Daniel's Little Builders Graduation 2013

Yesterday was Daniel's graduation from his preschool, Little Builders. It was absolutely the cutest ceremony, and Daniel was very proud to be graduating. Daniel had a few of his words read during the ceremony. In my opinion, they are so Daniel.

 

"I like scratch and smell stickers. It's fun to build with spaghetti noodles and marshmallows. I remember going to the castle park on a field trip. My favorite toy to play with is the marble maze. I was a scientist and liked doing a capsule growth experiment. Another memory I will remember is playing the parachute game. I can kick the ball really high in the playground. It went so far it went into the parking lot! That's all!"

 

Peggy took some wonderful pictures during the event.

 

Two Weeks

John had his two week appointment today. I was looking forward to having him weighed because I suspected that he was getting much bigger. He's already up to 9 lbs. 3 oz.! He's making growing a full-time job. It feels like he spends most of his time eating, sleeping, and making messy diapers. I can't count the number of times I've put a fresh diaper on this one only to hear a nice gassy sound as he fills it before even getting off the changing table. Perhaps he's just slightly partial to the filth. He will fit right in with his brothers. I had to convince Daniel to take off the dirty shirt he put on for school today, "But I've only slept in it the last two nights..." And I gave in and let Christopher put on the clothes he wore from 4 pm until 7 pm yesterday. I have to admit that I really wanted Christopher to wear the shirt he had on at least a couple times before he grows out of it; hence, I was more lenient on the dirty/clean judgment. For those of you who are wondering, Matt was completely appalled with this decision.

Everyone who meets John asks who he looks like or if he's like his brothers. I have to say at this point that John is completely himself. You can tell that he's part of the family, but he doesn't have a strong resemblance with either brother. So far he is more laid back as a baby like Christopher, but big like Daniel was. When he is awake, he is alert and is starting to recognize the voices in the house. Gigi was working on teaching him how to get his thumb, and he remembers where it is. He still has trouble getting it, but maybe one of these days he will.

The older boys are just learning a lot about being big brothers. Daniel keeps asking for ear plugs when John cries. Christopher offered to burp John the other day. Daniel snuck my phone to take some pictures of John sleeping while I was saying prayers with Christopher. After a good year of Daddy being Christopher's favorite (major understatement) during mass, he actually wanted to be next to me yesterday but only because I was holding John. Daniel and Christopher are figuring out the purpose of the humps (Daniel's term) on Mommy's chest. You can only imagine the questions I get about that one.

Big yawn!

Checking out the fire truck at safety day.

This brave soul let my son control a water jet...

And his younger brother, too.

13 days old, happily sleeping.

John Francis Lee

John Francis Lee was born on May 27, 2013, at 6:34 am. He was 7 lbs, 15 oz, and 20.5 inches long. I went into labor just hours after my parents arrived from Texas. They didn't really believe me when I woke them up at midnight to say Matt and I were headed to the hospital. I didn't really believe it either. The boys are thrilled with their little brother, and other than me being somewhat terrified that they are going to smoosh their brother, we are adjusting well.

 

I just said goodbye to my Mom who is on her way to the Cottage. It was great to have she and Sadie here for a week and a half. The boys loved having a dog around, and Sadie was quite tolerant of the extra attention. Being walked by a 5-year-old can't be the most pleasant experience.

 

Brand new!

"John, want to see my flashlight?"

He has his father's toes.

One week old!

Three boys and very proud brothers.

Three is Around the Corner

Here I am in the final countdown of this pregnancy, and although everything has been going well and I'm sleeping well, the last trimester has been long and uncomfortable. I'm huge, it's been hot enough days to make me uncomfortable, my feet and hands are very swollen, and my allergies are so out of control that I have hives. Well it's either the allergies or I'm allergic to being pregnant. I've never been this pregnant during the warmer months. I really feel for women who have late summer babies. If May is this uncomfortable, the whole summer must be pretty brutal.

I also have gotten some really classic unsolicited comments. There was the guy pushing the young girl in a stroller at the grocery store this weekend who offered this gem, "You must be having twins or something. None of my baby mamas have ever looked like you do now." After passing and reflecting on his comment, he offered, "You know you are going to have a really healthy baby." I had nothing that I could say in response. I think I just stood there with my mouth slightly agape.

Oh well, I'm not going to be pregnant forever. I think I'm setting myself up for disappointment because I'm mentally prepared to have the baby sometime before next Tuesday, preferably Thursday or Friday, which would coincide well with the holiday; however, this is something I have very little control over. If it goes according to my wish, we can call it a mother's intuition. If it doesn't, we can call it wishful thinking. 

Alright, I'm off to spend the day with the boys. Not sure what's on the agenda, but I'm sure we will have fun.

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore

Recently the boys and I have been reading The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore at bedtime.

 

The book is a wonderful story about a man who loves books and how they become his family. There is a great line that talks about him writing in his own book and how he would write of "his joys and sorrows, of all that he knew and everything he hoped for." I'm not a very good journaler. This blog is probably the closest thing I have to a journal, but for it to truely be a journal, it would need to include a lot more. I don't really delve into the sorrows or hopes too much here.

