From Grandma Larson

Each month I email out a link to all our photos -- well, sometimes it's done each month, other times not so much. It's important to me to keep our far-away family members feeling like they know what our lives are like, and what the kids are up to.

After I sent the November photos, this is the note that Eileen sent me...

Lara, those are wonderful pictures. Reed is a beautiful child isn't he? Amy is pretty too and I love the vitality that flows through every fiber of her being but Reed is Movie Star material from his curley hair and darling teeth to his snappy eyes. You capture it all very well. But....who is that pale bald man that follows you'all around? hahahaha The box of Christmas presents came yesterday. Thanks alot. Eileen

I'm so glad that Amy's personality shows in her pictures. She's so much like me in many ways, from the shape of her face and the curls in her hair, to her beautiful blue eyes, as well as how easily her feelings are hurt. But the side of her that's so uniquely Amy is that whatever she does, she does it all the way - she is so full of life and fun and joy and love. That's why she's my sunshine girl.

By the way, I think Eileen is having a hard time seeing Tod with his hair shaved off, which is why she makes that comment about the 'pale bald man'. It looks good, though!

The photo is of Amy trying on the new Christmas jumper that Eileen made for her - she is so proud to wear her special dress!

Career anxiety and figuring out the answers

Tonight we went out to eat and afterward stopped off to get gas at 7-11. While we were filling up, a big tanker truck came in to fill up the station's tanks. I explained to the kids what he was there to do, and we watched for a few minutes while he started his work. He took off the covers from the ground, stuck in a long "dip stick" (I'm sure there's probably a more technically correct term, but that's what I'd liken it to) and seemed to be measuring how much gas they'd need, and then he put the hoses in. As we drove away, Reed said "I wish I could find out more about all the good jobs. Now I know about gas tanker drivers, and I know about some other jobs, but how am I going to decide what I want to do when I grow up? There are so many jobs to learn about!!"

Both kids are fairly obsessed with Slurpees, and they were quite disappointed that we weren't going to get one (we'd just been out to dinner!). But Reed wondered aloud "Why do they call them Slurpees?" and I had no immediate answer (I had probably reached my daily question limit, which hovers somewhere around the 1,397 mark)....but Amy did. She said "Because you SLURP them up!". Ah ha! Smart girl!

The more things change...

...the more they stay the same. Here's a picture of Reed on his first night in his "big boy" bed, in July 2004.

And here's Reed this past Monday night....notice the book in his hand (and notice that it is a kids encyclopedia, of all things).

That picture of Reed as a not-quite-2-year old is one of my favorites of him, even though you can't even see his beautiful face. It was a preview of the kind of kid he'd be, one who loves books and needs them much in the way he needs air and water.

This sums it up

I read the blogs of a few different moms, including Betsy Shaw on "Momformation". She recently wrote this about her 6 year old daughter, and it sums up my own feelings so nicely...

I’ve grown awkward in my love for her. She’s gotten so big, I no longer feel comfortable, or even entitled, to maul her, smother her with kisses or hold her tight for too long, like I do so easily with Isla. It’s strange, this constant transitioning. It’s so subtle I don’t notice it for months. Then, suddenly, I’m blindsided, no, sideswiped, by the reality that all babies grow up.

Just when I'm thinking Reed's getting too grown up, he'll do what he did a couple night ago and ask me to sing him "Baby Mine" as he goes to sleep.

No matter how old they are, they'll still be my babies.

And happy anniversary today to my wonderful husband!

Look who's six!

It's so hard to believe, but Reed turned six this past Tuesday. Where does the time go???

He continues to be so interested in learning new things and figuring out all types of puzzles. Reed is particularly good with logic puzzles...and many times can figure them out more quickly than me.

The current huge obsession is Mario Kart on the Wii. Reed has studied the instruction manual and can tell you which things are stronger than the others, how you combat this and that, and on and on. Clearly his Mom doesn't get quite as excited about the game, but it is fun to see. He enjoys making different Wii characters (Mii's, I guess they're called) and continues to get frustrated with Amy when she inevitably loses interest in the race at about the thirty-five second mark.

Reed is doing well with Kindergarten and his teacher Mrs. Lewis works hard to keep him engaged. He has a fifth grade "buddy" named Holden who visits with him most days; they read together and do other book-related activities. The classroom has a discipline system where the goal is to keep your clip on the purple octopus, not moving to green, yellow, and certainly not red. Reed has struggled some with this, often times having his clip moved because he's called out while the teacher was talking or something like that. I think he just gets excited and finds it hard to contain himself. But things are going more smoothly now. Reed's handwriting has improved by leaps and bounds since he started K - it's really great. Week by week, his spelling is improving and I expect it won't be too long before he's got it down.

Most nights, Reed is SO exhausted from the long day, which is quite a change from when he was in preschool and wanted to stay up half the night. At CASA, the after-school program, they run and play games and generally wear him out. Sometimes I think they do their best to make up games that require the kids to run from one end of the gym to the other, over and over. Which is great! Works for everybody.

Reed still likes to read books at night, though lately he prefers to do workbook pages (he's adding 3-digit numbers now, and doing his best to figure out multiplication) and read on this own rather than have us read to him. Which is bittersweet....it's wonderful to see the independence, but we'll certainly be sad when he doesn't want us to read to him any longer.

We celebrated Reed's big day this past Sunday at Chuck E. Cheese. He didn't want to invite tons of kids, and we ended up with a total of seven kids there - Reed, Amy, Aly, Alicia Arnold, Joey Donovan, Harrison Lindsey, and Patrick Hayden. It ended up being a perfect number of kids, and I think they all had a great time.

When I think back to the day Reed was born, it feels so long ago that we were given this precious gift. We are so grateful to have him (and his baby sister, of course) and every day is a joy to be with him. We love you, Reed!

History

Well I'm a week late in getting to this, but I wanted to comment on what a historic time it is in America. We've chosen our first black President, Barack Obama. Many people alive today never thought it would happen in their lifetime, but here it is. It's done.

