Not way over in a bucket seat

In the dead of winter, we stay-at-home-moms do whatever we can to protect our young from starvation and boredom.

Sometimes this means rolling our weekly trips to the grocery store into a lunch date where our children get to sit in the kids area watching Dora on the big flat screen and dining on giant slices of pizza while we enjoy adult conversation and swap meal ideas.

The kids like pizza, and they love riding in the car buggy. And I like adult conversation. But seriously, when this counts as a play date, you know it's been cold outside for far too long.

We'll call this Reason Number 452 why I'll be excited when our local playground is no longer buried under 10 inches of ice and snow.

Along for the ride

Our old sled suffered some fatal damage when Jacob and I hit a jump in the middle of one of our runs a few days ago. So we upgraded to this bigger and more awesome one. Not only is it great for multi-person sledding, it's also perfect for hauling two tired kids, a baby in an infant carrier and all our snow-crusted gear back to the car.

By the time our two-hour sledding adventure was over, we'd all shed our outer layers (except for Caleb, who refused to give up his cute hat and the jacket that cushioned his frequent falls) and were ready to head home and cool off. Who knew you could break a sweat playing in the snow?

Cutting in

Preschool Lite is moving right along for our little Abby. Beginning reading skills? Check. Following directions? Check? Coloring in the lines? Check. And this week, much to her delight, we added cutting with real scissors to our list of Skills That Are Necessary When Your Coat Closet Doubles as a Craft Closet.

Abby and Caleb worked on a little sharing collage that I found online that went with our letter M verse for the week from 1 John 3:18 ("My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth.") After reading the story that went with the verse from My ABC Bible Verses, we did a lot of talking about the difference in saying and doing, about motives and having a right heart to back up our actions. Sharing, for instance, is all well and good, unless you're throwing toys at your brother because you're mad that mommy told you not to be selfish. For the craft, they cut out pictures of toys and then "shared" them with each other as they glued them to their collage. Our sharing eventually turned into more of a bartering activity, and I'll admit I was surprised when they each ended up with the same number of pictures on their respective collages. (Although Abby did end up with more dolls, and Caleb ended up with more trucks.)

Abby did great at her first attempt with big kid scissors. (I kind of hate those safety scissors we all had to use in preschool. Real blades cut so much better.) Ever the perfectionist, she seemed a little frustrated that she wasn't able to cut exactly on the lines like she wanted to. But with some encouragement from mom on the sidelines, she kept at it and eventually managed to cut out all of her little pictures. It's a two-handed process for now, with the right hand doing the gripping and the cutting, and her left hand swooping in to assist with reopening the scissors after each cut.

I pulled our trusty old letter magnet game out of storage for Caleb in an effort to manifest some sort of interest in learning letters. Caleb didn't really care for it, except to repeatedly press the button that makes it sing the ABC song. And Abby kept taking the letters from him to spell things. So we did some quick reorganization of the chain of command, and I made Abby the teacher and Caleb the student. Her job, I told Abby, was to teach Caleb his letters, show him how to put them in the magnet to make it sing each sound, and quiz him on what sounds the letters made. His job, I told Caleb, was to find a letter and ask Abby what it was and what sound it made. This worked for about four minutes, during which time Abby taught him all the letters in her name. She was about to get started on teaching him the letters in his own name when a squirrel ran across the deck distracted him. Ah, two year olds.
Abby has been finding more and more words that she recognizes in her books, and her interest in learning more words really started to pique this week. She had more patience for taking her time in trying to recall a word, she sat for longer periods of time than usual and worked with me on her word flash cards, and even sounded out a word all by herself (map) that we'd never looked at before. We invented a few new games to use in reviewing her words, including building a word train that she can add words to after she correctly reads them.
It's been a while since we pulled the paintbrushes out, so for our letter craft this week we painted "cheese" onto a macaroni and cheese letter m after gluing on the last of the macaroni from the pantry. I think the lower case letter m might be Abby's favorite letter yet, and she had lots of fun when we practiced writing it: "Mommy! The m makes two rainbows!"
We did a lot of coloring this week, and Caleb totally surprised me by actually attempting to color inside the lines. I gave him a big blank letter M to color, and told him that he could have his truck coloring book if he colored his M first. He grumbled for a second, then when he realized I was serious, he sat down with a blue crayon and scribbled some messy little lines up, down, up and down again inside the picture. Then, for good measure, he turned the paper over and did the same thing on the back of the page. I was so shocked by how well he did (for a two-year-old, that is) that I forgot my end of the bargain until he reminded me. "I have my truck book now?" he asked, bringing me his M as if he were handing in his homework.

