Clean-up problems solved

I take it back. Emery does still say humorous things. The other night she shared with us a ground-breaking solution that will actually make cleaning up fun:

"You know how it's not fun to clean up? Well, here's what you can do - you can just clean up with one hand and play with the other."

If only.

"The white man" and other things that are making us laugh

A few weeks ago, soon after Matt and the girls had been watching quite a bit of the coverage of the Pope's visit to the U.S., Anna Kimball asked, "Mommy, that house that we saw at the running race (a big brick art museum downtown), is that where the white man lives?"

I just love the connections kids make at this age. Like, here's the most important looking man I have ever seen and then there's the biggest house I have ever seen so naturally the two must go together.

Jamison puts on a great show for me and the church nursery workers every week. Whenever I drop  him off, instead of crying, he just freezes with one knee slightly bent and stares at the ground. He won't make eye contact with anyone. Not even me.

Now what could be going through his head? Maybe "if I act like I'm not in this room I won't really have to be here?" Would that we could really know ... In any case, this peaceful opposition to being left in the nursery is always good for a few chuckles.

I'm starting to get concerned that since Emery is 5 1/2 she isn't going to say as many funny things anymore. None really come to mind right now. But, she still scrunches up her nose when she's explaining something important and that's kind of funny. And the relative maturity that comes from 5 1/2 years on this planet is certainly welcome on days dominated by irrational toddler/preschooler behavior.

She hasn't shed a tear

Emery's been in kindergarten almost a month now and I can't say that Anna Kimball has once indicated that she misses her or wishes she were still at home with us during the day. It's not as if Anna Kimball is happy to have her gone, it's just that, well, she's content with our new normal. 

These children, they have a lot they can teach us! I have shed more than enough tears for the both of us and have done more than my fair share of complaining inwardly and outwardly about this transition to having one member of our family in school five days a week. 

Anna Kimball is also pretty proud to now be in preschool. She does the one-morning-a-week co-op preschool that Emery did and according to her teacher, acts like she's been in school all her life. 

She's also doing a fantastic job of playing with Jamison and taking on the role of calling the shots now that big sister is out of the picture much of the time.

Having Emery in kindergarten is a startling wake-up call to just how quickly the "littlest years" fly by. I'm so happy I get to be with Anna Kimball and Jamison during the day and really just want to follow Anna Kimball's lead in embracing and accepting the season that we are now in.

Here's our brave and happy kindergartener, who has also shed her fair share of tears ... but now bounds down the steps each afternoon happy to declare she had a "no tears" day. Gotta love her!

"You don't have to tell me because I already know."

Currently, this is one of Emery's most-used responses to any information being relayed to her. I think it usually tends to be in response to good news from someone smaller than she, as in Anna Kimball is exclaiming there will be ice cream for dessert or that we are going to the pool.

So maybe our little know-it-all really is ready to start kindergarten next week.

Emery certainly is into seeming more grown-up than she actually is. I sometimes catch her talking to herself in bed, making up words to sound smarter. You know, just adding "tion" to the end of any word and using her very best professional, motherly voice.

Yet, the lack of inhibition or self-awareness is still there and for this I am so very grateful. This means she will still blurt out to the elderly man up the street getting his mail, "I know how to swim but not all the way!" No introductions, no formalities. Just getting to the point. It's great.

In the past few weeks sometimes Emery has been so dear and such a delight to be around that my heart just cannot bear the thought of sending her to school for 35 hours a week so someone else can watch her be who she is. And then a friend reminded me, "The world needs her little light. Send her out!"

True. And I did need to be told that, even though I already knew. 

July is for Jamison

Attempting to summarize summer so far actually overwhelms me to the point of wanting to shut down this blog all together. I think the only way out of this blogging hiatus is to catch up with several short posts instead of getting bogged down by a diary of all that we've been up to for the last eight weeks.

So today I will give a little summary on Jamison and call that success for July.

He is at the most adorable and vexing stage right now. He still looks enough like a baby that I just want to devour his thighs and snuggle him so ... but he's also old enough to wriggle out of your arms and get into big trouble with electronic devices, toilet paper rolls, spice grinders, you name it. His favorite words are "Da!" "Dog!" and "Go!" Though I'm still his parent of choice, the instant Matt revs up the lawnmower Jamison does a Jekyll and Hyde on me and will. not. be. moved from his observation deck.

It's pretty wonderful.

Jamison enjoys his sisters but is quickly learning to hold his own with them. Just today when one of them was trying to grab something he was playing with, he bellowed the deepest, manliest "NOOO" I've heard him utter so far.