I arrived to vote as the polling place opened at 6 a.m. There were at least 300 people in line in front of me. It was amazing to see such great voter turnout. As I waited in line, there was an African American lady behind me. She looked to be probably 45 years old I'd guess. She was beaming, just so very happy. Almost to herself, she was saying "I never thought I'd see this day - this is amazing" and it was really moving to see how profoundly Obama's candidacy had affected her.

I hope this marks the fall of yet another barrier toward racial equality. I think each succeeding generation does a little bit better than the last. It's wonderful to think that for our kids, the idea of a black President won't even be the slightest bit controversial - it'll just be "normal". Amazing.

Bedtime at our house

I often find myself trying to remember our old bedtime routines, how each of our kids went to bed at a certain age. And try as I might, I come up empty more often than not. So I thought it'd be a good idea to write how our nights go right now.

I'll start by saying the process takes a while - especially when it's bath night (every other day). And as tired as we are, especially at the end of a work day, sometimes we get worn out from the process. At the same time, though, we know all too well that this stage of their lives won't last forever, and we'd better enjoy every (tiring) minute of it. One day they won't want us to read to them, they won't want help with their pajamas. They won't want to tell us one last joke, or ask us to "stay for one more minute". It's hard to believe that one day we'll just tell them it's bedtime and they'll go off to bed on their own, without needing or wanting any help from us.


I'll start with Reed. I think for Reed, sleep is a necessary evil - he's not crazy about it, but he accepts that it's got to happen. The time in his room at night seems to be his most treasured time of the day - he's free to read, do work books, play with his toys....whatever he wants. Before he headed off to kindergarten, we probably let him stay up too late, too often. But now we're doing our best to make sure he's had lights out by 8:15 p.m. (don't tell anybody that he was up until 10:15 p.m. last night!).

Once we've made it through the land mines of getting pajamas on, teeth brushed, and potty time, we move on to Reed's room. I should add that it's VERY important to him that you turn his bedroom light off even if you're just leaving to go help with teeth brushing....he's trying to save the Earth. So when you finally make it to his room, the usual routine is that he chooses some variation of three books. He may choose one magazine, like National Geographic for Kids (which Nikki sent him a subscription for), or several chapters of a chapter book, or a couple of shorter books. Whatever totals up to "three books" worth....it's been a while since it's been that simple, though. Pretty much everything we read, Reed's already read once or twice by the time we get to it. But he still enjoys the "repeats" anyway. I guess I should backtrack a little to say that we take turns putting the kids to bed each night. So once books are read, Reed gets whatever time's left between then and 8:15 p.m. to do stuff in his room. As I mentioned, he likes to just read on his own, or make up games using his stuffed animals and/or books, or do workbook pages, or draw at his desk. His days are so busy now, I think he's a little more tired when it gets to the end of the day. So he hasn't been making much of a fuss at lights out time lately, which is good.

And though he's a big grown up kindergartener, from time to time (like one night last week), he will still ask me to sing the song I've been singing to him since he was a tiny baby - "Baby Mine" from the movie Dumbo. The song was on a "Best of Country Sings the Best of Disney" CD which I bought many years ago, before we even had kids, and that version is sung by bluegrass songstress Allison Krauss. I certainly don't claim to do it justice, but fortunately for me, he still likes it. And it certainly makes me happy when he asks me to sing it and makes me feel so needed.

And then there's Amy. We go through the same sometimes frustrations with getting through the pajama putting on, the teeth brushing, the pottying. When we settle in for books, Amy is always happy to sit on our laps and get cozy. Like Reed did at her age, she tends to be happy with re-reading the same couple of books for stretches of time; we read 3 books each night. Unlike Reed, sleep is important to Amy and I think she enjoys it as much as I do! Once we're done with books, Amy chooses a CD and sets it up herself. She got a CD player for Christmas and since then has felt like a really big girl to put her own CDs in and get them going. She also tends to listen to the same CD for a couple of weeks in a row before choosing a new one, similar to how she is with books. The current #1 on the Amy hit parade is the "Choo Choo Soul" CD. Then she turns out the lights and climbs into bed. Then we usually hear "Will you stay for one minute?" and she asks us to lay down by her. And I think I've mentioned this before, but that's when she starts with picking at our fingernails with her fingernails. It really seems to calm her but it drives me kind of nutty. Sometimes she needs several extra hugs and kisses, but mostly then she's fine to go off to sleep on her own. I often wonder how long she lays awake in bed...sometimes I think it takes her quite a while to drift off. I will knock on wood as I type this, but lately she's been great at staying in her bed all night long. For a while she would wander in to our room during the night and we'd have to return her. But she's been doing really well. She wakes up somewhere between 6 (really close to 6 most days lately) and 6:30 and comes to our room for a little cuddle time; sometimes she falls back to sleep. And off we go into our day!

There he goes...

Today was Reed's first day of Kindergarten...I can hardly believe it! He started his morning at the Winwood day care center, and they brought him to Little River Elementary School for his PM Kindergarten class. Tod and I were there to watch as he walked into school...he went with no hesitation, he was so excited. After Kindergarten, he goes to the after-school program at the elementary school (called CASA). Big day for a 5 3/4 year old boy (and his parents!). Reed's teacher is Mrs. Lewis and it looks like she's going to be a great teacher! Reed said his favorite part of the day was CASA, that it was a lot of fun. He also told me "I guess you have to spend most of your first day learning all the rules" - three different progams, three sets of teachers, three sets of rules, three sets of kids. It's a lot! I hope we will settle into our new routine quickly. We were so proud to see how easily Reed took to things on this big day.

Amy also had her first day on the "big kids' side" of the Employee's Child Care Center - she is quite proud of herself. She'll still be my traveling companion on my daily commute since the center is in my building, but we are both really going to miss having Reed with us. And really, I think if we could sneak her into Kindergarten, she'd be able to manage it -- she's a smart girl and learning so much, so fast. She is very interested in writing out words and her drawing is always improving.

