Thomas is off to Kindergarten!

Oh my goodness, Thomas is starting Kindergarten!   The past 5 years have gone by in a blink and now he is moving onto the next chapter of his life, the school years! 

Admittedly, I have been a bundle of emotions and the tears are frequent and the joy, excitement, and fear are all ever flowing in my mind.  We have done as much prep work as we can to get him ready and he seems as excited as he can be with a hint of nerves not far behind.

The school he is attending had a good introduction to the school and the teachers starting with “popsicles with the principal.”  Thomas and all the other students were able to go up to the school and have a treat while they mingled with each other and met the teachers.  They then had meet the teacher night when we found out that his teacher would be Mrs. Mahmoud.  She seemed very nice and Thomas was able to melt right into her shoulder for a hug before we headed home. 

We spent the weekend before school getting everything buttoned up.  Lots of fun and after he went to sleep at night lots of tears.  It was a hard transition, one no one could prepare me for, Mike was handling it much better than myself.  The night before he went to school I posted the below as I read it and as always someone was so much better with words, just replace Chase with Thomas and middle school with Kindergarten!” 

“I just dropped Chase off at middle school. MIDDLE SCHOOL.

Like I’ve been doing for three weeks now—I let him out of the car. I let him walk away from me and toward that huge building filled with PEOPLE AND DYNAMICS AND IDEAS and other horrible wonderful things that will break his heart and MAKE his heart and that I have no business trying to control. I let him walk toward a life that is HIS and not mine. Toward experiences that he is meant to have without me. Toward journeys he has to take alone.

Someone needs to create a word that describes what happens inside of a mama’s heart as she’s watching her child walk into a school building. We need a word for the feeling that overtakes her after saying goodbye to her infant who is somehow masquerading as a young MAN and who is walking away from her into his adolescent life. A word to describe the phenomena that is a mother sitting helplessly in her empty van while her heart silent screams her daily PLEASEPLEASEPLEASES!!! PLEASE be good to him. Please see his strengths and overlook his weaknesses. Please sit by him at lunch. Please smile back when he smiles. Please want to be his partner. Please be gentle. Pleasepleaseplease. PLEASE.

And how as she watches him walk away—toward the unknown of his day and away from the KNOWN of her (SO BRAVE! HOW DID HE GET SO BRAVE??? IS THIS LEVEL OF INSANE BRAVENESS EVEN WISE????) her head understands that the world is unfolding as it should. Her head KNOWS that all is well. That he is beginning his LIFE and that LIFE in all its bruty is what he came here for. And that he is ready. But her heart will not receive that memo. Her heart wants to run after him and pull him close and say: JUST JOKING HONEY! WE MADE A MISTAKE! THIS IS TOO MUCH! Come home and we will stay together forever and I will make sure that life NEVER HAPPENS TO YOU. Don’t worry. We will snuggle forever. Because I am not ready.

So she just sits in her empty van for a moment—holding up the car line for a split second too long. Her body is temporarily paralyzed, short circuited by the opposing messages from her head and her heart. The mixed messages SWARM her being and all at once she feels pride and fear and terror and excitement and hope and hopelessness and tenderness and ferocity and loss and gain. All these emotions swirl until her heart becomes so swollen that it threatens to escape out of her throat into tears and so she instructs herself to snap out of it. She shakes herself a bit. She breathes deeply and shrugs it all off and she drives away. And on her way home she tries to restore her heart to its original size by thinking of other things. Practical things. Because it’s all too much. Whatever that feeling is—it’s a lot like looking right at the sun. It’s simply too bright to stand for longer than a moment.

Is it love? Is the word love? Damn. Love wins but love hurts.

Glennon of Momastery.com September 2014.”

On his first day of school we were up and out the door on our bikes.  He was really excited and nervous all at the same time, so were we!  He put all his stuff into his cubby and then he went and sat down we said our goodbyes and then we left him.  We left him, our baby, at his first day of school with his teacher and 19 new friends, confidants and playmates.  We did it, we made it, we made it to Kindergarten!  Our 5 years at home of preparing him and slowly transitioning him and getting him ready for this moment happened.  He rocked his goodbye and so did we only a few tears fell as I turned my back to him and walked away. 

