I am so far behind on my posting, I don't journal anywhere else, that I feel this real need to do a quick snapshot into our everyday lives right now.
Ruthie--She is my right hand woman. She came home with a paper she filled out at school the other day and where it asked "What do I wish my parents knew?" and she said "That I wanted to use my Christmas cooking set more!" She's constantly wanting to help and I love her for it--I'm trying really hard to embrace it and let her grow! She is so self-motivated it is astounding-she practices piano all by herself every day from day one, I never help her and she is getting really really good! She likes to read and asks google to set her 20 minute timer every day on her own and finishes her homework with only an occasional question (although that may be my fault because I usually say--read the directions again and see what you think). She is old enough for Activity Days and that kind of kills me inside. But she has the cutest friends there so I love it. She does choir on Thursday night for St Pauls Episcopalian church and they are underneath the Holy Order of Music (something or other) and so she has to pass off these things as she goes along. She just last week got a new piece to wear over her choir robes because she is not longer a probationary but a beginner student. Yay! Her and Molly go to dance on Friday afternoons and she loves that too--they always wake up saying, "today's the best day ever because we have dance!". Her teacher, Mrs. Patel, is amazing and she is always letting Ruthie bring extra things home (mostly crafts) and help her in the classroom and Ruth just loves it! She is a fantastic swimmer and super supportive sister and just brings all of the cheerful into our home. She wants to grow up to be a rock star singer (she practices with my old dixie chicks cd--her favorite is Top of the World and it's at least six minutes long haha) and a chef. She's getting really great in the kitchen! She made banana bread two weeks ago all by herself--I didn't even step into the kitchen!
Will- He is in basketball right now and he has grown by leaps and BOUNDS since he started in January. His confidence is much better, he looks so much less unsure and awkward and so much more agile and aware! He is a fantastic guard-er because he is the tallest but he also struggles remembering which team to guard (haha). We have LOVED this season of basketball because the very first game was seriously the best laugh. It should have been recorded and gone viral. The kids didn't know how to dribble let alone who was on their team. This last game on Saturday was epic--people making baskets, passing, although the idea of a 'travel' is still beyond any of them. It's been such a fun season. He loves to build. He got a pocket knife for Christmas and he has whittled several sticks and he also cuts into all the cardboard in our recycling box and spends hours in the garage creating things-usually homes for his stuffed animals. (most recently he and Molly decided to cut each other's hair and that was not so great for the garage games.ruff) He loves to scooter and ride his bike and he loves to play knights. There was no school this past Friday and he spent the entire time at the park sword fighting with my friend Lindsey's boys. He started piano and he LOVES it. He actually has only complained a few times, he has even worked extra hard some weeks to earn extra points. He's much more coordinated and it seems to gel easier in his head than the three other first time students I am currently teaching (and a couple of my older students too for that matter) and so it is such a fun time to sit and work with him on the piano! Homework and reading is a STRUGGLE and I feel for the kid--after all day in school it should be playtime! But just in the last couple of weeks we seem to have turned a corner and things have eased up a bit. Hallelujah! While he doesn't love helping, he is my best tub scrubber and toilet cleaner. He does a very good job at his chores! He wants to grow up and have his own room (without Russ!) to study dragons and how they became dinosaurs. Because obviously you can see how that happened when you look at pterodactyls...just ask him!
Molly- She is just maturing like CRAZY right now and I really, really want to slow it down! She writes letters and copies words all the time, sounds out three-letter words, learned to ride her bike without training wheels and earned money to upgrade to a two-wheeled scooter so she can keep up with the rest of the gang (and she used to be too nervous to go that fast, but she flies now, and even though she's fallen quite a bit she gets right back up and says "I'm okay!" and keeps going!). At Joy School she always has an answer and really loves her big-kid time doing school with her friends Jack and Gwen. She also loves being in dance right now and is my super helper in the van to help keep Grace happy when we've been driving past nap time in the mornings. She runs all my errands with me and plays so nicely with Russ. She loves Wednesday morning playgroups where she sees her friends Jack and Daisy. She just barely took a four week swimming lesson (more for Russ's benefit but since she had to be there too..) and wow! She improved so much, with her skill, but also with her confidence! She wants to be an entomologist because she LOVES BUGS. She still has her adorable little high-pitched voice but the big words that she comes up with are always so surprising! I LOOOOVE having her home with me right now and I'm so grateful she had this year with me--but man she is so ready to be off on her own. She is going to rock kindergarten next year!