These kids grow up too fast, I wish I could slow them down.

Just your average, ordinary five year old

Yesterday as we got in the car, I noticed something on Amy's face which turned out to be a mosquito. (Have I mentioned she's a mosquito magnet? It's crazy.) I wondered aloud if mosquitoes can bite more than once, or if they die after they bite, like bees die after a sting. Reed happened to have a mini animal encyclopedia in the car with him, and a couple of minutes later he said "I found it" and started reading facts about mosquitoes. All on his own, he'd found the insect section of the book, found the pages about mosquitoes, and tried to find out the answer to my question (the book didn't have the answer, by the way). Yep, he's just your average, ordinary five year old headed off to kindergarten.

She's packed her bag....

On the morning of July 17, I heard some bumpy sounds downstairs somewhere around 6:30 in the morning. I wondered what it was...but then decided a few more seconds of shut-eye was more important than finding out (and yes, in case you're wondering....I probably should have been up already). Well then the sounds happened again so I figured I should probably find out what it was. Here's what I found:



Amy had gotten up, gone in her closet, dragged out her suitcase, loaded it up with books and stuffed animals, also chosen a skort (which was in the closet because it's too big) and a lovely Minnie and Mickey Mouse sweatshirt (which was put away because...well, it's summer!) and gotten herself all set for school. She'd gone so far as to even head downstairs all by herself. Ah, she's something else!

Night owl

Reed has been telling us for quite some time that he wanted a desk for his room so he'd have a spot to sit and do his workbooks. Back at the end of June, we finally got around to finding him one at Ikea. He is so happy to have a place to do his work after we read to him each night. He has several workbooks, some kindergarten, one first grade and even one second grade book. He loves loves loves doing them and working to figure out everything from addition to grammar to fractions to word searches. He'll also do some drawing as well. Here's a shot of him, hard at work.

Amy the bookworm

While Amy isn't quite as into books as Reed is/was (I mean, who is?), she does love to have books read to her. And something she does that I don't remember Reed doing is sitting down with a familiar book, turning each page and recounting the story. She doesn't get it word for word, since these are usually longer books, but she always gets the gist of what's happening on each page. It's really quite neat....but she only does it when she thinks no one is watching/listening to her, and if she catches you watching, she'll stop. She did this a lot on our car trip home from Florida in May, with a book about a little girl going to ballet class, and it was so fun to hear her reading her stories to herself. What a growing up girl.

Notes on Reed from 2007

January 2007

• 1/10/07 – Reed asked me to call Kiki and Poppy to see if he could ride in their car to their house..."can you call and see if that's a deal?"
• 1/23/07 – For my birthday, I told Reed all I wanted was for him to write his name for me. He is very much interested in reading (and in fact really can read many words), but not at all interested in writing. I also had a night meeting on my birthday (when I mentioned this to Reed, he said "Well that's not fair!"). Tod brought the kids up to my office with cupcakes and cards - Reed was SO proud of himself for writing his name on my card - and it really was the greatest birthday present, I'm so proud!

February 2007

• 2/25/07 – Reed can read several of his books now, and is also picking up words all over the place. For instance, he was looking through a bird guide book and said "Does that say 'rock pigeon'?" and it did!

March 2007

• 3/4/07 – We went to the National Zoo in DC yesterday and Reed wanted to bring "his" camera and take pictures for a zoo book. "His" camera is our old digital camera that we bought just after he was born – we've go a newer one now. He did a great job with his pictures. Tod told Reed he was a good photographer and he said "Just like my momma" :)
• 3/29/07 – You are really reading now!!! You can read a lot of your books, usually stopping to ask for help on a few words. It's amazing. You are really fascinated with animals and learning things about them. We worked very hard on your zoo book for our trip earlier this month, and I added facts about where each animal lives, what they eat and other little interesting facts. You want to learn more about dinosaurs too. Just a little sponge! You still have a hard time transitioning from one thing to another, like from playing at home to going out...but once we actually convince you to leave, you're happy wherever you are.

May 2007

• 5/2/07 – you still say "coffeecat" instead of copycat...possibly because we haven't corrected you much on it since we think it's cute.
• 5/29/07 – You occasionally have what we call "night terrors" though I think that term isn't totally correct. During the night you start screaming or crying, a lot of times just yelling "no" over and over. Even though you're usually sitting up and thrashing around, you're not actually awake. Nothing we can do or say comforts you, we just have to let you go through it and then you go back to sleep. This usually happens when you're overly tired and you don't remember it after it's happened.

June 2007

• 6/5/07 – I always buy clothes for you at the end of each season for the following year. Last summer I bought lots of size 4T shorts....but they all just fall right off you! I had to dig out the size 3T from last summer, which still fit you just fine - you're living up to that "reed" name. You are reading more than I can even believe.
• 6/8/07 – In the paper today there was a picture of two street signs – the top one said "no pets allowed" and the lower sign said "pets must be on leash" - you were reading it over my shoulder and you said "but mommy, it says no pets"...woah, first, you read it on your own and second, you totally got that the signs were contradictory. Wow.
• 6/13/07 – The last time you spent the night at Kiki & Poppy's, you left some clothes there because you love to put them down their laundry chute. So Kiki washed them and brought them back. When you put the shirt on, you said "I think this shirt used to belong to Poppy" and I asked why...you said "It smells like Poppy". What a sniffer. Of course, you do once told us "I smell water boiling" too. :)
• 6/20/07 – You have reached the joke-telling phase of pre-school life. You try to remember and tell "real" jokes, and a lot of times you make up your own non-sensical jokes. Totally made up jokes that don't make any sense at all...but you crack yourself up!
• 6/22/07 – Your head teacher at pre-school really thinks you are "gifted". You're doing math (adding, some subtracting) and can read so much. You are constantly surprising and amazing us.
• 6/30/07 – You caught fireflies for the first time tonight!