We continued our work on the children's catechism, and both kids are still just as enthusiastic as ever when they answer questions one and two. They're particularly cute when they ask them back and forth to each other:

Abby: Who made you, Caleb?

Caleb: God did...what else God make?

Abby: God made all things!

Enthusiastically two

You'd think I'd be used to it by now. But every time one of these kids has a birthday, it seems to catch me off guard. I can remember the first time I laid eyes on Caleb's spiky little head like it was yesterday. I remember being shocked by the full head of dark black hair he was born with (which I later came to realize made him look like he was wearing a toupee, and promptly buzzed it off). I remember those chubby cheeks, thighs, and belly that I just couldn't get enough of. Two years later, he's still pretty squishy, but the kid's solid as a rock underneath. He's built like a linebacker, complete with built-in padding. I remember how quiet and blue he was when the doctor held him up for me to see for the first time. Today, his big rosy cheeks are a delight to kiss, and his non-stop chatter well makes up for those first few moments of silence.

When we found out we were pregnant for the second time, I immediately knew that I wanted a boy. I love my little girl, but I was looking forward to the special kinds of fun that boys bring to a family. And all the messes, the crashes, the trucks, the noise... all the boy things I hoped to enjoy, Caleb has proven more than capable of making happen.

We spent his second birthday doing all the things he loves. We ate cheese grits for breakfast, we colored, we looked at pictures of sharks, we drove trucks, he enjoyed some dedicated Daddy-time while I took the other two out for a while, we dined on burritos at Moe's (the birthday boy arrived in his superman costume) and ate chocolate cake for lunch before crashing at naptime. After naps, we played more, colored more, and then set out a big blanket on the floor and had a picnic dinner (pepperoni, olives, and pineapple pizza...Caleb's special request). Every time someone sang Happy Birthday to him, Caleb ran to the kitchen table and climbed in his chair asking, "Time to eat birthday cake now?" It was a very full, very fun day, and Caleb seemed to enjoy every minute of it.

He's turned into quite a guy's guy in his two years outside the womb. He has a special bond with his Papa and his Granddaddy that nothing can interfere with. He loves his grandfathers, and words will never do justice to just how much he adores them. In Caleb's eyes, the men in his life can do no wrong, and he never tires of hanging out with Daddy or his grandfathers and just being one of the guys. They command his authority in a way I never have, and probably never will. And the feeling is mutual. Justin has already decided that his next car will be a big truck, and I'm certain one of the primary reasons for this is that Caleb would love it. He talks often of the days when he'll take the boys fishing and hiking. And I know both my dad and Justin's are looking forward to the day when their eldest grandson is finally old enough to be a hunting buddy.

But with the way he can't stop talking now, Caleb's hunting days may be a while off. At some point in the last two months or so, something clicked, and Caleb's vocabulary has shot through the roof. There are only two occasions during which Caleb is quiet: when he's building something (and not having to stave off his sister's interference) and when he's asleep. He greets us each morning with the phrase "I need to get up now" and proceeds to narrate, question, answer, exclaim, sing, and repeat for the remainder of the day. We read a book recently in which one of the characters was asked if he going mad, as in crazy. Caleb now loves to ask "Are you mad?" with a huge smile on his face anytime he sees someone looking angry or upset. He can say the blessing at mealtimes (if Abby will let him) and loves to sing along with the old hymns that are on repeat in the van (Up From the Grave He Arose is his favorite). As I write this, he is currently singing himself to sleep in his room. I can hear the last strains of Happy Birthday to Me beginning to fade into sweet dreams.

