Not Dead Yet

And I even remembered the password to get in and post. I've got some catching up to do. First, though, a Halloween preview....

Well, well, well...

We had well-child checks for the kids yesterday. We combined Mason's four year appointment with Claire's nine month appointment. No one had to have shots, so everyone was pretty happy. Dr. Johnson said both kids are in tip-top shape, and we have no reason to disagree with him!

Mason
Height: 41.9 " (80th percentile)
Weight: 45 lbs. (90th percentile)

According to Dr. Johnson, his BMI lists him as overweight, but he doesn't think that is entirely fair since Mason has always been a stocky, active kid. He didn't even tell us exactly what it was, just pointed it out on the graph. His blood pressure was perfect, but I was over with Claire getting her weighed so I didn't catch those stats, either. Good mommy strikes again.

Claire
Length: 29 inches (90th percentile)
Weight: 15 lbs, 13 oz (5th percentile)
Head Circumference: 17 inches (25th percentile)

Where Claire has always been thin, and she's following the same growth curve, we aren't too worried at this point. Apparently she just puts all of her energy (and the vast, vast amounts of adult food) into growing long rather than chunky. I sure wish I was blessed with the metabolism I apparently passed on to her, but what can you do?

Dear Mason, today you are four years old...

...and after all the frustration and battles in the last year, it feels a little bit like a victory. It's been a year of firsts for you, and you have come out on top.

It was about this time last year that we tackled potty training. We learned how disciplined your focus can really be. The bad news is that your focus was on everything else, not on avoiding accidents. It has been a year of laundry and trying again for you. As you always seem to do, though, you have it figured out now. We only get occasional reminders now that "poop happens". Thanks for those, by the way. Your cheekiness is refreshing and hilarious.

You got to experience life as a brother, and you have done so well with that from the very beginning. Your sister loves you; I think you're one of her favorite people in the world. One of your most common daily activities is helping us with her, and that's all by your choice.


Speaking of it, lending a helping hand is one of your very best intentions. You are always willing to help, and only sometimes frustrated when you are unable. You love helping so much that you asked for it to be a reward on the job chart we recently did together. You and mom, making treats: a day well spent.


(Mason as a puppy dog, building a fence to keep himself in the yard)

When you aren't helping us with a project or making treats, you are exercising that busy imagination of yours. I hope this imagination will serve you well throughout your life. You are always finding ways to help your toys fit into the world you create, and I hope this innovation will serve you well when it comes to more grown-up realities. You keep telling us you can't wait to be a grown up, but I hope you take your time and exercise your imagination now so it will be there when you need it later.

You have proven to us that you love the outdoors -- in whatever manner they come. Swimming lessons were a good chunk of your summer and you took to the water like a fish. In fact, you've learned about days of the week, seasons, and months of the year through this. Ever since Christmas, you've been telling us that your swimming lessons will start tomorrow. We've patiently explained time to you until you now recite the whole thing to us. "My swimming lessons don't start tomorrow because tomorrow will still be winter." I'm excited to take you back this year and watch you learn some more. Your excitement and exuberance for activity makes your dad and me very, very happy. We enjoy activities with you because you so enjoy them. Here's to another year of swimming, camping, fishing, four-wheeling, snowmobiling, and exploring everything at warp speed.

You started school this fall, and though it took some time to accept the authortative structure, you are now doing very well. You are such a smart child that we have to figure out how to handle all that intelligence, wit, and energy. Sometimes it's exhausting, but if we remain consistent, you meet our demands with a smile and you exceed our wildest expectations. You're teacher is now one of your biggest fans, and you love her as well. Because of her, you are trying to put together letters into words. You're starting to do very basic math. You love to do mazes and puzzles, and anything else with a logical ending. I have a feeling there are lots of games in our future.