July 2007

• 7/19/07 – Reed and I were making muffins. He took one quick look at the mini muffin pan which had 12 spots and said we can each have three.

August 2007

• 8/5/07 – We were at the pool and Reed said "Why isn't anybody swimming in the laptop lanes?" -- he'd seen the sign for "lap swim only"
• 8/26/07 – Reed said he wanted to live near us when he grows up, then he said he wanted to marry someone that we didn't know, so that when we saw him, we'd talk to him and not her. He also asked if we would come to his wedding, and if other family members would come. Sometimes I worry about how much you worry about, little Reed.

September 2007

• 9/1/07 – Based on your teacher's recommendation and our own thinking that you're "smarter than the average bear", we took you for an IQ test. A psychologist administered the Stanford-Binet test and you scored 134, which puts you in the 99th percentile. We did this testing so that we'd be better prepared in making schooling decisions for you, and so we could share the information on your skills, abilities and learning styles with your teachers as you enter school. You loved doing the testing and were quite disappointed that when we went back for the second visit where we got the results that you weren't able to do any more tests. What we'd told you about it is that we were talking with someone so that we could help you be ready for school.

November 2007

• Random recent thoughts on both kids….the kids keep wandering into our room most nights. We try to make ourselves return you to your beds, but it doesn't always happen, which is unfortunate for me because I don't usually get restful sleep when you're there (too much wiggling around). Though it is really cozy having all four of us there, especially on a weekend morning. I know it won't be long before you'll be too big for all that. Amy usually lumbers down the hall with her little pillow and her blanket in her hand, happy to climb up in bed with us. Amy seems eager to sleep at both nap and bedtime, while for Reed it still seems to be a necessary evil. I think he would stay up all night if his body would let him, just reading books and doing puzzles and BrainQuest games. Amy wakes up generally very refreshed and happy. Reed continues to have night terrors when he's overtired - it's really hard because he just cries out, no words other than sometimes "no no no". He's still asleep and even having us come to his room doesn't help – he doesn't know we're there. It usually passes after a few minutes. We hadn't mentioned this to Mom and Jim before, and a couple of months ago Reed was having a sleepover and had an episode – they were scared and didn't know what to do but quickly figured out he was still asleep and they just needed to make sure he stayed safe. I hope this phase passes pretty soon because it leads to an un-restful night for all of us (well, Amy snoozes right through it). Yesterday Reed asked when he was going back to "learn more for kindergarten" – when we did the IQ testing with the psychologist, we told him it was to help us get him ready for kindergarten, so that's what he thinks it was. He really enjoyed all the different tests. Reed is doing really great in his class at school - they have switched to mixed age groups, which means there are kids that are close to his age all the way down to kids who are around 3 years old. He helps the other kids, just like he can really help Amy by explaining things to her so she can understand. Reed is reading so incredibly well and continues to be very interested in learning new things. He also is big on knock-knock and other jokes, which Amy tries to copy. We've heard "Why'd the chicken cross the road?" about a thousand times lately. We also hear non-sensical jokes that Reed makes up. One day in the car he said "Why does red mean go and green mean stop?" purposely mixing them up. I asked why and he said "Because there's no God". Tod and I didn't quite know how to respond but Reed quickly said "Why aren't you laughing?"....well I still don't know what do think about that one!
• 11/12/07 – We are in Florida celebrating your 5th birthday! Kiki and Poppy take each grandchild to Disney when they turn 5. We went to Sea World yesterday, which was so cool. When you woke up this morning, you opened a couple of gifts in our hotel room (the Nick Jr. Hotel) and we headed out for the Magic Kingdom. What a day! You and Amy got lots of autographs from the characters, rode some rides, watched the parade, and had a ton of fun. You and Amy weren't so crazy about the fireworks to end the night, but all in all a fantastic time.
• 11/9/07 – Today Reed said "I'm not going to talk a lot when I get back to school because I'm going to be thinking about Daytona and Disney!"

December 2007

• 12/7/07 – Lately you have been talking about adding letters...it took me a few minutes to figure out what you were doing. You're adding up the letters' placement order in the alphabet - like you told me B + H = J (2nd letter of alphabet + 8th letter of alphabet = 10th letter of alphabet).
• 12/10/07 – Today cousin Cristie sent some new photos of baby Mitchell. Before Mitchell was born, we'd sent them a bunch of your baby clothes for him to wear. Included in the photos Cristie sent were some of Mitchell in one of your winter hats, and some of of him in a pair of your airplane pajamas...I teared up seeing them. It seems like just yesterday you were that baby and now you're this grown up, smart boy who's learning and doing so much every day. I don't know where the time has gone but I wish I could get some of it back.
• 12/11/07 – I think 5 is a hard age for you - you are feeling like you're a big kid, but you're not really - you're stuck in the middle of the "babies" like Amy and the "big kids" like Aly. I guess this is just one of the many phases of wanting to be more grown up than you are, which will go on all the way until you actually are grown up.

This time a note from Dad

Reed (5 1/2 yrs) called some of his hot wheels race cars "jickpenny." For several days I couldn't understand what he was saying. We went to the mall where Reed said "Dad, Look! There's jickpenny!" He pointed to JCPenny. But that still didn't make sense because none of his race cars had JCPenny logo's on them. Finally at home he showed me the race cars with pictures of "Richard Petty" on the back. He had confused Richard Petty with jickpenny. What fun.

Early summer update

Amy can now write many of her letters and is so eager and proud to try. She's been able to write her name for several months now and lately is even asking to write peoples' names on their cards when she's signing them. She can write Reed's name really well too. Amy is also asking us how to spell words sometimes too. Today was the first time I've heard her say "but I don't know how to read!"....which was something Reed first said when he was probably a little bit older than Amy is now.

