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| Grandma asked if we had a cake for him. Nope. The best part about being last is we just get down to the good stuff. We gave him ice cream as his first dessert. It is a little bit of a flop in that he tried first to pick it up with his fingers and eat it, but he suddenly became adept at using a spoon |
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| His party decor |
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| This bloomed on his bday |
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| Fiery Flynn riding on his track, making a turn to go over his bridge on stilts. the pink drawing on the right is W's house. Lots of windows. The blue one is T's house for fiery flynn |
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| You will see this pose is a recurring theme for E. I got lots of changes to take this pose. Arriving at our campspot |
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| Look Mom! Look at these really big antennaes. They sing songs |
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| Here Papa. I won't walk off with your pole.... yet |
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| Helping with tent stakes |
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| Going wild while blowing up air mattresses |
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| W was sure to decorate the tent, first thing, with some cheerful flowers |
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| In her field of lupins. At 8:30 at night. No sign of darkness, no sign of fatigue |
T didn't have any clothes to wear this morning. It was laundry day so all of his stripped short sleeved shirts were dirty. He has four other short sleeved shirts still clean on the hanger. But he can't wear them because they are not stripes. So he opted for a long sleeved stripped shirt with pants. Even though it is warm for here. Because of this choice he wanted to play inside this afternoon instead of outside because he was too hot. Right.
I have been trying to make a point of spending one on one time with each kid everyday. This varies from 5-30 minutes, but I've noticed if I just focus on one, it makes a big difference. I hadn't noticed that even though I'm with all of them most of the time, they weren't feeling that their attention needs were met I guess. It started showing up in behaviors they revert to when I talk on the phone too much on any given day. I was trying to figure out why they were doing it when I wasn't on the phone or not with them. That was my guess. And it is really helping. That short time everyday is enough for them and I can do other things the rest of the day where before I was struggling with fighting screaming and hitting more than I had in the past. It's almost gone. I'll probably forget soon, but I'm sure they will all remind me if I start slacking off.
For W's one on one time today, and like, the past week, she likes to pick to draw with mommy. This means mommy draws her a picture and she draws mommy many pictures. So now I have a portfolio for W. She comes up with lots of stuff.
I haven't figured out what T likes for his Mommy time. It is all different. He likes it when I stand outside and watch him ride his bike. Or snuggle him. Or play trains or cars.
E seems to be just as content with our without mommy time. Probably because he gets so much of it still anyway. I keep him in sight no matter what. Unless he is asleep and that is when I do the big kid mommy time.
E doesn't like rice. He threw most of it overboard off his high chair tray. I agree. Feeding a baby that likes to bite rice is very annoying. But he likes cooked broccoli. Ok. He can down gobs of that and I don't mind.
E loves the book Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You? Still laughs like it is the first time I've read it to him. He also loves the buzzing bee book Grandma bought him. He can get it to buzz even though he ripped it in half. Sometimes the book starts buzzing in its shelf when no one is in the room. Kind of a creepy book.
I remember wanting to teach W and T sign language when they were about this age. I have no desire to teach it to E. He makes his needs known through clear body and verbal noises language. Either I know how to speak baby now or he is good at communicating. Who knows. But I'm in no hurry for my baby to grow up into a walking and talking machine.
E loves stairs and slides. So naturally he loves playgrounds. He is fairly proficient on those 2-5 year old playgrounds. Who makes those age ranges on those things anyway? I'm sure all the parents feel this way, but the kids can do all those playground stuff WAAAAAYYY before the stated ages.
I almost reverted to calling the deer stupid deer in front of the kids the other day. The deer stuck it's neck in and stripped my apple tree leaves off of the branch. You know, the apple tree that is surrounded by wire fencing. Grr. I need to make a bigger and better fence. This apple tree is only growing the size of the fence. Everything outside the fence is pruned.
BUT they haven't eaten my tomato plants. I put them in the corner by the front door. I think they don't venture down there because they only have one way out if they eat the plants and they would have to put their back to their exit route. Either that or E's diapers are marking my territory for me. Not sure which. But I might get cherry tomatoes this year. Looking forward to it.
W was the most excited for E's bday party. I told her we needed to do clean up first, then E's party. She was in charge of upstairs. She did this very quickly, with little supervision. Not W's style. But perfection is her style. And the shoes were perfectly lined up and in their place for this special night.
W also made E a card and a special bday tent downstairs on the couches. And wrapped up a miniature muscle shell she found special for him on the beach. Not to mention the excitement of helping mommy decorate and turn on the lanterns.
When it is "warm", I fill up the bins and let the kids play. I think I like this better than buying a kiddie pool. Jim bought those super tough black bins with yellow lids that are meant to stack and two are empty for the kids to play in this summer. I like how they each have their own bin, it is deep enough so they get mostly wet, up to their armpits, and the blackness helps warm up the freezing cold water. If they want to go swimming when they are older, we can go to the lake. They played "brick learning to swim". T was pretty impressed with brick because "he blew bubbles a long time, Mom!"
T hasn't been playing much with the tractor trailer and bulldozer he got for Christmas. New solution: I let him take it outside and it has a special parking spot in the garage now. It was a hit. He drove it around and around the road we drew in the court. T made the bridge addition, so the truck went over the bridge. Then they played in the gravel with it. Yeah!!! E liked the bulldozer too, but had to wait long times in between playing with it. He moved the metal rake a bunch, too.