Mason, you are a sweet child who demands the best from those around you. You are constantly learning, changing, growing, and exploring. You love to have company, so you always keep us along for the ride. We celebrated your birthday last night, and surrounded you with those who love you most. We have worked hard to help you build a good foundation. Use any of those people as resources to help you. This year will not be as full of surprises and change as the last one was. It will be a year of exploring the boundaries that are already in place, and a year of continuation. I look forward to sharing this year with you and hope we can have more fun playing trains and race track and games than ever before. This is the good stuff. You're growing up so fast, buddy. I hope this year we can continue to enjoy your childhood before we are looking back on it and wondering where it all went.

Love,

Mama

Projecting

We've got quite a number of projects going that are typical for this time of year. I'm still trying to finish up something that I've got mostly made for Claire's room (I mentioned it several months ago-- don't judge me!), we are trying to put all our Christmas decorations away and stay on top of shoveling snow, I'm working on a Family Emergency Plan binder to put somewhere in the kitchen, I'm also working on a complete home inventory, we just got a job chart started for Mason, and last but not least, this.


I made the ill advised decision last year to put Mason's train table in our loft area. I argued against putting it in his room because I didn't want him to stay up late playing with toys after bedtime. I also didn't want something so potentially loud sharing a wall with the incoming baby's room. Then there was the solid argument that the bedrooms in our house are not that large and a train table alone would take up far too much space.

So we assembled it in the loft (which we normally use for a computer/reading room). The next step was we brought all of his toys upstairs and began using the two trundle drawers as a toybox. The previous toybox we'd had was a large Rubbermaid bin. It got progressively larger over his three years until there was so much unused detritus in the bottom I thought maybe a puppy had moved in that we didn't know about. There was the occasional playdate when all this stuff would get dumped out in the middle of the living room floor (so the kids could use the empty box). After one particularly large dump & play, I spent an hour picking up and swore it would never happen again. So the toys migrated.


Well, they migrated but not to the inside of anything. For about a year now, if we need to use the computer, we've been rooting through shin-high toys, trains, and so on. The room is out of the way enough that we weren't so good about picking up everyday. Suddenly, vaccumming took an hour because you had to clean the toys up first. If you wanted to find a specific toy (anyone met my three year old? He's so specific this was a daily occurrence) or book, forget it. So we came up with a new system. Mom and dad got the loft back and here's Mason's room now: The little table lost its corner. But it gained a game to be played until parents begged for reprieve (oh yes, it's only a week after Christmas and we're already fairly sick of this bad boy, but it's better than watching TV!)
The inner workings. We have nine long and skinny bins put into these two drawers. We left the back part of the second drawer for the large buildings that accompany the train table. There is no way any particular feat of engineering can include them all. The theory behind this is that each bin is categorized: one for plastic dinosaurs, one for Matchbox cars, one for trains (that aren't in the Roundhouse), one for legos, etc. When Mason wants to take a toy elsewhere, he can just take the bin out and we can load it up and put it back where it goes. The jury is still out on whether this will happen, but isn't it pretty at the moment?

The train track dad built to "celebrate". Look at that thing! And he's disappointed that all routes lead back to the roundhouse! This is the kind of thing dads are for and moms gladly let them have it.

More on the job chart later. This post turned out long enough already!

Sittin' pretty.... ish....

My mother-in-law helped me take the kids to get their pictures done today. Overall it was a fun outing, and as you can see we got some good pictures.

It was also the first time Claire has had professional pictures. She didn't enjoy the parts where she had to be put down; she definitely made the photographer earn her wage. The only smiles we got involved feet being tickled with a feather duster and a small stuffed dog "getting" her. Of course, once someone picked her up she was all smiles and very chatty. Maybe this will get easier as we go.

Mason was handsome as always, but he tired of the activity quickly and was more excited about Grandma being with us.

Much thanks to the portrait studio and to Grandma.

Letters to Santa

Dear Santa,

Merry Christmas! I love your reindeer. They are my favorite.

Will you please bring a train table for my room? I want two tables to play lots and lots of trains. Also, some trains to chug on the train table.

I would love a red scooter to play outside with my friends.

Please take lots of toys to the sick kids sleeping at the hospital, too.

Happy Holidays! I promise to be a good boy.