I'm fairly certain my two-year-old has aspirations of being the class clown one day. Caleb knows all his colors, but when pressed to name them, he insists that they are all yellow. A few weeks ago they were all pink. If you correct him, he merely flashes that adorable little grin at you as if to say, "I know it's not yellow mom, but aren't I hilarious?" He can count to sixteen (a product of being corralled into one too many games of hide-and-seek with his sister) but purposefully leaves out the number 13 because, for some reason, it drives Abby absolutely nuts, and he knows this. ("...Eleven..twelve..." [pause, then loudly] "FOURTEEN! FIFTEEN! SIXTEEN!") He has an infectious laugh that can go from pure delight (when he's being tickled) to sinister cackling (when he's trying to frame his sister for some wrong doing). I've learned to tune in to the varying degrees of his laughter and can usually gauge pretty accurately when intervention is necessary based on his pitch and volume.

But perhaps my favorite thing about Caleb at age two (besides, of course, the fact that he's mine) is his enthusiasm for life. When he's doing something, he's truly giving it his all. This has resulted in a number of injuries on his part, but it also gives him an edge in the learning department. He wants to explore, experiment, and figure things out for himself. He wants to know how things work and why. He wants to know what's behind, under, and after things. He investigates and questions every noise and every new sight that he encounters in our home and outside. He has the patience to stick with it until he succeeds in solving a problem, building a tower, or putting his shoes on. And when he can't do it himself, he easily asks for help. I'm convinced more than ever that these traits are a product of nature, not nurture, since in this regard Caleb could not be more different from his sister.

He still loves being around people just as much as he always has. He enjoys his sister's company and spends most of his waking hours playing with or alongside her, participating in the games she makes up for the two of them, and scheming for ways to slowly drive me insane. He wants to help with or at least watch whatever I'm doing, from folding laundry (he's a great loader/unloader) to making dinner to checking my email. He's impatient for Jacob to get bigger so that he'll have another buddy to play trucks and trains with. I keep reminding him that Jacob's still a baby and can't play with him yet, so for now Caleb settles for bringing his little brother soft toys and shaking them at him or piling them on top of him.

Caleb still has no interest in learning his alphabet, in spite of our weekly letter activities and frequent singing of the alphabet song. He knows the song, and recognizes that letters are letters, but he couldn't care less which letters are which. The one exception is his name, which he recognizes on his back pack, sippy cups and anywhere else he sees it written down. But he insists on identifying it his own way, the same way, every time: "That's A-C-B Cay-yub!" This drives his sister crazy, which, come to think of it, might just be the reason he does it.

Before he went to bed tonight, I prayed for my little guy as I have every night since he was born. Today, my prayer is that Caleb's exuberance will always be a joy to those around him as it is to his mom and dad, and that his enthusiasm for learning will grow into a hunger for the word of God. It's hard not to be a little sad when I think of how quickly these children are growing up. But I can't wait to see the man that he'll become.

Happy birthday to my shark-loving, truck-driving, train-building, noisy, silly two-year-old. I love you, Caleb. These past two years with you have been incredible, and I hope you will always know that my life is better with you in it.

Not his favorite thing

The ten inches of snow that fell overnight left us no choice but to drag poor Jacob out into the cold for his first sledding experience. (I wasn't about to stay home with him and miss out on the fun again.) And while the rest of us enjoyed going way too fast on some hills that were much too steep, Jacob protested loudly and made sure we understood it was not his favorite thing.

I'm not sure what it was he hated so much. Between the freezing temperatures, the layer of ice on top of the hard-packed snow and the snow that sprayed up into our faces as we zoomed down the steep inclines, the conditions were perfect for a great afternoon of sledding.

Maybe he'll love it more when he's older. We'll try again next month.

The tambourine gives it away

"I'm not a princess, Mommy. I'm a band."

Rare occasion

At 5:55 p.m., my husband was on the phone, working. My dinner was on the stove, boiling. My baby was on the floor, screaming. And I was in the kitchen, trying to tune it all out.

Meanwhile, the other two (the ones that usually cause the most trouble) were perfectly quiet in the living room, engrossed in some favorite books. Caleb searched for pictures of anything with wheels, while Abby located all the words she knows, and made up the rest of the story as she went along.

