We’ve been busy-busy-busy soaking up every ounce of summer ’round here, but yesterday was a quiet at home day between two big trips.  A perfectly ordinary day to document.

This little booger sneaks into our bed nearly every early morning

Snuggles

Dad heads off to work

Last night’s ice cream bowls

Extracting the sap from H’s hair (with butter)

Lunchtime!

Trying (in vain) to nurse a wounded garter snake back to life

Walk downtown to the farmers’ market

A discovery that lead to the googling of “difference between crickets and grasshoppers”

The dinner shuffle

BLTs!

Capped off by a much-needed night out with friends

I watched you fall asleep today, snuggled right in the crook of my arm in a rarer-than-rare nap (which I had to lay beside you to induce).  In earlier days I’d grumble about those minutes paused from the hustle of the perpetually running list of things needing doing… but now I know (or at the very least, am learning).  Now I know that this won’t last forever.  That it didn’t last forever.  And so today I simply relished your sweaty brow, the way your eyes don’t fully close even when you’re deep asleep (just like Henry), the sleep-smile that formed on your lips, just as your baby-self.

You are, at three (plus), a force to be reckoned with.  You are full of joy for life and love for people (once they’ve entered your inner-circle) but oh you have a healthy portion of piss and vinegar, too.  Part of it I’m sure is the three thing (which has been – ahem – a challenging age for all of you) but a large part of it is your lowest-on-the-totem-pole ranking which leaves you constantly striving for inclusion and absolutely insistent on being heard.  I can speak to this side of you quite adeptly, for I myself still suffer from the youngest-child effect.  Thankfully, your brothers have mostly figured out how to deal with the screaming, or even the whacking, which comes out when you feel violated, or excluded, or, worst of all, insulted.  I recently said to Henry, “He’s a cute little bugger, isn’t he?”  H responded: “Yeah, but he’s not as nice as he looks.”  A month or so ago, trying to get you to sleep on a visit to Tacoma, you got out of bed for the umpeenth time and I sternly said, “I don’t like it when you do that, Maxwell.”  You looked me right in the eyes and said:  “You don’t like it, but I like it, and that’s just the way it goes”  It took so much self control not to throttle you, but I digress…

Oh, Max.  You are indeed a pistol, but you are so much more, too.  You are probably more sensitive to the feelings of others than either of your brothers.  You hate seeing others upset (unless you’ve worked diligently to cause the upset yourself).  You notice things – birds singing, “I like your hair, mama,” tiny ants, “Is that a new blue skirt?”  You are almost always the first one to express appreciation, to say “thank you.”  You are careful, thinking through your actions and seeing things like if I tip my plate to get it to the counter, the contents will likely slide off the plate and onto my chest (other siblings who shall remain nameless still struggle with these cause-and-effect things).

Excited about the offer to play baseball with dad, you exclaimed, “I’ll go get my golfing mitts!”

You recently emerged from a strange obsession with both Chip and Dale (the cartoon characters) and California.  Not really sure where the California part came from, but they joined somehow in your head and you spoke for months, as your birthday approached, that you would be going to California with Chip and Dale.

You are a great companion, and always the first to insist on accompanying both me and dad anywhere we’re going – grocery store, the dump, and most especially the places we were hoping to go sans kids.  When it ends up being just you along for the ride (which happens often, as the allure of errands has certainly worn off for your brothers), you are endlessly chatty and almost always patient and happy.

You are more sensitive than either of your brothers.  You have a highly-tuned radar for all things scary, be it the lion that roars in the MGM intro to old Tom and Jerry cartoons or the toy dinosaur at a friend’s house that stomped and roared and sent you in to a minor panic attack.  You cover your ears (even if the scary thing has no sound) and run, usually screaming, from the room.  This is slowly lessening over time, and you no longer cry about ambulances going by, but I know that at a basic level, this is who you are.  It is absolutely fascinating to me to see how different three kids with the same genetic input can be.