Thomas had an amazing first day!  He was a bit exhausted when he got home and there was a lot of tired emotions and a bit of “I miss you mama and home” but he really did well the first week.  There were no tears at drop off he was excited to go, even if he knew and told us he missed us a ton, it took a few weeks for him to settle in.  There were a few major melt downs in the first couple weeks as he searched to get ahold of how he felt about this transition.  He was tired, missing home and us and under a lot of demands at school.  After a particularly good melt down we were able to help him process through everything.  He did a great job telling us he really liked school but it was really a long time and he really missed us all.  Honestly the best thing I did for him, contrary to what everyone wants to tell you, is while Mike and I held him, I cried with him and told him how much I/we missed him too, but that we were so proud of him and excited for him.  It was the single most important thing I will lock away in my mind as what to do with Elin and William.  Thomas needed to hear it was ok to have a happy/sad feeling about school and we agreed that after school we would do a ton of snuggling and special Mommy/Thomas time.  We are now 30 days in (I am so behind on the blog) and Thomas is really loving school.  He is less tired on a daily basis and he is so excited about what he is learning!  We don’t need as much snuggle time after school and although he loves his weekends and says he really misses us school isn’t so scary anymore (for us either!). 

Thomas, we are so proud of you!  You continue to be a sweet and kind boy with more energy than we know what to do with!  Your teacher is so proud of how well you are listening and all the jobs you help her with!  We cannot wait to see what path your education leads you down.  

William is 11 Months

William in a blink is 11 months and closing in on his first birthday.  William is a super chill little guy who as long as he is fed, with us and not sick he is happy as can be.  The little monkey is very go with the flow and just wants to be part of the team.  He always has a smile for everyone he sees and wins everyone over with his personality and calm friendly demeanor.  It has been so much fun to watch his personality continue to develop and see who he is growing up to be. 

Like his big brother and sister were he is a mover and a shaker.  He tries to keep up with Thomas and Elin and sees the adventure in everything.   He is still fearless and will climb up anything and especially loves the stairs.  He has a handle on the stairs and getting down from high structures.  After feeling like I was endlessly repeating “turn around and put one foot down”  he will now go down the stairs, couch, or bed all by himself. He has also learned that if he pushes a box or his standing toys over to things he can cruise along behind it to walk.  He can stand up for a few seconds but still prefers to be holding onto something or someone for stability.  His confidence is growing everyday and it won’t be too much longer until he is off and walking. 

William loves to sit and play or read.  He has a lot of patience with his toys and likes to sit and learn and then do what you have showed him.   He is loving books with flip pages and will go sit in his book area and “read.”  Other toy and favorite activities are throwing balls, playing with Thomas’ golf clubs or baseball bats or sticks, playing with Thomas and Elin.  William loves the water.  Anytime the shower is on he is right there and trying to get it.  He also loves swimming and taking baths.

William continues to enjoy eating table foods and trying new foods.  I don’t know why it seems so hard/different to me to not give him some of my go to first foods of yogurt, cottage cheese, and cheeses, but it does.  He is currently loving trying anything we are eating and his favorites have to be meats and anything he can hold.  He is not as comfy getting messy messy when he eats and prefers his hands to be clean, so we will be slowly working on that. William is still nursing for his main source of nutrition.  He is the first of the kids who cannot nurse covered, so thankfully I am finally confident nursing and keeping us discretely nursing.  Many times if we are out and about I will nurse him in his carrier if we are home he is able to nurse wherever but does better nursing to sleep, he doesn’t want to spend too much time eating and will have a quick drink then want to get back into the action. 

William continues to add sounds but he doesn’t have any consistent words at this point. Receptively, he understands many single words, our pets/family names, and some early vocab words (eat, outside, go, bye bye ect).    New consonant sounds this month were the B, G, and H.   He likes to wave “hi” and “bye” and “give a high 5.” 