Jamison has been walking since he was 14 months old, which is a new experience for us, given that the girls didn't get going on their two legs until 21 months or so. When Emery would carefully go through a basket of board books, page by page, at his age, I thought this was normal toddler behavior. When Anna Kimball would quietly inspect a bag of small trinkets and toys, I thought this was normal toddler behavior. And I think I was right ... it's just that now I'm learning there are many different kinds of "normal."

The only book Jamison has ever gazed at for more than a moment has pictures of dogs. I might as well toss all my buckets of little toys for him to fiddle with because he is over it. All this boy wants to do is climb the furniture, mow the lawn, run away from me at the pool, turn his sister's CD player into something that doesn't play music anymore and then melt my heart all over again with his grin.

What progress looks like

I believe last spring I blogged about Emery's preschool performance, during which she just stared at the audience and never opened her mouth except to shout out, "Anna Kimball!!" in between songs. 

This year she actually did sing along and even cracked a smile or two ... but kept her arms folded the whole time. Too cool for preschool?

Who knows? It's all behind us now ... nothing but a few months of fun in the sun stands between us and kindergarten. Eek. 

Emery is also as cautious as they come. As in it is pretty difficult to get her to even go down a playground slide unless it's a three-foot baby one. Well, she's doing swim lessons right now and at the end of class the kids "get" to go down this slide if they want to. 

Double eek. Emery has actually been going down with an instructor but we told her that if she went down by herself she'd get a milkshake. I had no idea that would do the trick. I didn't even see her come down, I was that sure she was going to ride with the instructor. 

But she did! At this rate she'll be marching off the diving board come Memorial Day to snag that ice cream prize Matt has promised her for such a feat. 

"When I turn into Emery ... "

"I'm going to go to preschool, too!" Anna Kimball has had this revelation a number of times recently. School is certainly on the brain with more talk of kindergarten in the fall for Emery popping up in our daily conversation. But we're not going talk too much about that yet ... I'm still in denial that things really are going to change that much around here come August 13.

We have this book called "Watch Out Kindergarten, Here I Come." I'll admit, sometimes it gets me a little choked up. Without fail, if Emery asks me to read it to her, and then asks for another story after, I always wind up saying yes. I think to myself, "how could I not read her another story right now? This time next year she won't even be here trying to stall before nap time." If Emery were really clever she would work this strategy to her advantage every afternoon ... and I'd probably fall for it every time.

Our incoming kindergartener's latest obsession is parties. She usually plans a party a day, sometimes more and there's always a list involved. It's convenient that it's almost always one of the baby doll or stuffed animal's birthdays, hence a perfect excuse for a party. But these aren't always birthdays we are celebrating. No, today I caught her with a ruler making a list for a measuring party. And right now, as Matt is tucking the girls in, I can hear Anna Kimball exclaiming, "I want to go to your party, too!" According to Matt, this measuring party is an all-day affair and Anna Kimball is going to get dressed up. You would, too, right? I mean it's a measuring party after all. We always wear our finest to those.

Now that Jamison is one, he is eager to assert his independence in most situations. He can climb a flight of stairs faster than you can say "We need to make a list for my candy party." Spoon feeding? No thank you. Jamison insists on forking much of his food and if you have the audacity to put the food on the fork for him, he'll just take it right off and try again himself. With limited success.

The milestone birthdays of March

Whew. The past week or so has been a blizzard of birthday anticipating, birthday celebrating, birthday birthday decompressing ... and repeat. First, Jamison turned one. One! How can it be? I spent much of the day tearing up, then exhaling a sigh of relief to have the rigors of the first year behind us, then tearing up ... and repeat.

Naturally the girls hijacked the day and my emotional imbalances and worked it to their advantage to open Jamison's presents, try out his toys, have Chick fil A for lunch (ice cream cones included of course), screen time, pizza for dinner, cake for dessert etc. etc. etc.

At one, Jamison is far more mobile than his sisters were. He loves to be outside and can say "vroom vroom" (well, it sounds more like "broom broom") when playing with cars. He adores Emery and Anna Kimball so much so that I often will let him into their room even before their appointed wake-up time. You would too if you had already been entertaining a 12-month-old in the wee dark hours of the morning for going on two hours and wouldn't mind a few moments of solitude before morning part II officially begins.

At this stage I would probably give him a C- when it comes to wake-up time and nap durations but even so, his smile and general adorableness can cover over a multitude of sleep-related sins.

Yesterday, Emery finally turned five. She's probably been talking about and anticipating this birthday for at least seven months now. In lieu of a party we loaded up the day with a ton of fun activities and treats and I think we thoroughly exhausted her to the point of her not even being too sad that the birthday was over at the end of the day.

The picture above is the only decent one I got of her all day. Every time I tell her to smile for the camera she does this smirk/smile thing which isn't exactly becoming. Sigh.

