So, once again, it's been awhile since the last post. But I have a good reason. Baby #4 is on the way! We have been hoping for a baby #4 for awhile now, and so we were ecstatic when we found out I was pregnant. But early pregnancy always takes its toll on me, with nausea, vomiting, and fatigue. So, the last couple months have been a bit rough. I'm 16 weeks along now, and starting to feel better every day.
Meanwhile, life has continued in all its messy, loud, glorious splendor.
Today it hit me just how much I want to remember everything about these days. I want to remember Jonathan as a five-year-old, and Nora at two and a half, and Leesi as a big first grader. So, once again, back to the blog. I'll blog about today, about the everyday moments. The days are beautiful, and painful, and mundane, and fun, and tedious. And I want to remember all of it. Or at least, I want to remember pieces of each part of it.
So here goes...
Today I braided Leesi's hair. It's been hard getting up in the morning lately. And I can't move as fast as usual. So, it's made for some hurried mornings... wild hair and granola bar for breakfast kind of mornings. But today, I had time for a braid. Little things to be thankful for.
Jonathan and Nora have been sick. So, Jonathan stayed home from school again today. Nora was cranky and snotty in the morning. Jonathan and I played Candy Land and Operation in a sun patch on the living room carpet while Nora sat on my lap. Nora clung to me, scared, whenever the Operation buzzer went off.
Later in the morning Nora and Jonathan were screaming because they were both so frustrated about a fishing game that Jonathan had gotten out. I felt completely at a loss to help them deal with their frustration. Then when Jonathan yelled at me, I unleashed my own frustration at him and carried him upstairs and plopped him on his bed. I definitely still have a lot to figure out in this whole parenting thing.
We went outside a little later, into the beautiful, unseasonably warm March day. I worked on painting the shutters red, and the kids rode their various riding toys. A better mood prevailed.
Lunchtime, and then Nora's nap. I often read to Jonathan during the first part of Nora's nap and then become so sleepy that I have to take a nap myself. Today was no exception. After Mr. Putter and Tabby Drop the Ball, I found myself curled up on the couch for a fifteen minute nap. Then off to pick Leesi up from school.
On the way home, the kids ride their bikes ahead of me and Nora (in the stroller) and wait at each corner. As I come closer they motion thumbs-up and thumbs-down and wait for me to motion back the thumbs-up or say, "you can go!" Today Nora yelled from the stroller, "You can go, Jonathan, Leesi. You can go."
At home after chores and snacks, the kids watched a video while I worked more on the shutters. When I came back inside, I found them watching a youtube video of "I'm a little teapot" and doing the motions along with it. Leesi was Nora's instructor. "No, hold your arms like this Nora!" "I'm helping her learn the motions. She can't quite do it yet, but we're working on it!" I think that girl may be a teacher some day. I sat and watched some of the other songs with them. "Nora loves these toddler songs," Leesi told me. "Whenever she sees a new one, she just gets so excited and burstess into cuteness!"
I think they all have their moments of bursting into cuteness.
Jonathan has just about the most expressive smiling eyes you've ever seen. He is very loving - loves giving hugs and kisses. When he kisses Nora at night he plucks her paci out of her mouth and says, "Not like that Nora, you're kissing your paci!" He's also very creative. Yesterday he gave me a trophy he had made out of construction paper with a heart at the top. "What is this for?" I asked. "Best Mommy ever trophy?" He thought about it for a second and then agreed, "Yep." He loves doing the crafts at preschool, and always thinks of extra little touches to put on them. He's definitely an original. I rarely see him copying others in how he does his artwork. He has his own ideas. He's smart about how things work. There have been two times in the last couple weeks that Leesi has tried to do something unsafe and he has tried to stop her because he knew that she would get hurt. The first time, I heard him yelling at her and came to see what was going on just in time to stop some kind of laundry basket off of the back of the chair scenario. The second time, I wasn't around and Leesi didn't listen to Jonathan and she ended up with two big owies on her inner thighs from some kind of fall off of/onto the front porch railing. Later, she told Greg, "Jonathan tried to stop me, but I didn't listen." And Jonathan told me, "I knew she would get hurt because the wood was wider than the other piece." I didn't quite know what he meant, but I know that he understood it all perfectly.
Leesi is a school girl now. She likes school and is the model student while she's there. Sometimes I worry that she puts too much pressure on herself to be "good." When she comes home, sometimes all her "good" has been exhausted and she snaps and becomes easily frustrated. But I know she loves school and is learning a lot. She is an excellent and voracious reader. She loves library, music, and gym. She is very responsible. I can almost always count on her to follow the rules, and to make sure that her brother and sister are following them too. She has turned into an excellent hula hooper. She even puts on shows for us involving hula hooping and reading from a joke book at the same time. She can be very silly at home, but I don't know if she lets herself be too silly in public. Only around people with whom she's extremely comfortable. She is best buddies with Jonathan which sometimes means they fight. And she is extremely maternal, loving, and patient with Nora.
Nora is teetering on the brink of big girl. Sometimes she insists that she's the baby. Other time she tells me, "I not a baby!" Today I put her hair in a pony tail. That definitely makes her look grown up. She is funny. She copies whatever her brother and sister say, especially the things that get a laugh. Because of this, one of her favorite phrases right now is, "Poopin' with my bottom!" said in a sing-song kind of way. She has been extremely outgoing at certain times in life, but right now she seems like she's going to be shy. She's starting to seem timid about new people and experiences. She's still loud at home though. She demands attention, and she knows she has to compete to get it! She sometimes screams when she's angry or frustrated. Just a loud, shrill scream. I don't remember the other kids doing that. Maybe I've blocked it out of my memory. But the next moment she is just the cutest thing ever. She just "bursts into cuteness!"
With these three to keep me busy I know that the next few months will fly by and baby #4 will be here before I know it. Mostly I feel completely overwhelmed at the thought of another one. But excited too... in a "I think I'm a little bit crazy" kind of way.