Physically he is getting more we think reddish blonde hair.  Everyone says he looks just like his brother and sister.  Mike and I see a pretty good mix of the two and then there are times when he looks just like Thomas to us, especially when he is rocking some of T’s old clothes.  William now has 6 chick-let teeth and has more on the way, his fingers or something is always in his mouth.    William is a night owl and really enjoys having some alone time with Mommy and Daddy after Thomas and Elin go to sleep.  He typically goes to bed for the night between 9:45-10:30 and then wakes a few times to nurse.  He then wakes up between 7:30 and 9 am.  He is still taking 2 naps a day both about 2 hours a piece.  

William is changing by the minute and with every day he seems older and older.  Can’t believe next year marks the 1 year mark since William was born!

William is 11 Months

William in a blink is 11 months and closing in on his first birthday.  William is a super chill little guy who as long as he is fed, with us and not sick he is happy as can be.  The little monkey is very go with the flow and just wants to be part of the team.  He always has a smile for everyone he sees and wins everyone over with his personality and calm friendly demeanor.  It has been so much fun to watch his personality continue to develop and see who he is growing up to be. 

Like his big brother and sister were he is a mover and a shaker.  He tries to keep up with Thomas and Elin and sees the adventure in everything.   He is still fearless and will climb up anything and especially loves the stairs.  He has a handle on the stairs and getting down from high structures.  After feeling like I was endlessly repeating “turn around and put one foot down”  he will now go down the stairs, couch, or bed all by himself. He has also learned that if he pushes a box or his standing toys over to things he can cruise along behind it to walk.  He can stand up for a few seconds but still prefers to be holding onto something or someone for stability.  His confidence is growing everyday and it won’t be too much longer until he is off and walking. 

William loves to sit and play or read.  He has a lot of patience with his toys and likes to sit and learn and then do what you have showed him.   He is loving books with flip pages and will go sit in his book area and “read.”  Other toy and favorite activities are throwing balls, playing with Thomas’ golf clubs or baseball bats or sticks, playing with Thomas and Elin.  William loves the water.  Anytime the shower is on he is right there and trying to get it.  He also loves swimming and taking baths.

William continues to enjoy eating table foods and trying new foods.  I don’t know why it seems so hard/different to me to not give him some of my go to first foods of yogurt, cottage cheese, and cheeses, but it does.  He is currently loving trying anything we are eating and his favorites have to be meats and anything he can hold.  He is not as comfy getting messy messy when he eats and prefers his hands to be clean, so we will be slowly working on that. William is still nursing for his main source of nutrition.  He is the first of the kids who cannot nurse covered, so thankfully I am finally confident nursing and keeping us discretely nursing.  Many times if we are out and about I will nurse him in his carrier if we are home he is able to nurse wherever but does better nursing to sleep, he doesn’t want to spend too much time eating and will have a quick drink then want to get back into the action. 

William continues to add sounds but he doesn’t have any consistent words at this point. Receptively, he understands many single words, our pets/family names, and some early vocab words (eat, outside, go, bye bye ect).    New consonant sounds this month were the B, G, and H.   He likes to wave “hi” and “bye” and “give a high 5.” 

Physically he is getting more we think reddish blonde hair.  Everyone says he looks just like his brother and sister.  Mike and I see a pretty good mix of the two and then there are times when he looks just like Thomas to us, especially when he is rocking some of T’s old clothes.  William now has 6 chick-let teeth and has more on the way, his fingers or something is always in his mouth.    William is a night owl and really enjoys having some alone time with Mommy and Daddy after Thomas and Elin go to sleep.  He typically goes to bed for the night between 9:45-10:30 and then wakes a few times to nurse.  He then wakes up between 7:30 and 9 am.  He is still taking 2 naps a day both about 2 hours a piece.  

William is changing by the minute and with every day he seems older and older.  Can’t believe next year marks the 1 year mark since William was born!

CIRCLE!!!!

