Eyes!

Gemma thinks these sunglasses aren't so much fun!

Eyes!

Gemma thinks these sunglasses aren't so much fun!

Conversations

William: Amelia, you are four. That means you are...(counting on his fingers)....a D!

Amelia: what?

William: let's see...Gemma is 1, so her letter is A!

William: I am 7 now, which makes me a G!

William: mom! How old are you?

Mama: I am 34 (for a few more weeks).

William: hmmm... Uh oh! (Crestfallen look on his face).

Mama: what is wrong William?

William: you are too old for the alphabet mom.

---------------

William: mom? When you were growing up, did they have bowling?

Mama: yes, they did.

William: was it different?

Mama: no, it is a lot the same.

William: did you have to play in the dark?

Mama: what? No? Why?

William: did they have lights?

Mama: yes. Yes there were lights and electricity when I was growing up.

William: what about black and flashing dance lights? Did they have those?

Mama: yes, we had those. Not at the bowling alley though.

William: oh. Huh.

Sent from my iPhone

William is 7!!

Today William is 7!!!

We sent him off with Daddy and Amelia to his favorite spot: the Science Center this morning.  I stayed home with Ms Daredevil Gemma.  William appears to have had a wonderful time, although he was a little sad about leaving me behind.  He initially asked for a notepad so he could write down everything they saw so he could tell me about it when he learned I wouldn't be coming with.

We hosted a few friends yesterday for some bowling at the local bowling alley.  It was fun to watch him interact with his friends and meet a few of them for the first time.

Now for 4 facts about William right now:

1. William is growing up.  He has responsibilities and chores to complete, which he does either without any fuss or a minimum of 20 minutes of complaining. 

2. William still adores dinosaurs and has checked out every single book of our local library about them at least once, if not twice.  He will happily talk about dinosaurs for hours on end and has developed the ability to turn just about any conversation into one about dinosaurs.

3. He adores reading.  He goes to bed each night and reads by hall light for at least another 30-60 minutes.  I don't even try to stop him most nights.  When given the choice between TV time and books, William will choose books a surprising amount of the time.  While William's favorite books now are about about dinosaurs, he really will read just about anything.  He loves learning new information, so he finds nonfiction very enjoyable.  Last month he discovered a book entitled: Oh Yuck.  An Encyclopedia of Everything Nasty.  He was delighted.  He has also just started to discover comics when he checked out a book of Garfield comics.  He was totally enthralled and walked around with his nose inside the book for the better part of the day.  I personally CANNOT wait to introduce him to Calvin and Hobbes.  However, he is not quite ready for that one yet.....

4. William is an awesome, sweet older brother.  He isn't perfect, but he loves his younger sisters SO much. He loves playing with Amelia and most days can't wait to see her when he gets off the bus.  She feels the same way.  He is also enamored with Gemma.  He plays with her and often comments about her cuteness.  She adores him and he can do (almost) no wrong in her book.

A funny story: Last week, William was home from school and I asked him to play with Gemma for 8 minutes while I cleaned up a mess in the bathroom.  He agreed and I got right down to work.  Less than 2 minutes later, Gemma came wandering into the bathroom by herself.  I went to find William and found his nose in a book.  His eyes glazed over as I tried to explain what I needed his help to do.  So, while he is caring and kind, he will not be ready for babysitting for quite some time.

Today is a big day for the Mama as well.  I can't tell you how I feel about that because I haven't decided yet. As I was thinking about his birthday over the last few days, I realized that I have been a mother now for 7 years. This then led to the realization that I have been changing diapers every day for the last 7 years with the exception of a 48 hour work trip I took three years ago.

Anyhow.  I'm sure William will be thrilled to know that my birthday thoughts for him included changing diapers.

No school today..

No school for kids and no work for mom. It looks like it might be a short summer...

Bapba?

Today I went into the kitchen and started working on dinner. I heard some rustling behind me and when I turned around, Gemma had climbed into her highchair. She was wearing her beloved winter jacket (what a difference! At this age I had to pin William down to get a jacket on him). This climbing into the high chair is a terribly unsafe habit of hers that I cannot figure out how to easily remedy.

Gemma: mama! (I really should get video of this sometime. She is quite demanding and impossible to ignore.)

Mama: what, Gemma?

Gemma: (points at empty tray)



This made me laugh out loud, so I got out my phone to take a picture of Ms Demanding. The MINUTE she saw my phone, she got very excited. We frequently talk to my parents on my phone and use the FaceTime video chat (on my phone) to video chat with them. Gemma adores these conversations. She loves them so much, every time I pull out my phone, she either demands to call Bapba or see Baby (look at pictures of herself on my phone. Which usually ends with me having a heart attack when Gemma some how manages to find a way to "delete all" my pictures.

This time is no different.

For interpretation, I repeat all of Gemma's "known" words after she says them. Almost everything else she says is a complete mystery to me.

Bapba?

Gemma loves raspberries we discovered tonight.

We had some leftover raspberries from breakfast this morning. They were tart and delicious, but very much on the sour side of the spectrum. I dumped the rest on my salad at dinner time more to get rid of them than because I thought it was going to be delicious.

We sat down to eat when Gemma spied the berries. Immediately, she began pointing and gesturing vigorously towards the berries. Reluctantly, I gave her a berry. I didn't really want to give her one because I knew how tart it was going to be. I was worried she wouldn't want to try them again if they were too sour.

Time and time again, she pointed towards my salad until she had eaten all of the raspberries out of it (in total, about 6). In the end, she was a mess, but very happy.*

I was trying to get a video of her picking up the leftover bits on her tray, when I got something much sweeter. The minute I put my phone up to take video, she thought we were going to call one of her favorite people in the world.

Bapba.

She sure loves that grandpa!


*John swears this is because I ate vast quantities of raspberries while pregnant with Gemma.