As I near the end of this pregnancy, I'm full of emotions. Certainly there is the excitement to meet this new person growing inside of me. There is the anxiety about what life is going to be like with three kids. Crazy, I'm sure. I wonder what this little person is going to be like, is it going to be a boy or a girl, will he or she be like their siblings? I didn't think about things this much with the first two. I think I was so overwhelmed by the pregnancy itself with Daniel that I wasn't able to think too far in the future, and with Christopher, I was more comfortable being pregnant, but very busy being the mother of a 1-year-old, that there was no room left in my head for such silly thoughts. Now here I am with two slightly older children who can play with each other for portions of hours at a time without much involvement or supervision, so I get to think because the level of supervision necessary isn't exactly one that allows me to find something else to do yet. So I let them do their thing while I pretend to not be involved, but am secretly hovering close enough to prevent massive disaster. (Minor disasters are just fine.) It's just a time where I have little bits of extra time on my hands. I kind of like it, so maybe when I start wishing I'm not pregnant anymore, I'll just think about those bits of time that have suddenly appeared and hope it's not going to be 3.5 years before they reappear.

When I think about the time when this baby arrives, my mind quickly jumps ahead to our big trip this summer. I'm still trying to decide if I'm crazy or not, but I'm taking the three kids up to the cottage for a month. Matt's not joining us until the last couple weeks, so I'll be on my own for a little while. On my own surrounded by my family and extended family in a place that's great for kids otherwise there is no way I would be doing this. It will be an adventure to say the least. I can only hope that it is the most wonderful kind of adventure.

 

Here's a picture of the boys from Sunday enjoying the glorious weather. Christopher took a nasty fall as he was running back to the car after mass. He decided to make a shortcut between a group of more senior adults. Since then he's been holding his shorts up to keep them off the bandaids. He looks like he's walking through mud.

Daniel has been trying to be more independent, since he is five now. This leads to occasional differences of opinion between him and his parents. On the other hand, I love listening to his stories and watching him play tennis and baseball because he finally is coordinated enough to hit the ball some. I guess that's just what five is like.

The boys are best buddies. It's wonderful to see them enjoy each other so much. Daniel has learned to leverage his position as the older child into things like getting pushed instead of doing the pushing and employing his little brother to do him favors like putting the shovels away; however, I feel pretty certain that Christohper's fiestyness will not allow him to be too taken advantage of. I guess time will tell.

Hope you enjoyed my Morris Lessmore post, and if you are ever in search of a great children's book, I hope you give it a look.

A Few Laughs...

What's making us laugh these days?

-It could be Christopher falling over his own feet several times a day. I have a vision in my head of him telling me a story from across the kitchen table and just falling mid-sentance to the floor and popping right back up again. I'm assuming he's growing or something because his coordination is way off.

-It could be Daniel insisting that the fire truck ride-on toy will not move unless Christopher is pushing him. Thank goodness our house came with the requisite lap loop - kitchen, foyer, living room, dining room, repeat. The corner between the kitchen and foyer leaves Christohper on his belly everytime, and he just laughs as he slides behind Daniel. The steering has also reached a sufficient skill level that keeps the fire truck away from the walls and furniture, as far as I know.

-It could be my lack of memory providing plenty of good opportunities for laughs. For instance, Daniel asked, "Mommy, where did you hide the grabber when you took it away? I need it to get the paper airplane from behind the TV." Me, "I hid it in a very good hiding place maybe on top of my closet or on top of the cabinets in the laundry room." After looking in the suggested locations, no grabber was found. "Well, Daniel, I hid it in a very good hiding place. One that you won't find it by yourself." Now, if I could only remember where that very good hiding place is, I'll be good.

-My other major lapse of the week was on Friday morning when we went to swimming lessons. We were running a couple minutes late, so I was rushing the boys. Daniel asked why his friend was not in his suit yet, and I just brushed it off. Then I noticed that things seemed somehow different that morning. Um yeah, we swim at 10 am, not 11 am. Whoops. Thankfully, there were enough abscences that we could just dive in. I guess the baby is sucking up lots of brainpower these days.

-It could be all of the stories that Christopher is telling us about the things he did when he was one. According to Christopher he went pretty much everywhere, ate pretty much everything, and did pretty much everything when he was one... "Yeah, when I was one I did that."..."I already went there when I was one."... and on and on.

-It could be the boys asking me to read them the words their cereal is making. Christopher's Alpha-Bits can be challenging. Daniel's Cheerios are, well you get the point.

That's probably enough for now. These are just the few I remembered from the weekend. I'm thinking you might need a video of the fire truck game :)

Happy Golden Birthday Daniel

Daniel turned five last Friday. I'm thinking 5 is going to be a great year. He's loving it already. I think we hit the jackpot in the gift department. He's really enjoying playing with his new toys. The Legos, Hexbugs, Star Wars toys, and watch are keeping him busy. After witnessing the focus and dedication Daniel put into building his new Lego set, I'm tempted to go out and purchase five more sets. It's one of the only toys I've seen him sit and work on for hours on end with little frusteration or boredom. We will see where this leads us. Daniel's birthday also brought the arrival of spring. It's wonderful to see almost all of the snow gone, flowers starting to poke out of the ground, grass greening up, and winter grime washing away. Here are some pictures of khis birthday celebrations.

 



Daniel's cake for school. He wanted rainbow,
 so I got crafty with the food coloring.

The golden birthday celebration at the Lee's.

Silly brothers.

Our 5-yer-old!

Family shot

Evaluating the new Star Wars toys. I suspect that Matt may
be more excited than Daniel about this gift :)

Checking out his new watch. Let the
counting by 5's begin.

Daniel and his assistant diligently working.

Daniel's completed project.