And yes, Caleb is still wearing his shark costume from Halloween. Since he refuses to take it off, we've retired his other jackets and it is now his official winter coat.

Before breakfast

Personally, I think 7:30 a.m. is way too early to be playing dress-up. Especially on a Saturday.

My children seem to disagree. Apparently, playing cowboys and princesses is far more important than sleeping in.

I'm learning that my opinion matters very little to them at moments like this.

Sweet spirit

I'm starting to see a whole new side of my daughter, and it makes my heart happy. Halfway between the three-year-old toddler she was and the four-year-old girl she's becoming is a sweet spirited little kid that adores her baby brother and is deeply interested in everyone's well-being. We have our fair share of whining and squabbles over who had it first, but there's a loving, caring, nurturing instinct emerging in Abby that shows us glimpses of her heart throughout the day, and it's a beautiful thing.

Abby is quick to find a favorite toy for Caleb to cheer him up when he's upset. She involves him in the imaginary worlds she creates, inviting him along on plane rides to Spain and vacations to visit grandparents and insisting he not wear her sparkly things when they play dress up. If she sees Jacob has been left alone in his swing, she'll bring a blanket to tuck around him ("I'm comfortable-ing Jacob," she informs us) or snuggle up next to him and sing him a song to make him happy. (Angels We Have Heard on High and Rock-a-bye Baby are his favorites, she says.) She's first on the scene when someone in the house gets a boo-boo, and she makes the official call on whether it needs a band-aid or just a kiss to make it better. (Bleeding boo-boos get band-aids. All other boo-boos get a pat on the back and a promise that you'll be okay: "It's not bleeding, Caleb. You'll live.")

She frequently asks to hold Jacob, and is so careful with him when she does that for a second I could forget she's only three and a half years his senior. More often than not, though, she simply wants to be near him. She loves to sing to him, to rub his head (a guaranteed way to make him smile), and to read him all of her favorite books. Today she made it halfway through our Thomas the Tank Engine collection, retelling each story in her own way, before Jacob lost interest and started crying.

"He's squealing, Mommy," she told me with a concerned look on her face. "I think he wants me to hold him."

Three-and-a-half suits her well.

Snowed in

I thought that a trip down South would provide a reprieve from the wintery conditions I've grown accustomed to in our neck of the woods.

I was wrong.

Instead of a break, we found ourselves snowed in at Mimi and Papa's house when four inches of flakes fell overnight and shut down the entire state of Georgia. For an entire week.

Thankfully, everyone had been warned that the snow storm was coming, so we had plenty of milk, bread and eggs to see us through. What we lacked were snow shovels or anything helpful to melt the ice that formed, but we made the most of it with some borrowed sleds and the snow boots that are part of our kids' standard winter wardrobe.

Days later, the governor lifted the state of emergency and the DOT declared the roads somewhat safe to drive. I took Abby to Starbucks to celebrate. Caleb and Papa continued their quest to sled down every hill within walking distance of the house. And the neighbor down the street sprinkled table salt onto his driveway in a pitiful effort at freeing his car.

We are all grateful to have survived Georgia's Blizzard of 2011.

One of the guys

It's sort of becoming a tradition.

There's something manly about going to the barber shop with Papa whenever we're in town for a visit that makes the process of keeping Caleb's spiky blonde hair neat and tidy a little bit more tolerable. Maybe it's the time they spend thumbing through hunting magazines while Caleb waits for his turn to sit in the chair. Or maybe it's that Papa's 77-year-old barber always has a bowl of trucks for our little guy to sort through while the buzzing and trimming is taking place.

Then again, it could just be the lollipop at the end.

The Jurassic period

Somewhere between Toddler and Big Kid lies the Dinosaur stage. Characterized by loud stomping, ferocious roaring and frequent attacks on unsuspecting siblings, Caleb's right in the middle of it.

In our experience, our young male dinosaur does not like to be helped ("No! Caleb do it!"), corrected ("I do it like this, Mommy!") or rushed ("I'm not finished!").