Love, Mason

******

I might have done the penmanship, but Mason told me what to put in the letter and then he "traced letters". He's currently in his room writing a letter to his dad. I think we may have hit on something here.

He is currently very fixated on a charity his preschool is sponsoring this year. It provides a new toy to kids with cancer. We let him pick a toy himself to put in the box for kids who are very sick; ever since then, he keeps asking for reassurance that when he is sick and in the hospital, mom and dad will come with him and bring him a new toy. I love the empathy he's showing there, but need to find a way to instill the idea that not every kid gets sick and he may not (God willing) be one that ends up in the hospital in the same way. This is all a pretty heavy conversation for a (nearly) four year old.

What happens when....

...the almost-four-year-old is in charge of hanging ornaments.

Today, I am thankful... (day five)

Today I am thankful to be the mom of such a healthy, energetic, silly little boy. I am also thankful that the day is going better now than it did at the beginning. He helps me live in a world where a wonderful day is simply a picnic lunch in his bedroom and his bed is the slide or the big bridge or somewhere to bounce. It's a truly magical place and I need a little of that! Now if I could just borrow a small fraction of his energy...

Duh, Mom!

I had a few learning moments today as I was home with Mason. He's got his smarty pants on, that's for sure. Oftentimes, they double as sassy pants. Enjoy!


The scene: I'm feeding the baby (like always) and Mason has dismantled the couch and loveseat in our living room to build a cushion tower. Also, Mason has a certain set of blankets for his bed that he loves to drag around despite repeated requests to not. He is especially fond of dropping them over the half-wall that encloses the loft upstairs. Again, this is despite my repeated pleas to not.

Mason: Mom, did you see my blankets?
Mom: No, I didn't. Where are they?
Mason: They fell out of the sky! They're hiding my tower!
Mom (wearing a mom face):Did they fall because you threw them? Blankets don't just fall unless they have help.
Mason: No, I didn't throw them.
Mom: Did you drop them?
Mason (pause):...yeah.


The scene: In Target. After repeated begging and proclamation, I had agreed to purchase Mason a small reward for being good in the store. I'm leaving out the 20 minutes of discussion of the difference between large and small, and how size and price aren't always the same thing. We have agreed on a $3 spending limit. After 15minutes of haggling, I told him it would work if the first number in the price was 3 or smaller. He brought me a large, motorized cement truck that was $29.99. Anyone see where I'm going with this?

Mason: Mom, I can get this one!
Mom: Um, no. That's a lot more than three dollars.
Mason: No! The first number is only a two.


The scene: Home, approaching bedtime. Mason is playing with the helicopter we settled on after the previously listed conversation. Also, it should be noted, that he has a problem with a wet spot on his pants because he usually won't stop playing to go the bathroom without some *cough* loving *cough* reminders.

Mom: Mason, do you have to go potty?
Mason: No! No thank you!
Mom: The big wet spot on your pants says otherwise.
Mason: No, it doesn't! It doesn't talk!

Budding Artiste

Mason and I played outside for a good long time today. Claire enjoyed it for a bit, too, but she had eaten herself sleepy (starting on solids has been very good for her) and went down for a long nap.


We built a "fire" by shuttling leaves from the trees in the park strip up to the yard... (ignore the dog hair, we also gave the dogs a good once-over with a brush)






But more importantly we played with sidewalk chalk. And Mason drew fire engines (and asked me to take pictures of them)...

...and he wrote his name. Maybe it's the gushy mama thing, but it's the first time he's written his name and, although not perfect or really even legible to the naked not-mom eye, I think it is such a good approximation. I'm so proud of him!

Compare and Contrast

Gee, do you think these two are related? For all the differences I could find in pictures just a couple of months ago, I think it's pretty clear that they look alike now.

I can't find the handwritten note the pediatrician gives us that lists Mason's size at age 4 months, but I have the one for his two month visit and the one for his six month visit. If I estimate in between them, at Claire's age now, Mason was 26 inches long and weighed about 15 lbs. So she is about the same length, but approximately three pounds less than he was. I know there are differences in size between girls and boys, so I'll just take that as further proof that she's a string bean.