You were the first of the kids to break a bone, which surprised all of us, for you are generally both nimble and thoughtful in your actions (a miraculous combination after adjusting to Mo’s opposite traits).  We were visiting at Jen’s house in Tacoma and you tried to carry a huge Playmobil firetruck down their steep third-floor stairs, tripping and probably landing on said firetruck.  You were upset, but focused for a good long while on the fact that the truck had broken.  Turns out, your collar bone was, too.  Everyone at the hospital was amazing, and you were surprisingly at ease considering the situation in general and your fearfulness in particular.   Your one moment of near-freak came when they talked about the x-ray room, saying they’d take a picture of your skeleton.  You looked at me with terrified eyes and said, “but there aren’t any ghosts or witches are there?!”  Apparently your knowledge of skeletons was limited to Halloween costumes.  But you rallied, and were such a brave boy at the hospital that Nonna insisted “I’m buying him that damn firetruck tomorrow!”

One of the new developments of the past few months is Max the Clown.  You’ve started trying consciously to make us (especially Henry and Morgan) laugh.  Throwing “poop” and “fart” into conversations is generally successful, as are your “funny faces,” seen below.

Also fascinating to watch are the relationships that have developed between you and those brothers of yours.   Though Mo still generally thinks of you as a pest (and you generally are, to him), Henry really goes out of his way in a completely endearing attempt to include you, and keep you appeased.  He talks to you in a sing-songy voice and tries to convince you that what he’s offering is the coolest thing there is (and just happens to be the thing he doesn’t want).  Although you’re less apt to destroy their creations simply for the sake of destruction (that was a fun phase), you still mainly exist on the periphery of their play.  Some days I worry about your being the third wheel, but I remember quickly that two years is huge, developmentally, and that as the days go by it’s becoming more and more Three Musketeers-esque.

And now you are three.  In the last year you’re learned to peddle a bike, dress yourself, eat an ice cream cone without a catastrophe, climb over the fence, stop napping (wah!), and go to school without tear-shedding (only took a month to get there)…

We did a family party with Grandma and Grandpa and Dylan and then you specifically requested a friend party with a superhero theme.  Nonna saved mama’s arse by sewing capes for all your buddies (plus two ridiculously cute tiny ones for Chip and Dale) and they were a roaring success.

The three year-old superhero obsession lives on

One of my favorite developments of this year was the beginning of friendships.  You and Kelton (and Baxter and Sam and Owen) have shifted from the parallel play of two year-olds to the cooperative “I’ll be Batman and you can be Superman, ok?” play of real kids.  At your last playdate at Kelton’s house, you showed up in jeans and he decided that he wanted to wear jeans just like you.  So he went to his room and changed.

Your own Big Wheel!  Now you don’t have to fight with Morgan every. damn. day about who gets to ride the one HE got when he turned three!  (Except now you just fight about who rides which one…)

Superhero Chip and Dale taking a snooze in Henry’s cleats

While it is so incredibly cliche to say “I can’t imagine our family without you” – I truly can’t imagine our family without you.  I’m finishing this weeks and weeks after I first started, and you’ve suffered through some strange summer flu bug for the past twenty-for hours, vomiting over and over and over.  You went to bed before we ate dinner tonight, and it felt so strange to sit around our table without your cheery little self (getting up thirty seconds after we sit down, exclaiming “I have to peeeeeee!”  like it just hit you, a total emergency.  Seriously, you do this every night.  It is so aggravating and yet so funny.)

I love you, Maxy.  WE love you.  And I am so thankful I get to be your mama.

xoxox

:: these boys o’ mine

They are loud, and talk of bodily functions at the dinner table, and leave tiny rubber rats on kitchen counters, but damn, are they also sweet and fabulously entertaining and endlessly creative, too.

:: Squeezing in a run before the rain

:: A husband who spends a night helping friends on the verge of opening restaurant #2

:: Goldfinches at the birdfeeder, ducks and pheasants and quails scampering through the yard

:: Reading The Hobbit out loud to a rapt audience of two

:: Playdates that alter the dynamic of our day (for the better)

:: Thunderstorms

:: Wilco pandora station as the back-drop for a productive work day

:: Only 19 days of school left!

:: The venus fly trap in our kitchen

:: A week not necessitating the hour-by-hour planner page I used last week

:: Impending sister (+ nephew + brother-in-law) visits!

:: Seeds soaking in ziplock bags, just as I remember

:: Devoting an entire hour(s?) to assembling gifted Lego sets.  And getting thanked profusely.  But actually enjoying it.

