Family Update: Snowflakes

The days are so hectic at home with the kids, their shenanigans and the daily grind of every day life that it’s easy for it all to pass by unnoticed. So I’d like to take a minute, take a step back and reflect on life as of now, this very moment, in our lives.

Ali’s just a few days shy of turning six months. It’s a bit unbelievable. I mean, when another six months passes by our little girl will be a full-grown ONE-year-old and it literally feels like I just found out I was pregnant with her. She’s rolling from front to back and back to front all the time now. We're working on "sitting up" and she can do it for a few seconds but then plops down into the pillows surrounding her. She’s incredibly needy social and loves to be held, talked, laughed and smiled at at all times and hates, I mean, HATES being set down as in I have never seen so much anger many tears from a little thing before. Ohh, don't let that sweet, adorable smile and pink ribbon bow fool you, she's got quite a voice.

She gives me a deeper understanding and appreciation that every child truly is different and us, as parents, have to cater to that child's specific needs. Long ago, when Jarod and I were parents to only one child, our baby Aiden, we would scuff at parents with crying, needy kids. They spoil their kids too much. Why don't they put them on a schedule?? We were young, dumb and ignorant and thought we had it all figured out. You see, Aiden was such a happy baby that people would actually ask me, in all seriousness, "if he ever cried."

Happy baby Aiden at six months old :)

I like to think of him as the "sucker baby," which is a baby that's so easy that they sucker you into having more kids (and in our case, more kids verrry, very soon) without any sort of return policy in place.

No returns!! Well, what about an exchange annnd I'll throw in my shoes?!

Tristen has really transformed these last few weeks and is talking so much. His words sound like jibbery-jabbish but I can understand his language: a happy, enthusastic, "NO!" means snow, "int" means paint, "ack" means snack, "wa-wa" means water (and any kind of beverage), "ankohh" means thank you, "anna" means banana, "sta" means star, "tary" means sorry and "happy" means up please, just to name a few. He tries to repeat everything his big brother says; mostly it's a good thing and other times it's                 (ohh, you can fill in the blanks). They say kids with older siblings develop faster but they failed to inform me that their attitudes comes in sooner too. Yay!!

But truly, he's adorable and is the sweetest, cuddliest little boy ever. All of his bad bahavior just fills out the window and out of my mind when he unexpectedly comes up, tightly wraps his little toddler arms around my neck and plants a big, wet one on my lips. My heart melts and all is forgiven and I'm forced to call Jarod  and tell him that I've changed my mind again and we can keep him.

 

Our little man turns 2 next month, February 4th, and I'm at a loss for words. Our oldest little man turns 4 the following month, March 7th, and I'm at an even great loss for words. How did this happen?? They were my tiny little babies just yesterday and now they're turning into boys. So crazy.

 

Some days Aiden seems like he's getting easier to parent and other days, I want to put my hands around his little neck I'm not quite sure how to handle him. He's incredibly sensitive so things are much more complicated when dealing with him but he's kind and thoughtful and we're really blessed to have him. He has become a little boy and though I'm sad to see the innocent, baby-ness melt away from his face and his thoughts, I'm finding enjoyment in his personality coming out more and more.

He's incredibly funny. He'll make goofy faces and say witty jokes that make me laugh. He tells me stories about dinosaurs, trains and very "far, far, far, far away" places. His imagination is fascinating and I can now appreciate when mothers of older children tell me that there are other stages that are just as fun (if not more) than the baby ones.

Yet, he's still young enough to believe that  dinosaurs roam the world in some far, distant place and Lightning McQueen and Mater really do exist and just happen to live in Disneyland. We're actually planning a trip to go to Disneyland in the upcoming months and when I asked him if he was excited to meet Mickey Mouse, while holding up one of the kids' Mickey Mouse toys, he replied, matter-of-factly, "no, I just want to meet Mater and Lightning McQueen." I know most of the memories he'll have at Disneyland will fade away in the deep recesses of his mind but the excitement and magic he'll feel from meeting his infamous "friends" are exactly what I want for his childhood. While he still believes in magic, I want him to revel in all of it's glory.

Also, it's been snowing here in Washington lately and the first day the first few snowflakes made their way onto the ground, I found him searching out the window and innocently asking the gray snowing sky, "Saaanta, where are you?" I think it's adorable that he correlates Santa's presence with the falling of snowflakes (sighhh :) I'm trying to fully appreciate, embrace and hold onto all of these innocent moments because I know they're as fleeting as snowflakes and they'll be gone before I know it.

Snow footprints of me, Aiden and Tristen (January 17, 2012).

It's bittersweet watching my kids grow up before my eyes. It's wonderful that they're healthy and are developing right on track, and for that I'm truly thankful. But I definitely have many, many moments where I cannot wait until they're older but at the same time, there are infinite amount of moments where I would like to freeze time and capture and bottle up their exactness down to the their tiny toes, their innocent minds, their untainted hearts and the way they believe I'm the prettiest, funniest, smartest, bravest, best person that ever lived. I want to keep those moments forever.

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