Amy has been taking ballet class this spring and the classes just wrapped up last weekend. It was held at the Cub Run Recreation Center and started out with about 10 girls in it, all 3-4 years old. The first class, Amy walked right in the class with no problem, and watched everything the teacher Miss Debbie did, doing her best to imitate her. It was terrific! Week 2....not so good. Some of the other girls were scared to go in - this is kind of a unique setup because there's a window you can watch through, but parents are not allowed in the class at all. Some of the girls were afraid and resisted going in.....and I swear it never would have occurred to Amy on her own to be afraid to go in the class, but she sure did pick right up on it. A couple of the weeks she didn't go in the class at all, others she went in only for brief times. It was so crazy, because once she was in, she LOVED it! She took it so very seriously and never took her eyes off the teacher, doing her very best to do everything she was supposed to. She wrapped up the last two weeks going right in the class with no fuss and she did just great. She was thrilled to get two stamps on her arm the first to last class, so proud of herself.

We're thinking we may sign her up for another class a little later in the year, when she'll be a little more mature and hopefully there'd be a little less of the drama.

I'm just remembering now that when we told Amy she was going to take ballet, her biggest concern was "will there be a stage???" and hoping she would get to go out on stage first. So we had to explain there wouldn't be a stage but it'd still be a lot of fun. We're very proud of how well she did in the class.

We signed Reed up for a class called "Little Labcoats" at the same time as Amy's class. We were excited about it and thought it'd be great for him....but it didn't quite live up to expectations. The class was for 4-5 year olds and I think he'd really be more appropriate for a class designed for kids that are 6-8 or so. But he still enjoyed it for the most part. A strange coincidence, there was a boy in his class named Sam who was also in his "Farm School" class at Frying Pan Park that we had him in around the time Amy was born. That family also had a baby girl just a week or two before us. Small world!

Amy's self-soothing

For a while now, when Amy's tired she has found a way to comfort herself....it's a little odd, but it makes her happy. She will take our thumb and click her own finger nails under our thumb nail....she only does it when she's tired. It's her little quirk, not too much different from what Reed used to do when he was a baby....when you were holding him, he'd reach up and try to put his hand in your mouth. I guess every kid has their little things that make them feel better!

Notes on 2006 Amy

January 2006

• 1/9/06 – Amy says "hi" and "uh-oh"
• 1/23/06 – Amy crawls!
• 1/24/06 – First tooth pokes through - bottom middle right

February 2006

• 2/6/06 – Second tooth - bottom lower left
• 2/21/06 – Signs "more"

March 2006

• 3/5/06 – Stands on her own!
• 3/7/06 – Takes a few steps!
• 3/12/06 – Dances!
• 3/18/06 – Makes rocking motion and tries to sing "Row Row Row Your Boat" - also tries to do "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and claps afterward

April 2006

• 4/10/06 – Walks all on her own
• 4/16/06 – Easter morning, Amy stood up in her crib pointing to her Easter basket, she was so excited to see she got bubbles
• 4/17/06 – Third tooth - top middle right
• 4/21/06 – Fourth tooth - top middle left

May 2006

• 5/19/06 – Amy wants to carry her own plate to the sink
• Sometime this month Amy decided she looooves her jacket and hat
• 5/29/06 – When we got to the page in her book where it says "elephants are big, elephants are heavy, stomp stomp" she stomped her foot and smiled

June 2006

• 6/4/06 – Amy's words right now are hi, bye-bye, up (means both up and down), momma, dadda, more, dog, ball and balloon.
• 6/8/06 – Amy now says milk with the 'k', also says Elmo
• 6/26/06 – Amy says rock, moo, baa; also copies Reed

July 2006

• 7/17/06 – Amy can make lots of animal sounds (like cow, sheep, cat, dog) and is saying more words all the time

August 2006

• 8/1/06 – Amy has words for CJ and all done. She walked around yesterday saying 'happy'. Today in the car Reed asked her who was singing and she correctly answered Elmo. Amy points at herself and says 'Amy'. She also says baby, Emma, mine, eyes, milk, night-night. She still loves brushing her teeth and goes to sleep at nap and bedtime really easily. Amy can thump her chest like a gorilla.

September 2006

• 9/12/06 – Amy uses some phrases now! Like "move, Reed" and "yay Reed!" When I say "who's the prettiest girl?" Amy will point to herself and say "me!"

October 2006

• 10/22/06 – Tonight we had dinner at the Wenzells. Amy hugged Great Granddaddy Wenzell's legs two different times and asked him to help her put on her 'jacky' (that's jacket). It was so sweet to see that since she doesn't know him all that well and with his Alzheimer's, he doesn't really know who people are a lot of the time. I'm thankful the kids have gotten to know him even a little bit.
• 10/27/06 – When I was reading books to Amy, she held her finger up and said "one more book?" How can you say no to that??

November 2006

• 11/1/06 – Amy has already learned it gets a fun reaction if she wipes off mommy's kisses! She's talking SO much it's amazing. Even some more phrases now like "cookie monster," "minnie mouse", "school bus" and "Amy get it". She can identify pretty much all of her body parts too.
• 11/10/06 – When we play the Riders in the Sky song from Toy Story, "You've Got a Friend in Me" Amy echoes "me" every time they say it.
• 11/17/06 – Amy calls every store we pass "nonalds"
• 11/18/06 – Amy made a very good attempt at singing "Happy Birthday" - wow!
• 11/20/06 – Whenever I put you to bed, you usually cry "mommy" when I am ready to leave...I tell you "Mommy's never far away" and without fail you always respond "Amy?" like you're asking "never far away from Amy?" and I reassure you, "Mommy's never far from Amy". Then you go right to sleep...okay well sometimes you fuss for a minute, but not usually too long.
• 11/29/06 – Amy is beginning to show her temper! She is talking all the time and really lets us know what she wants and doesn't want - sometimes even by yelling! Amy also tries to repeat everything we say. I see her watching my lips as if she's trying to learn how to get her mouth to make the same sounds. Driving home yesterday Amy called out "Poppy, where are you?!" just out of the blue.

December 2006

• 12/1/06 – We went to see Santa at Kiki's old work...Amy was so excited to see him when we were far away, but refused to sit on his lap. Oh well, maybe next year!