The past couple months all of a sudden Elin will yell or say “CIRCLE” and then hold our her hands to have everyone join them….we have no idea where she learned to do this but it is a very sweet gesture.  It is the absolute sweetest thing.  She will most often say it when we are eating dinner as a family and then we all have to hold hands and then we are done.   Here is a picture of the kiddos doing a “circle” in the backyard together.  Watching the three of them become such great friends is the biggest joy in parenting…being their referee is the hardest!  It is the sweet moments like these thought that keep me energized for both the good and the bad! 

William is 10 Months Old

William continues to be a mover and is always on the go…but he does also have a bit of a pause button.  He will pause and watch the big kids play and then he will quickly try to join in on the fun.  He has also discovered the new world of climbing and he has decided that no obstacle is to big or hard for him to scale. He loves to climb on top of Thomas and Elin, the stairs, boxes, toys, the dog, our legs, pretty much everything.  He also likes to play under chairs and navigate the wooden jungle gym.  He is still cruising along furniture and is starting to stand a few seconds alone here or there.  As of right now he is  still a bit unsure about standing too long on his own. He walks behind his walking toys and with his hands held.  What he doesn’t seem to do much is sit still. Stairs are his current obsession, if he sees the baby gate isn’t up he will try to get up the stairs as fast as he can.  He is so quick and it has turned into a pretty silly game with him!  He loves to dance in with the big kids, play with his slide, and chase and throw his balls around.   He also loves being in the swing in the backyard or at the park.    

His laugh is about the cutest thing ever!   Besides laughing at us when we are doing something silly, he is super ticklish, so that always gets a little giggle out of him.  He also sometimes thinks that random things are hilarious and will crack himself and then us up.  Most of the time he thinks that whatever Thomas and Elin are doing is pretty cool and he always has smiles and hugs for them.  The pets also fall into this category and they are a new favorite to crawl to, catch, and snuggle.  William loves to play and be in with Thomas and Elin.  He will try to crash their toys and he gets so excited when they play with him.  It has really been fun watching him become more interactive and seeing them be such great big brother and big sister.  Sometimes their excitement gets the most of them and then we have to remind them to be gentle or careful.  The big kids also have to look out for William and his chompers!

William is eating more independently and continues to vary his intake of solid foods on a daily basis.   He has become very good at getting things into his mouth on his own, and will try everything we give him.   He now eats what we are having just cut up small for him and then he still gets a “squirt” here and there while we are out and about or busy.  He is  past the “baby food” phase and onto the finger foods/table foods.   He also loves to drink water out of a open cup, a sippy cup and straw cups.  He is still nursing both day and waking a few times (maybe once) at night/early morning to nurse.  We did a trial with me back on dairy and it caused William to have a significant setback in his sleep…so back off dairy I went!   In the 3 days of dairy I really lived it up having a few bites of cheesecake, a grilled cheese sandwich, and a few hunks of cheese…It was pretty amazing tasting…but William puking and the upset tummy and wiggling and lack of sleep there after wasn’t worth it.  Poor guy!

William continues to add sounds and “words”  daily.    If he is in the mood to “talk” he will have a back and forth “conversation” of sounds.   He will look for named things and people in our environment (mama/dada/tucker/itzy/stella/thomas/elin/outside/swing…..ect) and will follow simple directions (upup, come here, go outside, time to eat.)  He likes to wave “hi” and “bye” and “give a high 5.”  He also loves playing with his sounds and blowing bubbles/raspberries with his tongue.

Our little guy is still a night owl…he is pretty consistently the last one awake of the littles.  He takes a mid morning and afternoon nap, morning nap about he goes down anywhere between 10 and 11 and then sleeps for 2 ish hours and then his afternoon nap he goes down about 3 or 4 and sleeps for another couple hours.  Then his bedtime is about 9 or 10.  It is actually nice to be able to have just him awake and we can get some quieter one on one playtime with him.  He practices his walking, talking and shows us his silly side.  

He is really so much fun to have around and for the most part rolls with our very busy family.   Everyone that meets him describes him as the “happiest most chill baby” and we agree.  It will be interesting to see how he continues to develop and if this remains. I still can’t believe his first birthday is right  around the corner!