I think her facial features are still a little more delicate where Mason's were more round. And Mason had the "old man" hair thing going on; his newborn hair never fell out but it didn't really grow either. By the time he hit four or five months, the newborn hair was in a ring around the middle of his noggin. Claire's hair seems to be growing in at the same rate as her head is growing. If I wanted to, I could probably give her a little bit of a ponytail right on top of her head, but I'll wait.

Personality wise, she is a whole lot more snuggly than he was, but she is also far more squirmy. Mason would roll over when I tried to change his diaper, but Claire will kick me as hard as she can. Mason loved tummy time, too, but Claire has only started enjoying recently. Going along with being snuggly, she only tolerates it for a few minutes whereas Mason would spend hours on his tummy. I don't know what this reveals about their personalities. I guess time will tell!

Gigglicious

So cute I made up my own word. They did this for about 20 minutes; all he was doing was shaking a cup with a few grapes in it.

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Existentialism for the preschool set

Scene: driving to the zoo; please keep in mind that Mason hates driving on the freeway after our window blew out. He will beg, barter, and plead to keep us on the side roads.

Mason: STOP THE CAR!

Dad: ... why?

Mason: Why not?

Is anyone laughing as hard at this as I did?

An Economics Lesson

Mason: Dad, can you fix my train track?

Dad: Unfortunately, due to the slow economy, the county has run out of funding. You'll have to wait until the next budget year.

Mason: What did you say?

Dad: Yeah, buddy, I can fix your train track.

Meeting of the Minds

I've been kind of MIA in posting lately. It's been a super busy couple of weeks with the kiddos, but the last few days have really killed me for some reason. We have a few new developments to share, but I want to give each one it's own post. So for now, this is all I've got.

This past weekend, my cousin was in town for a family funeral (the other side of her family, not mine). The good news about this was that it provided a rare opportunity for us to get together and chat. Plus, her daughter Arianna was born on the same day as Claire. I share a birthday with another cousin of mine so the two of them sharing a birthday was a fun surprise.

Arianna is beautiful and has lots of long hair. She's so cute and teeny she makes Claire look like she's about ten feet long. Someday, we might be able to get a picture of them together... where they are both looking at the same camera. But for now this will have to do.

Where were the boys during this, you ask? They were checking out Cowabunga Bay. I was also supposed to go to a bridal shower (sorry again for being so busy visiting that I missed it entirely), so they had planned a 'boys-only' afternoon before the brunch ever materialized. I took the not-water-friendly camera with me, so there are no pictures. However, I am told that Mason showed not a lick of fear or hesitation. The only reason they didn't go on the tallest, 70-foot-high water slide was because of the long line that came attached. He is still talking about the next time we can go back.

The Last Lecture

Yeah, I know. It's kind of horrible to rip off the title of a touching and important book for a blog post. Oh, well!

Mason has a routine as we leave the house on those occasions when we leave the dogs out of their kennels. His routine is to speak directly to them when Alan has them in a down command. What he says is a variation on the following:

"Now dogs.... don't do anything dumb. Don't eat anything, don't lay on anything, don't poop on anything, don't throw up, and don't die. Just take a nap and we'll be home in a little while."

That about sums it up, doesn't it?

M.O.P.

..that's me. I'm officially a Mother of Preschooler. Congratulations, Mason! You're going to do a great job. His first day of school was Friday. I think it's safe to say he loved it. I wasn't such a big fan of having to pry the details out of him. He was gone for two hours, and all I got was that his teacher gave them candy-- which I knew because he promptly asked me to open it for him. Throughout the day, we pieced together that they read stories and colored pictures. They also have show-and-tell every day. Of course Mason took Thomas; it seemed like that was a big hit with some of the other boys in his class.

... meanwhile, Claire enjoyed her brief stint as an only child. We played with her newest ability, that of rolling on to her side. I gave her some tummy time and this was about the only photo op without her crying. She seems frustrated that she can't move; if she can learn to keep her arm down, she'll at least be able to return to her back.

Kids get too big too fast!