:: Tadpoles

It’s incredible, really, that I’ve stuck with my photo-a-day endeavor for nearly a year and yet  continue to fail in maintaining this here document of the daily goings-on.  My perfectionism is too-often crippling, and I never find the time to write it all just so.  But clearly this getting it all coherent and maybe even articulate thing isn’t working for me.  I really want to focus on the smaller, daily things that I know I’ll forget, not necessarily a bi-monthly cursory description of where the boys are all at.  I want to remember Henry walking into the kitchen and nonchalantly asking: “Can I please have a carving knife and some twine?”  (Yes, he did.)

To that end, I will now attempt a twenty minute stream-of-consciousness blog post to accompany the pictures that have been sitting in this draft for weeks (months?).  The thesis of this jot-it-down and throw it out there post would be that I am wildly in love with all three boys in each of their particular ages/stages.  I am enjoying motherhood in a way I never really knew possible.  While this implies that maybe I wasn’t particularly enjoying it before, I really just mean that it’s even better (and also significantly less hard).  Pretty sure my strengths in this parenting gig lie more heavily with older kids.  They are so darn funny.  And interesting.  And self-entertained.  Did I mention easier?  It’s been especially fun to watch the dynamic duo of H + Mo slowly morph into the Three Amigos of H + Mo + Max.  Slowly, slowly, he catches up (and is now THREE!  But that’s a whole other post…)

The sun has begun making it’s appearance (despite the fact that SNOW is again in the forecast for tonight…) so we’ve been out-of-doors more and more, and Mo completed the last step of the two-wheeler milestone he began last summer by figuring out how to start (and more importantly, stop) by himself.  Which means that all three will often ride bikes out front for an hour at a time, while I putter in earshot.  Absolutely revolutionary!  The theme is beginning to sound like “thank god my kids are out of my hair now” but really, they’re just so damn happy it’s impossible not to be happy alongside them.

And what else have we been up to? This ticking clock (really my drooping eyelids) combined with a refusal to save this damn thing one more time without just publishing it already is stressing me out…  Perhaps bullet points will help?

:: Swimming lessons.  The teacher asked what my “goals” were and I told her I needed them to be drowning-proof.  Three lessons later and Henry can swim the long length of the pool!  Mo’s still a ways from putting all the components together but at least has learned a bit of treading water and recovering to a back float.  I’m a few years from reading poolside while they swim, but once I get there, I’ll inevitably miss this part, right?

:: My friends are having babies!  Aside from my nearest and dearest BFF who took the plunge (fell down the rabbit hole?) not long after I, this is new and exciting.  Of course many, many friends we’ve made post-kids have kids, but the pre-baby clan has shown more restraint (birth control mastery?) than we.  At any rate, it has been fun to watch.  (Though maybe not so good for my own uterus and it’s biological insistence on having twelve.)

I took the littler two out for cocoa a few weeks back, and while snapping some photos, the woman sitting next to us asked if I’d like for her to take a pic of all of us.  I’m quick to be self-critical, but love having a bit of photographic evidence that I was indeed around once in awhile

:: Another exciting new milestone: representational art!  I thought the boys were artistic imbeciles so long did it take for even a stick figure to emerge, but now that they’re interested/enthusiastic about drawing it has just exploded!  They’re devouring paper by the ream-ful (literally) and I’m having a hard time sorting through and deciding which to keep because it all feels so magical right now.  Must scan a few and post…

Working on dis-assembling pallets to make garden boxes for H’s class

Henry’s “Book Signing” for “E is for Earthworm” (at the Co-op)

:: If it were even possible, we’ve fallen more in love with Henry’s excellent school.  So confident it will serve Mo equally well next (next?!) year. 

:: Celebrating the one-year mark of the Big Move and feeling ever more grateful that we bit the bullet and did what we needed to do.  It’s ridiculous, really, how well it’s all played out.  How much we love it here.