W went inside and drew a bunch more pictures while the boys were outside with me. Then she came out and her and T "painted" the inside of their "treehouse" with chalk.
The best part of today was going to the park after dinner. It is very relaxing. If we do that, everything is done for the day. T and W figured out how to go up and down the firepole and started climbing all over the play structure to see what else they could do. Maniac baby went down the slide like he was 4. Good grief. There was a dad there that obviously only has one child and his child is a girl. He couldn't believe the "fearlessness" of E. Duh. He has older siblings and is a boy. I think his daughter was about a year older and going up and down the play structure about like E, but on two feet instead of all fours.
E thought it was soooo funny to throw the flipflops off the edge. T played a bunch with him and threw the flipflops up for him. He was laughing a ton. Then E figured out how to hang from a handlebar and thought that was funny. W loves playing peekaboo with him.
E touches catepillars. He is usually fairly gentle with them in that he doesn't crush them to death, but the caterpillar definitely looks scared. He talks to the catepillars and loves to follow them
W picked me a bouquet of forget me not flowers. I happened to love it.
I made a track for Fiery Flynn to ride in around the court. T wants to play in the court, but this way I know where he will be riding around. It covers half of the court and are two concentric circles. About an hour after I did this, the neighbor called and asked when the men were going to start digging to add the sewer into our court. I told her I had no idea. But apparently she thought my chalk drawings were professional and part of the survey group. I'm sure my brother would disagree.
It was worth drawing that track, though. T played out there for about 10 days, or until it rained next. It was kind of nice to have such a long break from the rain. I was having a hard time making the track fast enough for T, though. He was getting too exhausted to wait any longer. I gave him chalk to help me, but he really doesn't like chalk because it makes his hands dirty. He had to run in the house and wash his hands off before he could take the first ride on the track. But he did get over it enough to make a bridge addition to the track later.
W saw me writing in my journal and asked me what I was doing. I told her and then she asked why, so I said so she could read it and learn from me later. She later made a mini book while drawing and told me that I could read her journal when I turn 51.
I think she was interested in the number 51 that day. She said something to T that day that she ate 51 things, or something like that and T was impressed. He said "Wow! 51. That's a lot"
T and W inform me now when "maniac baby is throwing things overboard" This is when he doesn't want to the eat the food.
E is also in the in out phase. He usually pulls things out, but sometimes will put things back. Never as much as he took out, though. T and W are cheering him on that he is learning to do his part of clean up.
And E is finally getting the idea that I don't like him throwing his meal over the side. When we were camping, he figured out that his sippy cup needed to go in the camping chair cup holder.
Throwing shoes down the stairs or between the rungs of the playground is also funny. He threw a bunch of wood chips into the tent, too. And of course toys always go down heater vents.
We went camping out of desperation for some sun. We drove until it was warm and sunny, then pulled off onto a national forest road. T commented to Papa that "this road isn't made yet".
Besides me wondering if we were going to get eaten by bears or someone was going to find us and shoot us in our sleep, it was a good idea. No campground means no one to bother and keep up when everyone wakes up at 3:30 in the morning. W was sick and E saw me get up to help her so decided he needed to be snuggled, too. And the sky was barely starting to turn light, too.
T loved helping Papa set up camp. He helped with the tent poles, blew up the air mattresses and pushed the water on for Mommy whenever she needed to wash her hands, and running up and down "the cliff". I could see he was having a great time. He was very chatty and excited almost the whole time. He told me in sequence of events everything that happened on the trip. He also loved running up and down "the cliff", a small incline between our tent and the road.
T and I went for a walk in the early morning, probably around 6. We found a big footprint with no claws. He informed me that it was either someone else's dog or a lion. I guess he must have been talking with Papa the night before about it.
He also told me when to eat in the morning, hoping there were some bagels because he said "bagels....mmmMMM!". No bagels, just meal bars.
W found a field of lupines she loved. And she loved the smores the best. of all of us. She also liked throwing rocks with her brothers into a stream we found.
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| going up and down the cliff |
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| blowing a huge dandelion |
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| bedtime stories |
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| bedtime for E |
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| Papa's girl |
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| so cute |
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| still very cute |
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| Finding a huge rock to chuck in the water |
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| mommy and e |
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| throwing in the boulder |
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| E throwing in sticks and rocks |
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| The day after the trip, E was looking all over for portable and big fuzzy. I had put them in the laundry. He saw a tiny corner and flung all the clothes that were on top in order to get to it and snuggle it in the laundry basket. So sad! |
E was eating rocks, dirt and just crawling around in the messiness of it all. He ended up eating a small bit of charcoal. I think he thought it was a rock and was unpleasantly surprised when he tried to push it out and exploded like a puff in his mouth. There were lots of black streaks of slobber around his mouth as he tried to pull the stuff out. He shivered instead and asked for a few glugs of milk.
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I had promised smores for FHE snack but it was raining, so we did it using broil. It works really well. As long as you are not T and accidently hit the marshmellow on the coil. Flaming orb just like a real campfire. His face was hysterical. He's never seen it. It was just shock, like "I can't believe this is happening and what do I do about it?" face. It didn't help I was laughing hysterically, so even though I'm sure he wanted to cry, he thought he should be laughing because I was. W handed her stick over to me to let me roast it perfectly.
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