• 12/3/06 – Amy's first night in a big girl toddler bed! She was so excited to help set it up, then to pile all her stuffed animals on it and jump on it too. No trouble switching out of the crib at all.




• 12/25/06 – This Christmas, Amy was most excited about the Zoe slippers she got from cousin Cristie and....a tube of mini-M&Ms. Amy even took the M&Ms with her to nap on Christmas day. This month, every time she saw the picture of her with Santa (well, near Santa), she'd say "No Amy sit Santa's lap".

The days are long, but the years fly by

I don't think there's another phrase that sums up parenting better than that. While a day can sometimes feel interminably long (we call it Groundhog Day at our house...more on that later), the years seem to fly by.

It seems like it was just yesterday that we were bringing Reed home from the hospital, unsure of what in the world to do with him, and here we are now getting a smart, talented 5 year old (make that 5 and a half, thankyouverymuch) ready for kindergarten in the fall.

Tuesday night was "Kindergarten Orientation" for kids and parents. The kids got to do a few activities in a classroom, tour the school, and go on a quick school bus ride. The parents got to hear from the principal and the kindergarten teachers about how a typical day goes, what to expect, etc.

Reed just loved it and I think would be perfectly happy if he could start kindergarten tomorrow. Or today. Right now would really be ideal, I think he'd tell you. When we got there, he made his own name tag and proudly put it on. He thought it was cool that he was dressed in orange shorts and an orange t-shirt (plus tan dress socks and his Crocs...he's a fashion plate!) and he got assigned to the Orange class room.

When we got home, I asked him to take the name tag off his shirt before he put it in the hamper. He took it off, got his PJs on and then put his name tag on the PJs and slept with it on. In the morning, he put on his brand spanking new green tie-dye Little River Elementary school shirt and moved his name tag to that, happily wearing it to school. It's so awesome to see how excited he is.

And Groundhog Day...well it comes to our house most days. Amy is firmly in a stage of wishing she had greater control. It's a daily battle to get her to brush her teeth, go potty and get dressed each school day. It's exhausting! We've tried reasoning with her. We've tried to make it a game. We've tried to make it fun. We've flat out ordered her around. All with pretty similar results. She ends up crying in the "naughty spot", sometimes hitting us or throwing things along the way. I wish we were able to let her do things at her leisure, but it's not in the cards on school days. Hopefully soon we'll figure out a method that works. And hopefully it will last at least a week or two before it stops working, as it inevitably will.

Thankfully Reed entered a time of being more cooperative about getting ready for school just about the time Amy started to be a real challenge, so that's at least good. It's amazing to me how that seems to work out -- one gets easier when the other gets more difficult. I think it keeps us from selling our children to gypsies (don't think I haven't considered it from time to time).

A sad time

Grandaddy Wenzell, circa 1944.

My grandfather, Ralph Wenzell, passed away during the early morning hours last Friday. He was 89 years old and Alzheimer's had taken away most of his memory over the last few years. Though his body was still here, his mind was not. It was an incredible challenge for my grandmother Thelma to take care of him, with the help of my Dad, during all this time.

The kids have really shown their kindness during the last several days. Several times they've told me "I'm sorry your granddaddy died, mama". Today both attended the viewing, funeral service and burial. I don't think they really understood what was going on, but they behaved well. They had each only seem him maybe a dozen times in their lives, so unfortunately they weren't able to know him well....plus he wasn't himself during a lot of their lives. Actually, the last time that Great Granddaddy left the house prior to his moving to a nursing home 4 days before his death, was for last Thanksgiving. When we were leaving, all on her own, Amy gave him a hug goodbye. I was a little surprised by that because she didn't really know him at all, but then not too surprised because she's such a sweet spirit. I took that as a sign, actually, that we might not see him again - I think kids have a sixth sense sometimes. It was comforting to know that one of his last interactions with my family was one of embracing kindness, whether he was aware of it or not.

Tonight as I was putting Reed to bed, I thanked him for being so good today and told him I knew it was hard. We talked a bit more about Great Granddaddy's death, and I told Reed Great Granddaddy wasn't coming back. I think that might have been the first time I said that to him, and it really hit him hard. Immediately his little lip started to quiver and he started to cry, and said "But what will happen to the person who's married to him?" I am so touched at his thoughtfulness that he was thinking of Great Grandma and worried about her. He didn't talk much after that, but cried more and I stayed with him until he fell asleep.

We are so blessed to have such kind, caring children. This is a painful life lesson to learn and I'm so sad to see it, but they have really shown me once again how wonderful they are through all this.

I was so lucky to have all four of my grandparents through 38 years of my life - I don't know too many people who can say the same. I'll always miss him but will carry him in my heart.

The end of an era...

Well tonight we cleaned out the remainder of our "baby" stuff to donate to Purple Heart. This is a photo of all of it....so much stuff to care for two children who were so little at the time. And now who've grown so much, both physically and mentally. It was definitely sad to see it all go and know for sure that part of our life is done. I am thrilled with our two kids and don't want any more, but that doesn't make it any less sad to think our baby days are all done. The babies are getting all grown up. I hope our stuff makes its way to families that need it. On the good side, I'm glad we've gained a whole lot of storage space back! At the rate our kids are outgrowing their clothes, I need more space!

On a MUCH happier note, today is Miss Amy's third birthday! She's in the big time now. We had a party with about 12 kids at the house on Saturday – lots of fun! Today we celebrated with cake at school as well, and Amy liked being the special birthday girl. How the time has flown by, it's incredible. 

Here's our girl, then and now.

About to burst!

It is really funny how incredibly excited Amy gets over Kiki. Last night Kiki and Poppy watched the kids because Tod and I both had to work late. Amy talks nonstop (literally) when she's around her Kiki...and what's more, her mouth can't keep up with her brain. Amy stumbles over her words because she just can't get them to come out as fast as her head is thinking them up. She wants to report on every single thing that happened to her and everyone she knows too. It's really cute that she can barely contain herself.