Out on a little trail-scootering/dam-constructing jaunt just down the way from our house

:: It seems I am perpetually torn as an individual and we are perpetually torn as a family as to how to make the best use of our time.  Weekends seem to magnify the tug-of-war, and there is always the temptation to get “caught up”  versus the temptation to enjoy the too-little time as a family.  The choice became easier to make once I learned that catching-up is an unattainable myth.  You’ll never really be caught up.  At least not in this sloppy stage of life with so much unpredictability and so many people needing so much from you.  So sometimes, you just need to opt out of returning the emails or cleaning up the inevitable urine puddles at the base of the toilet (sigh) and head south, where it’s 10 degrees warmer.

This is our favorite early-spring spot (which just means that we came several times last spring).  The canyon is a straight shot up and back, so boys can forge ahead without worry of going the wrong way.  Of course there is all kinds of other trouble they could manage to get into, but I figure I’d better start getting comfortable with that reality now…

:: Random Henry quote: “You know what I don’t like about commercials?  They’re always like: ‘Buy this car.  It’s the best.  Blah, blah, blah.’”

::  The above photo reminded me of another important development of note: the complete and utter Harry Potter obsession that has swept the house.  Sometime between now and the last time I posted, Henry devoured the first four books (partway into #5 now…).  His brothers are enraptured by association, especially with the spells.  The house/van/yard/stroller are all cluttered with stick “wands” collected and they love shouting “avada kadavra!” at full volume while the victim throws himself to the ground with dramatic flourish.

After the “hike” we grabbed a spot along the river for some hot dog cooking and rock scrambling.

And intimidating mothers with swords, apparently.

I’m already way over my twenty-minute challenge (though it remains jumbled and possibly incoherent), so I’ll end with what may be my all-time favorite Morgan quote (after I sang “Angels Watching Over Me” at bedtime): “I don’t know if I even believe in angels. <thoughtful pause>  I think maybe moms are angels.  But I do believe in Santa Claus.”

So much more to come – and hopefully not in six weeks, either.  G’night!

I can’t remember a February as pleasant.  The four-seasons nature of this new place seems to have lessened that terrible draaaaagging out feeling of late winter (of course check back with me in April when it’s still cold and I might sing a different tune).

But what really made the month, and what continues to keep me nearly giddy with happiness, or at least contentedness, is that we have arrived.  One year later (exactly), and our feet are firmly planted.  Mark LOVES his job.  Really, loves it.  There is a rotating cycle of the boys’ friends coming through the front door, I have a slew of folks to call on if (ok, when) I’m running late to pick H. up from school, we’re having friends over for meandering Friday night dinners wherein the kids eat first, then watch movie after movie while the adults eat a leisurely dinner and forget about things like bedtime and hangovers, and on and on and on.  And it feels darn good.

But back to February.  We had a great visit with my parents early in the month.  While I miss the drop-by nature of  living a quarter mile from them, there really is something magical about a whole chunk of days devoted entirely to being together.  The kids, of course, are in heaven to have such undivided adult attention (well, as undivided as it can be with a couple of siblings vying for the same), and even I feel like we’ve had more time to really talk in the longer visits.  We try to explore new places when they come, even if it means frigid February picnics consumed mainly in the car on top of the breathtaking butte overlooking the snowy Palouse.

The weekend following that visit we headed to Spokane to celebrate Darcy’s birthday with ice skating and pizza at Rocky’s, then the next day took the kids to the Children’s Theater production of Willa Wonka. Yes, Spokane is our “big city” wherein we go to the theater and eat in restaurants.  The drive is just a smidge shorter than the of-traveled (in our previous life) stretch of I-5 between Bellingham and Tacoma, but the two-lane through the country thing feels so much easier to handle on a Sunday evening.  And we’ve perfected the trip pretty well, bringing headlamps so the boys can still read their books, ensuring we have bread + milk + cereal + cheese before leaving so as not to require the torturous stop on the way home (where Max unfailingly pees his pants in the carseat while Mark runs in), leaving late enough that Max will hopefully sleep on the drive, but not too late that if no one sleeps, we’re screwed.  And really, a few up-and-backs to Spokane is a small price to pay to sustain cousin bonds like the ones such visits sustain.

