Kidisms

Gosh guys,
With all this Utah excitement and summer lovin' livin' and everything in-between, my kids got HUGE! This is definitely not allowed, so I'm going to pretend none of this happened and rewind a bit. If only I could.

Even though I wish I could just make. it. stop. I am having so much fun with all these new and great milestones my kids are hitting. It's so great!

First off. Will and his talking. and talking. and TALKING. It's like he figured out how to get it to go from the back of his throat to the front, and now he is so excited about it he just goes on and on and on. Hahaaahaa! Ok, in reality, he is still much more reserved about talking than say, a certain chatterbox redhead I know that never stops for a breath, but in Will terms--it is a ton. Some of my favorites:

"LOOK!" said about five hundred times a day. Whenever he wants to show off, have me act proud, get the baby in trouble, etc., etc. This one tickles me because even though a lot of his words are still somewhat unclear, 'look' is crystal clear from the 'L' to the hard 'K' at the end. So adorable.
"Dan-dan." His term/name for Ruth. I get it. Ruth is a really hard name to pronounce. I've suspected that he had a name for her (similar to dada though, so I wasn't sure if he was just using that term as a blanket-for-all-family term or not) for awhile, but it is definitely distinct these days.
"Me too!!!!" with the 'too' escalating to really high pitches and loud volumes. Often with an emphatic finger poke to his chest. I just love it. Often lately with the added "Me do, too."
Today he said his first five word sentence. I was folding laundry (ENDLESS LAUNDRY) and he was trying to play with our ladder. I told him no, so Ruth was explaining to him that daddy used it to get up in the loft to get our 'Utah stuff', haha. Our suitcases and sleeping bags, among a bunch of other things, are up there. Then Will starts looking up into the loft and notices the sleeping bags. He slept in those for six weeks in Utah, so he exclaims "MOM! LOOK! Me bed up HIGH there! Look!" After which I sat there counting and exclaiming over his vocabulary. Haha.
It's amazing what a little jump in communication can do for realizing how much he understands around here. I just get a kick out of him and Ruthie playing together all day long. He is very emphatic. I can also give him MUCH longer instructions now and he will totally follow through. Like to pick up his pillow and take it upstairs and come back down and sit up to the table. That's quite a bit for a little guy and he is all over it!

All these photos are from my phone. Excuse the crazy blurriness. But didn't he look SOOO handsome in the shirt I picked up in Utah at Kid to Kid for .99? Oh how I miss Kid to Kid.

Also Molly. That girl thinks that learning to walk made her an honorary adult or something. No joke. The squawking that girl pulled in nursery when she didn't get a cup like everyone else even though she was sitting up to the big table all by herself just like everyone else. Oh goodness. And no, she is not old enough for nursery, but you bet she thinks she is and walks right around everyone acting as if it is her space. Also today at the pool she just started jumping in all by herself. WHAT ELEVEN MONTH OLD DOES THAT?!?!?! JUMPS in a pool?!?!? And she'd just come up laughing and smiling, knowing that that is exactly what all the other kids do, too. My heart. She toddles around endlessly and it is just the best. To see such a tiny little person (12th percentile on the charts last week at her appointment) walking around so steadily--it just never gets old.
Another hilarious thing she does lately is her snub when she doesn't want the specific food I am feeding her. If she wants a drink of milk and I am trying to give her another bite, she tosses her nose in the air and turns her head and it just makes me crack up every single time. Oh, am I ever worried about that attitude.

In actual kidisms, I have very little. I think I am losing my brain a bit. Today the kids were just on one and everything they did I thought I should write about and then thought I'd type it up tonight and then...nothing.

Ruthie hit a kick where she wants to only wear Will's clothes, with a costume change every 3-5 minutes. This has been going on non-stop for the last 48 hours and has made the seven loads of laundry I am trying to fold seem insurmountable because their drawers are also constantly unfolded.

Today they dropped my umbrella stroller in the pool. Twice. Ruth said they wanted to swim with it. Go figure.