Amy and I went to do her three year old birthday portraits today, then we had lunch together – girls' day out. She did SO great with her pictures, it was hard not to buy them all. Here are a couple of my favorites of our most precious girl.

Things that make you go "hmmmm"

Daylight savings time started early this year and we've been struggling all week. Each weekday we've had to wake the kids up at 7 (when we should probably already be headed downstairs, ready to go) and grumble and fight through getting ready for school, then grumble and fight getting them actually in the car and set to go. But oh, no, not on the weekend. Not a chance. Surprise surprise, there's Reed at 5:45 a.m., wide awake and ready to go. Amy was about 20 minutes behind him.

I just don't get it! It's mind-boggling how these kids can kill us with "But I'm still tiiiiiiiired" on weekdays but on the weekends they're up at the crack of dawn, bursting with energy.

Well I guess it's only a matter of time before they're sleeping 'til noon every single day they can, just like I used to. I am glad they enjoy the weekend time when we're able to do more things together.

Today we went to Bull Run Park in Centreville and did a nature walk. Cub Run is there and the trail follows alongside it, and we had a good time - especially CJ. Reed even ran about a mile (literally a mile, I swear) on the way back. Then we played a while at the playground and came home exhausted - everybody took naps.

A good day, even if it started too early.

Our Reed, way back in 2006

January 2006

• End of January 2006, Reed told me "Me and Amy get big, no we need Mommy and Daddy anymore" – heartbreaking!
• 8 = Washington Capitals star Alexander Ovechkin
• Says “McGondalds” instead of McDonalds

February 2006

• 2/22/06 – Reed said he wants to marry Amy when he turns 6 (old enough to marry in his book)

March 2006

• 3/8/06 – Reed asked me to “turn the toothpaste on”

April 2006

• 4/12/06 – As he was laying in the tub, Reed said “I'm just going to lay here and watch the clouds go by”
• 4/15/06 – As he went to bed, Reed said he forgot to make a list of things he wanted from the Easter Bunny, then he asked how Easter Bunny gets around, whether he'd go to Amy's room or his room first, and finally he said he'd keep his eyes open just a bit while he slept so he could see the Easter Bunny.
• 4/28/06 – Reed sadly said “I don't want to have curly hair anymore” :-( Son, I sure remember feeling that way! But just wait until you’re older and the girls all think it’s dreamy.
• Late April – Reed says “you crazy nut” to people....thanks, Kiki, for that one!

May 2006

• 5/07/06 – Once again, Reed said when he and Amy get big they won't need help from us anymore. Then he added that Amy would live in our house and we could live somewhere else.
• 5/10/06 – While riding in the car, Reed asked me “Mommy can you turn the music off, please?” Amy proceeded to chat away, then he asked "Mommy, can you turn Amy off please?" with a big grin. :-)

June 2006

• 6/4/06 – Today we took both kids for their first movie! We saw "Over the Hedge" and both were surprisingly cooperative. Amy didn’t even sleep through a minute of it!
• 6/9/06 – Reed and I were going to the “Sneak Peek” of Fairfax Fair, where employees get to go before the fair starts, to check things out. Reed literally ran all the way over there and also yelled “the Fair! the Fair!” and “I'm so excited!!!” :) There weren’t many rides open, but we did go on the gigantic Ferris Wheel, which made me a little nervous, it was so tall, but Reed didn’t seem to mind.
• 6/27/06 – Well today at school during nap time, Reed found a stray bead on the floor….and stuck it up his nose. I was able to get him to blow it out, thankfully.
• June 2006 – Reed says "coffeecat" instead of copycat. It’s cute so we don’t correct him.

July 2006

• 7/9/06 – Cousin Seab Larson came for a visit, so we took him on a tour around DC. We had a picnic in front of White House, and Reed noticed a grove of trees in front of the White House and said “I think monkeys live here”. Ah, out of the mouths of babes…but I’m sure many might agree that George W. Bush is monkey-ish.
• July 2006 – Reed says “wild up” instead of “wound up”, which is really entirely more appropriate.

August 2006

• 8/06 – Reed likes to make up new words to familiar tunes and is very creative with them.
• 8/11/06 – I called you when you stayed overnight with Grandma & Poppy. You’d made lemonade and were telling me it was good and you’d save me some. You sounded so grown up!
• 8/16/06 – Reed asked when we were going to the woods to play with Bambi. I said something about Bambi being all grown up and you told me that was just in the story, in the world he was still little.

September 2006

• 9/5/06 – As part of our vacation, we went to the Brevard Zoo in Melbourne, FL. You were so excited about seeing all the animals, you would finish up checking one out then say “let's go to the next animal!!” and run ahead.
• 9/13/06 – We were talking about your cowboy costume for Halloween and I suggested you could say “howdy, partner” to people when trick or treating. You said “Maybe we could bring my CD player downstairs and put it in the wagon and bring it with us trick or treating – we could play the cowboy songs and I could sing along!"
• 9/20/06 – Reed's class made cookies today and he saved one for me. I told Reed I’d eaten it and he asked “did you enjoy the icing?”

October 2006

• 10/22/06 – We were at the Wenzells for dinner and they had chocolate/vanilla ice cream...Reed said “Look at that two-headed ice cream!” – he was really really tired and kind of loopy, I think. :)

November 2006

• 11/1/06 – You were Woody from “Toy Story” / a cowboy for Halloween. Just like last year, you really seemed to get more of a charge from handing out candy than the actual trick or treating. If there were kids across the street from our house, you'd yell “over here!” and want them all to come.
• 11/2/06 – You are so sweet and proud of Amy when she does something new. And you always say “I love you”.
• 11/6/06 – You told your first real joke! “Why is 6 afraid of 7? Because 7 ate 9!” Yay!
• 11/14/06 – We were reading a book about dinosaurs and there was a green one in some tall green grass, with a predatory dinosaur nearby. All on your own, you said that since it was green, the other dinosaur would think it was just part of the grass and so it would be safe. Wow.
• 11/24/06 – Reed can be so thoughtful. He really wanted to make a craft for Aly after she made something for him and even said “maybe we can make two - one for Aly and one in case she has a visitor”

Our little artist

Amy's fine motor skills just get better and better, it's so neat to watch. She's been drawing people with faces, arms, legs, hair - the works, since July - here is the first one I saw her do.