We all spent a lot of time admiring the cuteness that is Grace

Henry found the sunspot and moved his lunch to the middle of the kitchen to enjoy it

The highlight of February, though, was a magical weekend getaway to Nelson B.C. – sans children.  Yes, TWO nights WITHOUT our kids.  My marvelously clever husband concocted the whole thing without an ounce of micro-managing by yours truly.  And thanks to his incredibly generous (and brave) parents, we skipped away without the slightest hesitation that they were in competent hands.  I know – we are very, very lucky.

It’s hard to decide the highlight.  Just the drive up there – breathtaking scenery, no refereeing or snack distribution duty, long, meandering conversations like we used to have – was rejuvenating.  And then the sleeping in, eating delectable food, exploring, beer at 3 o’clock, a long walk, more food (that I neither cooked nor cut into bite-size pieces nor cleaned up), remembering how smitten I am with this man…

We honestly didn’t talk too much about the boys.  We talked about them, of course, but they are all in such good places right now, the crises non-existent, that mostly we marveled at them.  The biggest difference between a one-night away (which we’ve done twice since kids) and the two-night was that we both were really able to step back, step away, think Big Picture.  Evidence of just how much I “stepped away”?  I took only these two pictures.  Literally.  And for me that’s saying a lot.  I was too busy seeing.

And then back to reality – schedules and who’s driving who and what’s for dinner and why are these underwear on the table?!  But it was lovely while it lasted.

Henry has recently discovered comics – Calvin & Hobbes and Garfield are favorites – and this was his first attempt at creating his own.  “A guy shakes a wine bottle too hard and it explodes in his face!” he narrates.

Beautiful, no?

Now that I write this, I realize that so definitively declaring the Nelson getaway the highlight precludes just how much damn fun we had when my brother Matt and his wife Milissa and their sweet daughter, Kate, made the trek to visit.  We loved showing them our little town, catching up, watching the cousins romp, and especially sneaking away while the littles ate mac n’ cheese and watched a movie with a sitter to eat a fantastic dinner at our schmanciest local option.  And having snow to play in was just the icing on the cake.

Now we’re working on getting them to move over here…

And just a few more random bits:

Such good high school humiliation fodder…

Birdhouses!  (Or, what the hell are we going to do with this first wiiiiide open winter weekend?)

More snow

More cuteness

More crafts (that Mark insists I call “projects”

Dad putting Mom’s attempt at a snowman to shame

I’m just back from an emergency dental appt (cracked tooth) and feeling sorry for myself about a myriad of things: spending coveted moolah on said cracked tooth, the blazing pain of said tooth, the nature of my job being the one that gets pushed aside for other family necessities like last-minute Spanish snack buying and teacher conferences, and on and on and on.

So instead of attempting to work in the pesky twenty-minute window now available to me, I decided instead to hop in here and post some pictures/updates that will inevitably make me feel happy (and remind me that I am indeed doing something worthwhile).

I’ve let this blog slide in the way of thoughtful or reflective insights and relied more and more heavily on photos to tell the stories of our days.  Which is all fine and good (and conducive to my decided lack of time to form coherent thoughts), but there is so much I don’t (or can’t) take photos of…

Our littlest is now not-so little.  His speech has exploded and he delights us with the thoughts and ideas he can now express.  He recently scribbled on a piece of paper, then brought it to me and told me, matter-of-factly: “This says, ‘Dear Chip and Dale, see you tonight!’”  While showering today, he brought in a plastic cup from his little kitchen and offered me “lemon tea” – assuring me “there’s no bombs or explosives in it.”  Good to know…

The “I do everything by myself” fight has been replaced by “I will contradict everything you say.”   The jury is still out on which is worse.  I think I’d take the contradiction, as I can generally ignore or roll my eyes, but his older brothers find him absolutely infuriating right now.  He’ll hold up a Playmobil guy and ask Morgan “Is this a knight or a ninja?” and when Mo replies, “Knight” he’ll look him right in the eye and say, matter-of-factly, “Noooo, it’s a NINJA!”  Much as I try to convince them to respond with a sarcastic “Ooookay, Max,” they can’t help but get exasperated, trying futilely to prove their point.