At five, Emery still has such a sweet spirit, which I know sounds vague and something nice mothers say about their daughters ... but she really does! There is something gentle and dear about her. If Anna Kimball is playful like a golden retriever, well, Emery is playful like a butterfly. She flutters, rather than romps, around the house. Emery adores being read to and would literally listen to me read the phone book I think, if there still were such a thing.

This past year it has been so fun to see her artistic side develop. I love that she isn't afraid to draw something like a giraffe,  for instance, even if she doesn't "know how to." Knowing that she loves to draw is becoming a pretty awesome ticket to have in my pocket when it's clear that she is bored and fluttering around the house with nothing to do.

What Emery wanted most for her birthday was a fish. So she woke up on her birthday to a red, male fish we named Cinco (get it, Spanish for five? :))

Well, today Cinco died. Talk about a birthday letdown.

But, it turns out this everything is actually ok. Apparently Emery really wanted a blue, female fish. Maybe we will name her Cinderella. And pray she doesn't croak when the clock strikes midnight.

Happy birthday Jamison and Emery! We love you!

Anna Kimball is three

Somewhere in the middle of a two-week stretch in which we all passed around a nasty cold and our house resembled a snowstorm of Kleenex, Anna Kimball turned three. (I'm beginning to think we should start celebrating her half-birthday in a bigger way since maybe then she would have enough healthy friends to have a real birthday party. January is the worst!) Mercifully her birthday fell on a day that wasn't quite as snotty or miserable as the rest and we all enjoyed celebrating her life immensely.

It's funny to look back on Emery when she turned 3 and realize how different these two girls are. When Emery turned three she had already established a passion for Cinderella. Anna Kimball could give a hoot about Cinderella, or any other princess for that matter. She knows she's "supposed" to like Snow White since Emery has already claimed Cinderella, but in truth she really has a thing for Arthur.

Here she is modeling her new Arthur "pack-back."

Emery was quick to point out that it is a "boy"color, but judging from the smile on her face, I don't think Anna Kimball minds a bit.

We kept the day simple, but full of fun surprises like trip to Target where the girls got to pick something out from the dollar section and lunch and ice cream at Chick-fil-A.

Of course there was also plenty of playtime at our neighbor's house, from whom Anna Kimball also received her gigantic three balloon.

I wish I could convey accurately in words just how silly and special Anna Kimball is. There's just something about her that's particularly fun and light-hearted. One friend has compared her to a Muppet and commented that she just seems game for anything. Just watching her putter around the house all day, terribly busy with her play kitchen and tending to her baby dolls is enough to give me the giggles. Anna Kimball adores and looks up to Emery, but when Emery is at preschool, I don't think she misses her a bit. (this gives me some relief as we anticipate kindergarten for Emery in the fall.)

There's a lot I could learn from Anna Kimball. She doesn't seem to think too hard about anything, is quick to share with her older sister and is seemingly unperturbed about her failures (i.e. doesn't mind a lick when she has yet another pee accident all over the floor). Anna Kimball, you are a bright ray of sunshine in our house and we don't know what we'd do without you. Not laugh as much, that's for sure. Happy birthday sweet Anna Kimball, we love you!

I think it's a spring flicker

Last night the girls and I walked up to our neighbor's house for a quick visit. It was raining lightly and when Emery noticed the water hitting her cheeks she wondered aloud, "What is that hitting my face?" I told her it was sprinkling but she quickly corrected me, letting me know that it was a spring flicker hitting her face.

Of course. Sometimes I just don't know what to do with her outfit choices other than laugh. They are part ridiculous and part perfectly appropriate for a lively almost five-year-old little girl. Who knew when we went shoe shopping last week that the pair she selected would coordinate so well with her outfit?

In other news, Anna Kimball is mastering the art of potty training. I'm writing this down here so that I won't be discouraged when it comes time to train Jamison -- the first day and a half is dreadful, awful, beyond frustrating, but then it will click. It will.

On day two she took her show on the road to our neighbor's house (does it sound like we go there a lot? We do.) This pic will definitely be making into her rehearsal dinner slideshow one day.

As for Jamison, he's still lapping the house on all fours, most often in search of me. I try to treasure the first hour or so he is awake in the morning, even if it's before 6am, because it is only then that he is truly and utterly content with anything and anyone.

I can't believe we will be celebrating his first birthday in two months. Whoever coined the phrase "The days are long, but the years are short," hit it spot on. This year has been no exception, although when I think back to last March it seems a lifetime ago. Jamison loves to clap his hands, observe his sisters' antics, not play with any of his toys but eat all manner of refuse on the floor and attempt to snatch my iPhone wherever I might have laid it down.

Sometimes I just want to eat his face -- I love the girls but I don't think I ever had quite the appetite for their cheeks as I do for his.