She also recently mostly mastered writing her name - wow!! For Valentine's Day, Amy signed "A" on all her friends' cards, and I filled in the m and y. Now she can do it on her own. I'll have to get a photo of that soon. She sometimes writes in really gigantic letters like a lot of kids do, but she can also do 'regular' size too.

She really enjoys drawing and can truly focus on it when she wants to. Every afternoon when we pick Reed up at his classroom, Amy finds a million things she wants to work on, since they've got lots of crafts things sitting out. She is anxious to move over to the "big kids" side of school, which won't happen until fall. My best girl is ready for it.

Way back in 2005...Amy stories

Well here are the things I wrote about dear little Amy in 2005.

• Amy likes to chew on her tongue
• 6/29/05 - Amy slept from 9 p.m. -4:20 a.m. - woo hoo!
• 7/26/05 - slept 9 p.m. to 5:30 a.m. -- did that for 4 nights
• Amy likes to twirl her feet in little circles
• Amy is happy when Reed talks to her and puts up with him yelling, pushing and all the things an almost 3 year old does to his baby sister.

On vacation in Daytona...

• 10/13/05 - Amy rolled from back to front! She likes likes the camera (hope that lasts!)
• We floated around in the indoor pool a lot, and relaxing in the pool floatie makes Amy sleepy!
• 10/14/05 - Amy clapped her hands! Yay!

• 11/1/05 - On our way home from work/school, an older man stuck in traffic next to us rolled down his window to tell me how beautiful Amy is.
• 12/8/05 - Amy waved bye-bye!

Way back in 2005...Reedy stories

Well my Outlook notes go back to 2005 for Reed. These are kind of random, and it'll probably be a little confusing adding old stuff then new stuff, but "it is what it is" as all the kids are saying these days. Well maybe that's not the kids, but anyway...

July-ish 2005...in Montana

• Reed calls Martha and Kathleen "new aunt"


• When Reed would realize people had left, he'd say "where lot a body go?"


• Reed says "me twinkle Amy," which means he wants to sing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" to her


• Reed calls "C Hill" – the big hill behind Grandma and Grandpa Larson's house, which has a gigantic C at the top (for Carter County High School) "ABC mountain"


• Reed was so excited to go for a ride on the awesome train that Grandpa Larson made out of old lawnmower wheels and metal drums, but he fell asleep as they rode through the middle of town!


• We're getting a lot of "Why?"s now – fun!

August-ish 2005

• On the day elementary school started for Loudoun County schools, Reed said "Me go kindergarten, me big kid"


• When he sings the ABCs, Reed ends it with "now I know my ABCs and me too"

September-ish 2005

• 9-23-05 – Tod asked why Reed wanted Mom to do things for him and Reed said "Because that's the waaaay that is"


• Says "e e" for animals, for some reason


• 9/12/05 – Since spending time with Grandma Larson, who made up lots of stories for him, Reed wants stories all the time. He says "Me hear Reedy story" - that means you have to make up a story which includes him. He also usually tells you three animals that need to be involved in the story too.


• Reed asks us to sing "Baby Mine" to him


• Reed went through a stage of shortening everybody's name...like "Am" and "Kik" and "Ceej"


• For a while, Reed called my hair "mommy's Os"


• Reed sometimes says "me happy". Awwww.


• Reed says "goddy" for "doggy"

November-ish 2005

• 11/26/05 – Reed helped put our artificial tree together. When he saw it all decorated, he said "Amy! Come see our tree!"


• End of November 2005 sometime – in the tub, Reed spelled out "STERLING" using the foam letters. He thought he was spelling 'bathtub' - Sterling is the brand name which is marked on the tub.

December-ish 2005

• Reed calls it "McGondalds" rather than "McDonalds"


• Just like Mom, Reed calls Amy "sunshine" and "sweetie"


• 12/3/05 – Reed says "THAT house ready for Christmas" every time he sees a house with Christmas lights up


• 12/7/05 – Reed got in the car and pointed to where it says "Eddie Bauer" on his car seat and said "That say Kiki and Poppy loves Reed"


• 12/31/05 – The day after watching the movie Madagascar, Reed said "Hey, no cars in Madagascar?!" Get it? Madagascar???

So I begin...

About a year after Reed was born, I started writing in a journal to capture the cute little things he did and said, and how he was growing. It was hard to keep up with! Even more so after Amy arrived....I never even did start on her journal, though I certainly intended to. Instead what I found myself doing was making notes within my Outlook e-mail account -- so I wouldn't forget things, I'd type up a quick note with the date, and I had every intention of then moving things over to the journals. I really wanted it to be a handwritten account of the kids' early years, but I got further and further behind, before I just gave in to keeping the notes electronically.

Now the Notes feature in Outlook isn't exactly pretty, and I can't include pictures. So as I've started reading the blogs of friends (and Tod has one too), then I read that there are companies that will print your blog for you, I thought this is the way to go. So I'll start here and maybe I'll bring in some of those old notes too, I'm not sure how it's all going to work out.

The name "...notes to myself..." just came to me as I was setting things up. My wonderful mother, back in the days she worked at NALC, would write herself a note on a Post-It note. She'd write "NTM" and then whatever it was - stop at grocery store, bring in treats, whatever. NTM = Note to Myself. Then she'd staple the note around her purse strap. I thought it was so funny that she needed to include the NTM part, as if she'd come home with a note on her purse and if she didn't write NTM, Jim would say "hey, I guess I better pick up the dry cleaning". Not!