Thankfully, that type of orneriness is sporadic, and he is generally a pretty smiley, self-entertained little dude.  He is currently obsessed with dressing up in all manner of costume (knight helmet + spiderman mask + generic cape + cowboy boots + socks on hands as “missile shooters” is a recent example).  He also thinks he is about two years older than he is, and now refuses to wear his Thomas the Train or “baby” underwear, preferring instead to steal from his brothers’ stash of superheros varieties.  I vacillate between wanting to keep him this magical age forever, and wanting to cross the threshold where there are no butts to be wiped and we can all watch the same movies.  But secretly I know that I will someday (likely soon) long for these days.  The poignancy of his fleeting toddler-hood hits me hard, often.

Henry, too, is growing up faster than I’d like.  The pants I bought at the start of the school year now skim his ankles, and I’m astounded by the gains he’s made in just about every other area, too.  He is loving Kindergarten, making great friends, and moving at warp speed through all things academic.  I find myself hesitant to talk much about his reading level or math skill or what have you, both because I fear it comes across as bragging and because we’re trying to emphasize that while reading, say, might come easily to him, other kids are gifted musicians, or can draw really well, or speak in front of a big crowd, and that all of those things are worthwhile and valuable and yadda yadda yadda.  Basically, we want to avoid his being an intolerable brainiac that can’t relate to the other 95% of the population and who rolls his eyes at their ineptitude to boot.  We can do our best at all of that, of course, but his wonderful Kindergarten teacher (whose Masters degree is specialized towards gifted education) is helping us understand that we’re not just dealing with a kid who learned to read early and will eventually level out with the rest of his classmates.  In her words, this is a matter of IQ, and we need to appreciate the reality that entails – keeping him engaged and challenged and focusing his talents.  Which, as his parents, is both daunting and exciting.

When he’s not enveloped in a book, he’s likely involved in some type of craft (although Mark prefers we call them “projects”). It started with a paper airplane obsession and once he found the right section at the library it has expanded to origami, paper mache, pop-up cards, comics…  I’m terrible at orchestrating such projects, so I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this began right about the time he could tackle them on his own – at least in some modified way.  I might never be able to find my stapler/a rubber band/tape, but I try to appreciate the resourcefulness and determination (not to mention the fact that his improvisations generally mean I didn’t intervene).

One of the other noticeable changes I’ve seen in H. over the last few months is an emotional maturity, the beginnings of thinking beyond the immediate moment, and beyond his own needs/wants.  When Max ripped a cherished Valentine yesterday Henry became hysterical, and I could see that he was barely controlling the rage.  I walked him in to his room and sat with him for a few seconds before he blurted out, still sobbing, “I just don’t know how to control my temper!  I want to step on his face!”  Yes, I’m saying that his NOT stepping on Max’s face is a sign of growth… sigh.  But it’s a start.  And I have to laugh when he pulls the I’m a sophisticated Kindergartener card, saying in exasperation about his brothers: “I hope when they’re six they have more manners.”  Me too, Henry, me too.

Mo begged and begged and begged some more to sign up for gymnastics, and I felt like a rock star when I came through

Morgan has blossomed in the most wonderful way over the past six months.  Early four + the Big Move did not do the child well, and it has been such an immense relief to watch the pain-in-the-ass-ness of those months fade.  In a family of three closely-spaced boys there is an unfortunate amount of type-casting that occurs.  It’s easy to think of one kid as the intellectual, one the clown, one the athlete or whatever.  Of course we know such thinking fails the labeled kid, but we’re realizing, too, that the roles are not nearly as clear-cut as it’d be convenient to believe.  Morgan still thinks outside of the box (often as though the box itself doesn’t exist), and is wildly creative, but he is not those things at the expense of  being smart.  The kid is brilliant, actually.  In a completely different way than Henry is.  When counting a randomly arranged group of objects, he’ll move all around the page, in no apparent order, yet arrive at the right answer every time.  He is eerily good at puzzles, but again, takes none of my type-A “start with the edges” advice.  Often he’ll do a good half a puzzle before even flipping all the pieces over.  He has made it over the hump of learning to read and is thrilled with the new skill, asking daily to “practice.”