I don't think that's exactly how those corn cob holders are supposed to work. But try telling that to the kid that just made a stegosaurus out of his dinner.

Generation gap

I think one of my favorite things about babies is how they can be totally unimpressed with the most exciting of circumstances. (Meeting your great-grandmother for the first time, for instance.) Try as we might, there was no getting a two-month-old to smile on command for a family portrait. We even did the whole tickle-under-the-chin-baby-talk thing. Nothing.

So far, we seem to be a lot more impressed with him than he is with us.

In spite of Jacob's lack of cooperation, his great grandmother loved getting to hold him for the first time. He's not quite the lightweight he was when he was born, and she was as confused as the rest of us about how this brown-eyed, dark-haired, olive-skinned boy fits in with his blue-eyed, blonde-haired siblings.

After their meeting, my grandmother declared that Jacob is one of the most beautiful babies she's ever seen. She has decades of experience with babies. I'd say there's much wisdom in her assessment of her newest great-grandson.

New perspectives

At two months, Jacob's finally able to sit up in the Bumbo and look around, which means I can finally enjoy looking at the back of his wrinkly little head whenever I want.

Abby and Caleb don't seem thrilled with their little brother's new accomplishment. I think they were enjoying the monopoly they had on fighting over the Bumbo seat. Wonder what they'll think when he starts chewing on their toys?

Back in the swing of things

After much pleading on Abby's part, the School of Mommy is back in session. She was relieved to finally see the word "school" reappear on her bulletin board as the day's activity on Tuesday and Thursday this week.

It was letter h week, so we practiced writing the letter h (a straight line down, and then a rainbow, as she says), talked about ways to honor our parents, and made some cute little horses (an idea I stole from Curious George Learns the Alphabet). Later, we made some incomplete words very happy by adding the h they were missing at the beginning. (Simply asking her to practice the letter h on a worksheet isn't enough. Abby needs a reason, and it needs to be more compelling than "Because I said so." So when I told her the words were sad because they were missing their first letters, she was more than willing to fill in the missing h for them.)

My top priority for preschool this week was to review the sight words we've been away from for so long. Abby had been making terrific progress in recognizing simple words from our flashcards and in many of her books before the break, so I spent as much time as she could tolerate reviewing the words and trying to see which ones she still knew. To my delight, she correctly identified 15 of the 20 words she has worked on this year, and quickly picked up on the two new ones we added this week. She loathes anything that hints of me trying to assess her knowledge, so it took some ingenuity to get her to try to read some simple sentences using the words she knows. I learned marshmallows and bribery are the perfect blend of motivation for my headstrong three-year-old, and she was delighted to pop a marshmallow into her mouth every time she was able to figure out all the words and read a sentence on her own from the worksheet I made for her.

We added more pages to Abby's Bible notebook, and spent some time reviewing her memory verses and talking about the stories that were represented by the different crafts and worksheets in it. Caleb's obviously been soaking in knowledge for a while, and now that he's able to communicate he's starting to spit some of it back for me. I was impressed to find that he's familiar with the memory verses their classes have been working on in Community Bible Study this year, as well as a lot of the hymns and Christmas carols we've been singing over and over again. His favorite verse to recite right now is "Do not worry about tomorrow" (Matthew 6:34) which he sings anytime he hears us making plans for the next day.

We introduced the first question of the children's catechism this week with a story from the book Big Truths for Little Kids (Susan Hunt & Richie Hunt) and a song from Who What Why How Where When (Eric Gilbert) that sets the catechism questions and answers to music. When I told the kids I wanted to teach them a song and turned the music on, Abby stopped in her tracks and asked, "Is it music time?" (It still amazes me how she treats our preschool days like she's actually at preschool, instead of just hanging out at home with mom.) The book is our first experience with a chapter book, and Abby seems to enjoy it. We read it before naptime each day, and she's really following along well with the story that's unfolding for the main characters. The CD has been a huge hit with both kids, and is currently our driving-around-town soundtrack. Both Caleb and Abby can now enthusiastically answer "God did!" when asked "Who made you?" They also love to make a game of the question, asking it back to Justin and I, and quizzing each other (loudly) as they sit in the buggy at the grocery store.