I went through a huge effort and made a nice meal tonight, and none of my kids ate it (Sterling was studying, so I can only imagine he would have loved it.). But they thought squeezing limes over their plates was hilarious, and then when Will licked one, they thought the faces you made while licking a lime were even more hilarious. We spent the next ten minutes licking limes and making faces and laughing our heads off, so I guess all was not lost. Although, there is still cilantro all over my kitchen floor and I am hiding from mopping right now. Wish me luck.

Molly likes to put little things inside of bigger things. To Ruth and Will's extreme delight, she will even 'clean up' for them, if they put the bag in front of her and then hand her each toy to be put into the bag. I don't think they realize how much work they are doing, because they enjoy clapping and cheering so much every time she 'cleans up' a toy. Haha!

Molly will fold her arms for prayer when everyone else does and I LOVE it. Just the sweetest thing. Will 'prays' now for us, and it is this chanting/drawling/no words or emphasis type thing that is quite hilarious.

Molly is HUGE into unrolling toilet paper and sticking her hands into the toilet lately. Bless her.

Last night Ruth and Will were laughing hysterically WAY past the time I had put them to bed. Eventually I heard them calm down and started watching a tv show. Half way through my show I looked up and saw Will standing there on the stairs. Decked out in slippers, a purse, a hat, and toys. He got this horribly sad look on his face when he saw me notice him. Poor boy, he knew he was in trouble. So I couldn't help but scoop him up and play with him for awhile before rocking him to sleep. I miss that baby boy and I am much too afraid of him getting bigger.

Watching a movie with the stools upside down. Go figure. Sweet moment though, with Ruth's arms around Molly.

Proof Ruthie is wearing all of Will's clothes. Also, how did Molly get the job of pushing Ruth around?!

They are loving the Elephant and Piggie book Ruth got for her birthday. Whenever I say "Somebody is reading us. Is it a monster?" (or however that goes) Will jumps up and down in excitement, pointing to his chest, "ME! ME! ME! ME!" hahaha. He also thinks that the elephant laughing really hard is crying, and so he always makes a sad sound and strokes him softly on that page. Hahaahaa.

At night lately we've been doing a plethora of kissing before bed. Eskimo kisses. Butterfly kisses. Tickle kisses. Tonight Ruthie stopped me as I was walking away and said "WAIT! One more kind of kiss mom." So I came back and she turned her head and said "Ear kiss." and I put my ear against hers while she giggled away like the funniest thing had just happened. Haha. Which reminds me that Will is SO into saying "BIG BIG BIG" before everything. So now, instead of just asking for another hug before bed, his biggest delaying strategy, he asks for a "big, big, BIG HUG MOM!" and I laugh every time.

We were reading 10 Apples Up On Top tonight and I was counting them with Ruthie (she is getting to be a fabulous counter lately. She used to always count one thing multiple times, or keep counting even though she wasn't pointing anymore, but she is getting pretty perfect about it now.) and so Will would have to run his finger along the apples and he'd say "Aboo (apple), aboo, aboo, lot, lot, lot, lot, LOT, LOT, LOT, LO-----T!" Very effective counting. It's also funny when we read books because I am always asking him for animal names, or colors, so Ruth has started 'coaching' him as well. She'll ask him what color and then respond with this big "Good job, Will!" haha.

One of the sweetest things happened today. Molly can go upstairs, and she can go down one or two stairs, but not our full flight yet. Usually she is good about squawking at the top of the stairs for someone to come get her. But today I was reading a story to Will and some piano students (their mom got caught in Miami traffic) when I hear this horrible strangled yell come from Ruthie and she TORE up the stairs, all the while screaming/breathing hard in this frightened way. She was so fast all I could do was stand up and get to the bottom of the stairs by the time I realized she'd caught Molly on the second step from the top. Molly started crying because she was startled but was totally fine. BEST BIG SISTER EVER AWARD! Poor Ruthie cried for five minutes just because she was so worried about how Molly had almost fallen down the stairs. It was the sweetest thing in my entire life.

My kids are super awesome. Over and out.