KinderCamp

Thomas had Kindercamp at his Kindergarten tonight. Kindercamp is a place for the incoming kids to see the classrooms, the school to give parents a bit of information and get the kids pictures/registration completed.  Mike was traveling for work so Thomas and William went to Kindercamp and Elin got to stay home with our babysitter. 

Thomas was a bit nervous as he walked into the school, there was a lot of kids and parents and everyone looked  a bit nervous and really excited!  Thomas quickly spotted his buddy Noah and the two of them explored the rooms together.  He was also pretty excited when he found what looked like a teachers permanent marker on their white board.  Thomas loves writing especially with dry erase or permanent markers!  When it was time for the parents to listen to the presentation, Thomas and Noah left with the teachers hand in hand and ready to conquer the world…together of course!  Noah’s mom and I agreed it made us both feel better to see them have one another and go confidently with the Kindy teachers. 

We cannot believe that we are already here and in a few short months we will be sending Thomas to Kindergarten. 

Earth Day

Earth day landed on a Wednesday this year so I had everyone home.  I had a few fun ideas planned, but first had to get my daily tasks done.  Once I had the house semi squared away, we got started.I gave the kiddos a Q tip earth and a blob of blue and green paint.  Their paintings were very beautiful and they somewhat resembled Mother Earth, I am going to say Q tip painting for our ages and patience levels was a bust.   Thomas quickly decided that dotting took a lot of time and a skilled hand, he was onto the fact that I had him working on his fine motor skills.  Elin decided from the beginning that a dot would just not work and she was happily gobbling paint on her circle.  Oh well, good in theory guess we will have to try again at a different ages and attention levels!

After cleaning up we headed out for our scavenger hunt.  This was an awesome Pinterest find that you can find here.  I ended up printing off 2 of each and then laminating them.  Both the kids love writing with permanent markers, so we meet in the middle with dry erase markers.  This was a hit and the kiddos had so much fun.  We ended up walking around the neighborhood for about 45 minutes before we stopped for some playtime at the park.  Some of the best days are days where the time and schedule leads itself…this was one of them!   With 3 tired kiddos and a tired giant one, we headed back home for a late lunch and naps. 

American Country Music Awards

Mike was lucky enough to be invited to the ACMA awards that were to be hosted here in Arlington.  He had called me and told me about them but then said “I don’t know if we will be able to go” with us not having family close means finding babysitters and people we trust to watch our 3 very busy kiddos…when we talked about it we figured out that if we were going to be able to go, our neighbor boys would be the only people we would trust to leave the kiddos with.  We asked them and they were up for the challenge.  They were actually excited!  So Mike and I got a fancy date alone to the award show.  We got ready and left to head to the stadium which was about 45 minutes away from our house.  As per we were a little behind with getting out the door and we were a bit nervous we were going to miss the cut off time to our seats.  Luckily we got there, had time to get a drink and then got to our seats. 

The people watching was amazing.  There was attire from street clothes to formal dresses.  Most of the guys were in jeans and boots, you can’t see it in the picture but I was able to rock boots with my dress and be country chic.  It was a fun experience, there were a lot of stars present that we got to “see” from about 100 yards away.  It was very hard to hear anything because the stadium was so loud with everyone cheering, even during the performances it was really loud and hard to hear.  Watching and listening to the behind the scenes stuff was a lot of fun.  The announcer would come on and give everyone a 1 minute warning…then he would count down and just before airtime with “30 seconds, 15 seconds, 10 seconds we need applause 5 seconds.”   There was also a 3 row section of dancing audience members for all the audience shots.  I watched them fascinated as they followed their “dance instructor” as she showed them when to dance, sway their arms, when to sing along, and when to act like they were on camera.  After they had used a section they would rotate everyone around and then after a couple times they would then send them on their way and new people would come in.  It was crazy to watch it on tv after we got home and see what the production looked like.  Also the presenters dresses looked much different in person vs on tv.  In person the sparkles were just really masking and looked like a big disco ball, on tv there was much more definition and honestly everyone looked even thinner…maybe it was hard to look thin on the biggest screen in a stadium.  We were also a part of making the American Flag during Alan Jackson’s song and tribute to our countries heroes.  Honestly that was the quietest the stadium was the whole night as everyone showed their respect and it was a very touching tribute.  I didn’t get to see it on tv as our DVD ran out of recording space and I haven’t had time to look it up.  Everyone said it looked really great.  We ended up leaving just before the end of the show to beat traffic and get home to our littles.  Thomas was already asleep, Elin was close behind and William who had napped off and on was up waiting for us when we got home.  