We also did more of the same. We colored pictures for daddy's office, we played with play dough and their shape game, we counted animal crackers and trucks and we read more than our fair share of books. We took a break to hang up our awesome letter craft, and I realized that the School of Mommy is going to need a bigger craft wall one of these days.
Christmas break was nice, but it feels good to be back in the swing of things.

Bank of bad habits

Here I was, getting all excited about how we'd made it almost two months with no pacifier. (I really hate having to keep up with those things.) Jacob's had no trouble falling asleep or staying asleep, and when we do have to let him "cry it out" his fussing typically lasts no more than 5 minutes before he's out for a 12-hour night.

And then I caught him wide awake in his crib at 7:30 in the morning, the time when I usually had to wake him up from his long winter's nap. How long he'd been awake, I couldn't tell. All was quiet in his room as he happily sucked on his left thumb and waited for me to come feed him.

He's a little young for the tabasco-sauce-on-the-thumb trick. I guess I'll just have to live with the thumb sucking for a while.

Rock-a-bye Baby

Abby's baby doll enjoys tummy time a lot more than Abby's baby brother. Jacob expressed his displeasure by squealing at the top of his lungs the entire time he was on the floor. Unfortunately for him, his newborn squawks can't compete with the screams of a brother whose favorite truck has been stolen or a sister whose favorite fuchsia crayon has gone missing. We're all pretty immune to his crying by now.

Abby tried to make Jacob (and baby Sally) a little more comfortable by singing lullabies and layering all her blankets on them. Jacob was unimpressed with her efforts and refused to settle down until we flipped him over.

I'm afraid this is what little Jacob's life we'll be like until he gets big enough to defend himself against Abby's mothering instincts.

Step right in

The game is called "Shoes," and its rules are simple.

"Play shoes, Abby!" Caleb yells from the laundry room, where he's already getting a head start.

"You wear daddy's shoes, 'cause you're a boy, Caleb," instructs Abby, pulling all of our shoes out into the living room. "I'll wear mommy's shoes, 'cause I'm a girl, and they look silly on you."

"I wear daddy's boots, Abby!" Caleb agrees, but in a tone that lets her know that was his plan all along.

They then proceed to try on every shoe, boot, slipper, and high heeled Mary Jane they can find, trading when they get tired of them, and not necessarily always wearing a matching pair.

As far as I can tell, the goal of the game is to get into a pair of shoes as quickly as possible, laugh as loudly as possible, try to walk as far as possible, and fall over as dramatically as possible.

They're both really good at it.

Bundled up

These kids need to be outside as much as they need to breathe, especially this time of year, when cabin fever starts to really set in. The adults get depressed at the prospect of more snow and colder temperatures that will likely linger a little too long, and the kids get whiny, wild and antsy from being cooped up inside the four walls of our house instead of being able to run free.

So when the temperatures climbed into the low 40s, Justin did what any good dad would do. He bundled up his kids (the ones that can walk, at least) and took them on a long walk. They wandered through the woods, Caleb slowing them down with his need to stop and explore every little thing. They got their shoes muddy because they rightly refuse to stay on the path. They threw rocks at the frozen creek and watched as they bounced off the ice. Abby picked some wispy little dried up weeds, which she calls feathers, and clutched them in her tiny purple gloves so that she could show them to me when their walk was over (which would not be for quite some time).

They wandered so far, in fact, that I had to get in the car and go pick them up when Justin rightly assessed that it was getting too windy and the sun was setting too quickly for them to make it home on foot. The kids were not thrilled to have to come back home, and spent the drive warming up and recounting their escapades.

I'd say their little midwinter adventure was a success.

Best seat in the house

She's her daddy's girl.

When everyone else wandered off to handle things like baths and cleaning up dinner, Abby grabbed her Georgia Tech blanket and took advantage of having the office to herself to enjoy the New Year's Day bowl games.

When I told her it was time to come upstairs to get ready for bed, she almost won me over with her argument.

"I can't, Mommy," she said matter-of-factly. "I'm watching football right now."