Russ- Oh man, Russ. Sterling and I keep commenting that in the last week he has grown five inches and slimmed out and is losing all his baby fat (this could be due to a recent hair cut that makes him look SO MUCH MORE grown up!). He got a scooter for his birthday last June, but since about Christmastime he has TAKEN OFF on that thing. Literally every single person who sees him and walks past us stops me to comment on how amazing he is on that scooter. He uses the brake. He coasts forever. He holds one foot in the air and holds his head upside down. He can basically do wheelies with Will. He zooms so incredibly fast it gives everyone a heart attack (quite literally our next door neighbor had a two week work trip and had a nanny during that time and the nanny walked her to school and the first day she was so concerned and the second day she confided "I was having a heart attack! He was flying! And you were walking along so unconcerned I figured you must know what you are doing! And he does--he stops at every sidewalk and he keeps his balance! He's so good!"). He does have quite the attitude lately and has quite the loud scream. He takes speech therapy from Carolyn who comes to our house every Monday morning. Again, in just the last week or so he has started TRYING to talk SOOOO much more than he ever has in the past. And I LOVE IT SERIOUSLY SO MUCH MORE THAN ANYTHING IN THIS WORLD! He talks in sound effects. No joke. It's the best! So when he gets on his scooter he makes the engine revving noise really loud, and then pushes off and starts scootering. Well, he makes sound effects like that for everything. Just tonight we were reading a book and he goes "woof woof.(then holds up his hands) AH! 'dop, woof woof, 'dop!" His language is currently onomatopoeia and it is the best ever. He is generally the happiest kid in the world, and gives the BEST hugs especially when he just wakes up. He still won't stay put in his bed at night so he goes to sleep in his car seat and then we transfer him. He loves cars and woof woofs. He has one specific Cars car and one car with a trailer that he is always carrying around and driving all over the walls and table. It's so interesting because Will was much more into playing with stuffed animals (maybe because of Ruthie?) and so Russ is a whole different boy. He's incredibly solid and incredibly tall and EVERYONE thinks he is much older than he is. The nursery was so confused that he didn't go up to Sunbeams and I was like "he's 2!" He literally brings a smile to my face multiple times a day and I do not know what I do with my Russ.
Grace- talk about growing my leaps and bounds, she walks, she climbs, she scoots, she pushes things to climb even higher, she says "hi" to absolutely anyone in the near vicinity and then "Bye!" while waving like a crazy banshee. She can say "uh-oh" and "mama" and there's a few others that I think are consistent, but not regular enough to note yet. She has a crazy hilarious sense of humor and when she grabs something and runs from you on her wobbly-leg run, laughing all the while because she knows you're coming after her---it's just the very best. She LOVES the water (quite opposite of the four swimming lessons we've had of straight screaming from Russ) and dives right in regardless of drowning HAHA. She loves potatoes and bread and milk and cereal and not much else, she's a hard one to feed! We almost had her weaned from her bottle, and then she started getting molars. Her top two have two cusps through so far and it's made our nights awful again--she's up at least three times a night. She is incredibly independent and boy does she let you know when she wants to go do it herself, she wriggles all around like a crazy worm in your arms in an effort to get away and it is dang hard to hold on! She laughs and laughs at the other kids and they spend so much time and effort working for those laughs! She's generally pretty content throughout the day but you have to watch her like a hawk. She gets into every cupboard all the time and opens every drawer and finds every food item on the counter and puts everything in her mouth. She's a crazy baby---but oh how we ALL adore her so much!
Basically, I feel like we are in a twilight-amazing-zone right now in our family and I want to freeze it forever and ever!
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