A-Wanderin' We Go

We went for a short walk with some friends recently. Our trips included the library and Arctic Circle for ice cream cones all around. Mason rode his bike, and with the huge hill that comes off the walking path to the sidewalk, it felt a little more like hiking; Ashlyn found some flowers to blow. I'm glad we weren't by our already-infested yard! And Claire talked to the friendly animals dangling from her car seat/stroller.

In the end, Mason was exhausted, and came home toting only about half of the 12 library books he selected. Heather got to snuggle with Claire (and was spit up on, thus being inducted into "the circle") for a while. Mom got out of the house for some fresh air and sunshine. Overall, I would say it was a hit.

Mason: Decoded

As three year olds will do, Mason keeps on saying things that make us turn our heads and shake with silent laughter. Half the time, we wouldn't really want him to know that we think he's funny because we wouldn't want him to repeat himself. (For example: He approached a total stranger at the grocery store and told him "My mom hits me." What he neglected to mention was I had accidentally bumped into him with the cart. I was about six shades of purple.) He also has a funny way of explaining himself sometimes, so I thought I would share a few of his latest gems.

• Last morning = yesterday; or sometimes a vague time period when he can't recall when something happened.
• "Let's do it today!" = I want to do it right now, even if you just told me no.
• "Is it nooning?" = Are the railroad crossings down?
• Shower-bath = allowing the bathtub to fill with water as he showers, and then turning off the water and splashing in it for hours on end.
• "Poop happens." = pretty self explanatory in a potty-training scenario. Also not a great comfort when you're the responsible party for cleaning up after said accident.
• "Right there, right there, right there -- BOOM!" = a delightful game where you repeatedly point to the spot you're about to punch and then punch it. Claire is not a big fan of this game.
• "I'm thirsty." = I'm going to drink all of your water. He prefers my hospital mug over anything else, even when I've filled the other hospital mug for him.
• "I need a snack." = I want junk food/candy.
• "I want to be a digger!" = I want chocolate milk. I'm going to scoop amazing amounts of Nesquick into my milk if you'll let me.
• Chocolate sandwich = new treat introduced by dad consisting of two graham cracker halves held together with chocolate frosting. Oh, all right, mom likes them as well.
• "That scared me out of the crap!"
• "Where are the handles?" = he has taken to pulling the stitched edging off some of his blankets into loops, and then puts his fingers through the loops. After a twisting incident that resulted in hysterics, I cut the loops on one blanket, only to find several more later that day. He reserves this mostly for his "candy blankets". We have one with Tootsie Pop logos and one with Junior Mint logos.

He also recently asked me "Mom, how do you close your mouth?" ... much to his father's delight. I wish I could actually keep track of all the funny things he says, but half the time I'm so busy trying to cover up my initial reaction that I can't write them down.

Grins and Fins

Claire has started smiling more and more each day. I first noticed her purposefully smiling a couple of weeks ago, but she wasn't doing it too often. More often than not, she was scowling. I was afraid maybe grumpiness is genetic and I'd passed it on to her. Then we broke out the bouncy chair, and that fear went away. Obviously she loves it! Her favorites are when we rattle the tiger or flip the bird in circles.

Fins might have been a misleading way to title this, but oh well. Mason started his first swimming lessons on Monday. They aren't wearing fins yet, but as you can tell from this shot about 10 minutes into the first lesson, he has absolutely no fear of the water. He is loving it!

For those who are wondering, we're taking him to Shinsel's Swim School Pool. They don't have a website or a listed number. It's a private residence with a huge lot, and the couple built a swimming pool for a large portion of their space. This is the 29th summer they have been open. We heard about them because Alan's parents are good friends with the owners, and Alan and his brothers went there for swim lessons while they were growing up. The pool is clean and beautiful, the water is warm, and there are only three kids in Mason's class.

They cost a bit more than your local rec center (not lots more, but a little bit), but I think it's very worth it and I highly recommend them. If you are interested in swimming lessons there, email me and I'll get it you their contact information. Mason is in the second session now. I believe the third session in August is already full, but openings will become available when people don't show up.