  What happens when you mix pink and purple?  They both have a lot of letter "p" in them.  What word would you make then?

This is the kind of stuff that makes my day!
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Amelia: I want to go outside and play hop chalk (hopscotch, drawn with chalk)

________________________________________________________________

Amelia: Mama!  Do you like the stem of the pizza?
Mama: What?
Amelia: Mama!  Do you like the stem on the pizza? (points at crust)
Mama: Oh!  Yes!  Yes, I do like the stem.

__________________________________________________________________________

Tonight, I was shutting off lights and putting the last things away before I got ready for bed when I noticed a mosquito buzzing around on Amelia's door.  I will not be able to sleep tonight if I know there is a mosquito friend in the house, so I try to lightly squash the mosquito on the door.....when I realize banging on my sleeping daughter's door in the middle of the night probably isn't the best plan.

You try and quietly squash a bug without making a noise.

PS I got it.

_______________________________________________________________________________

I have a confession to make:

I hate glitter.

It's messy, it sticks to everything, it is impossible to every get it all the way cleaned up, I always end up with some on my face and I hate seeing it sparkle on the floor and then being able to find it to clean up.  I hate glitter so much that if I get a card in the mail with glitter on it, I won't take it out of the envelope inside the house.  I'll take the card outside, open it, read it, and then discard it immediately without going into the house.

Weird? Yes.

Tonight I opened the dryer and found someone had a pocket full of glitter in their pants of some other glitter explosion had occurred.  Glitter exploded over a load of CLEAN laundry.  Ugh.  I wanted to cry.  After close to 2 hours of clean up, the mess is about contained.  Notice I didn't say cleaned up?  Because it isn't.  There is still work to do tomorrow on that front.

7 months old

Here is a really big shocking event: I am sitting at the computer with the camera card in the slot and I'm planning on uploading quality pictures.  We'll see if I remember how.  Well then, that wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be!

One of my favorite pictures from Amelia's baby hood was this sweet little white dress a friend picked up at a thift store....when I looked at the photos this morning, I realized I took those pictures on Amelia's 7 month birthday.  So, you know what I had to do, right?  I had to pull out that sweet little dress and wipe down that white rocking chair.  And here are the results...

 "This little piggy went...."

 

Chewing on the window ledge...mmmmm!

 Pulled up and peeking out the window

 The 7 month sign didn't fare very well

 Poor Amelia was so patient.  I finally told her to make her "sad face" to match Gemma's sad face. 

Gemma was not super cooperative and she wanted no part of holding still.  At all.  I was hoping to get a sweet moment between my girls, and I got a few.  Not exactly what I was hoping for when I started out though.