William is 9 Months Old

William is down right happy to be around and is content to do whatever.  He really rolls with the chaos of our life and doesn’t take a smile off his face with whatever we throw at him, well most of the time! 

William is down right crazy about his brother and sister!  He loves trying to keep up with them and this month with his crawling and standing he is becoming more able to participate in their play.  A couple weeks ago, while I cleaned up from dinner (Mike was on a work vacation) the three of them were sitting outside and Elin said “let’s make a circle” it was about the cutest thing I have seen. William is starting to babble and “talk” more and more.  His play is no longer silent and is filled with strings of vocal play.  The latest favorite is using his bottom lip to blow raspberry sounds. He also still uses a specific sound to for me or to tell us he needs help.  He has a lot of “ahs” and “ab ab abbas.”  He just started to wave “hi” with lots of prompting.  It is fun to hear hi long strings of babble and the stories he tells us.

He has spent this month perfecting his crawling  and has started to cruise along furniture and loves his ability to get around and go where he wants.  He also loves to play in a kneeling or semi kneeling/bum siting position or with her legs off to the side.  He's still getting the hang of walking behind toys, but when he is up and moving he is as happy as can be.  He loves to go to the back windows watch outside…with the grass finally growing in a bit better he is now able to go outside and crawl around too. 
He is able to get down from standing without just needing to let go and plop.  Such a relief and make makes his standing and cruising along furniture much less dangerous.  Another big step in the movement world has been him mastering the stairs and going up them.  This makes it a little more difficult around here and sooner than later we have to get the baby gate installed!

This month William really took off with eating.   He has even started to get mad when the spoon is not in his mouth fast enough!  He likes a few of the baby food pouch blends we have tried and will eat the whole pouch if you let him.  I would say that he gets about 75% in his mouth and the rest is a big mess as he likes to help with his spoon!  We have started to give him soft finger foods and he thinks they are ok.  Most of what we are eating I am able to cut smaller and try to give to him, he seems to think being like us in this respect, is the best!   William continues to have a rash or pimple like spots around his mouth, nose and sometimes eyes.  I had tried to put a little dairy back into my diet (to my stomachs dismay) and started to notice that his face also got worse.  Nothing I tried topically to put on it helped and I thought that maybe it was his teeth that were affecting his skin…so we will see if taking dairy out again will be the trick we need and if it comes back when he starts cutting more teeth.  He now has 6 teeth his four top middle and his 2 bottom.

William is still taking between 2 and 3 naps a day. Which are pretty flexible depending on how the day is working out. He takes the longest naps when he is in our bed and typically sleeps 2-3.5 hours. He has gotten into the habit of taking his 3rd nap when we put the kids to sleep, and then wakes up when the big kids are asleep and comes to get some alone play and Daddy and Mommy time. This happens a few nights a week and then a few nights a week he goes to sleep and stays asleep, needing to be snuggled after his initial 45 minutes-1 hour nap alone.  If he doesn’t do that mini nap he happily hangs out with Mike and I until he if ready to go to sleep, about 9 or sometimes, gasp, even later.  It is a lot of fun for us to have our littlest guy to play with.  He doesn’t mind the extra mom and dad only attention!  After he goes to sleep he then wakes for the day between 7 and 8 a.m.   He still wakes at night to nurse and sometimes there is a “bad night” with a lot of wake ups, but for the most part he grunts “awake” nurses and is asleep after his belly is full. 

William had his 9 month doctor appointment a few weeks early, so that he and Thomas could both be booked at the same time!   We saw the doctor on the 7th and William was 27 inches long (25%) and was 17.1 lbs (20%).