Morgan is the king of random questions and hilarious quotables around the house.  He wants to know how light bulbs make light and what’s the biggest city in the world and how old is the oldest person (mental note: buy a Guinness Book of World Records) and “how high can you go up from Earth?”  He is almost completely UN-self conscious, making funny faces and talking to strangers and loving all things silly.  Knowing the rule of no “bathroom talk” at the dinner table, he stopped mid-sentence to ask, “can we talk about explosives at the table?”  He recently came in to the kitchen from the playroom to ask: “Could you please do a favor for me?  Could you talk Max into being in charge of the hedgehog exhibit at my zoo?  And if you do talk him in to it, could you also give him one of your twenty-five cent coins?”

He still strips down to underwear or pajamas as soon as we enter the house, and takes more prodding than his brothers to get back outside (or go anywhere, really), and he still loves to curl up on the heat vent and all other manner of “cozy,” but his spark is most assuredly restored.  Though difficult to articulate the subtle changes that occur over time, the best way I can describe then versus now is confidence.  He knows he is good at things, trusts he can do things, feels liked and appreciated and all that good stuff.  I walked into a room recently and discovered some kind of mess or something (I can’t even remember, as all messes/damages blend seamlessly together in an endless loop that is my life…).  I asked, exasperated, what had happened, and Mo cheerfully replied: “What?  I didn’t do anything.  Besides, I’m the best kid in this family.”

In short, I love these damn kids!

Starting to wonder if a time will ever come where I don’t reflect on a given month as a “whirlwind.”  I suppose that when I do, I’ll likely miss the very whirlwind-ness that now leaves me wishing for a smidge of less.

But anyways – December.  Yes, December.  Despite bout #3 of pneumonia, and of course the typical holiday business, it was a good one.

We began with the annual Christmas tree cutting down excursion (preceded by a coffee/cocoa stop).  This was our first time doing so in Idaho and it was as good as we had hoped.  (The year we went to Enumclaw on a December weekend and fought with traffic + a goddamn checkpoint verifying our permit was not coincidentally the year we knew we would move east.)

Drive thirty miles east of town, pick a logging road, any logging road, drive a few miles up (deserted) logging road, park, hike around, choose tree, chop down, tie to car and head home, all without every seeing another car.

But not without tromping through the snow a bit, of course

More cookies

Decorating the tree

A nice trip up to Spokane for some shopping (and bonus sewing lessons)

H. reading with Grandpa

Body art

Thanks for the obscenely large gingerbread men, Nonna!

As the chalice in the church’s “pageant”

Sledding (before the big snows)

Making presents

‘Twas the night before Christmas…

Waiting for Mr. Sleepyhead Mo eaaaarly Christmas morning

“Santa came!”

Pit stop from present madness for some cinnamon rolls

Max is thrilled with this (can’t tell what this is)

Putting together lots of teeny-tiny pieces for the coveted Playmobil castle

Seriously, does it get cuter?!

Spy glasses?  Check.  Gyroscope?  Check.

Aaaand… the aftermath

All-in-all, a great Christmas.

H: “How come this drum says ‘Made in India’ but Santa brought it?”

Mo, incredulous that Santa visited every house in the WORLD: “Do they even have toys in Africa?!”

From the list of top-ten things you never want to hear from your two year-old: “I wiped with my finger!”

Henry: “What would a moth call their great-grandma?  A grandMOTH!”

Me, watching Mo dip a piece of string into the pot on the stove containing our dinner: “What is that string you have?”  Mo: “Floss.”  Me (without looking up from dishes): “No floss in the food.”

Mo (from the toilet): “There isn’t much red in the forest.”

Henry (apparently trying to exercise some new vocabulary): “Max is sure being independent. Doesn’t he respect that there are two people in this house who are sick?”

Max: “I had a bad dream about Ewoks and sloth bears!”

Henry: “Why is it ok for you to correct Max when he says something wrong but you’re always telling me it’s rude to correct you?”

Me, after Mo telling me that his stuffed bat’s friend is sick: “I guess he needs to go to the doctor?”  Mo: “Animals don’t go to doctors!”  Me: “Yes, they go to veterinarians – animal doctors.”  Mo, in a whispery voice, “But you know he’s not really real, right mom?”

After Henry told me about someone in his class couldn’t do this or that, and I explained (for the hundredth time) that some people are good at some things and not at others, he asks, completely sincerely: “Is there anything I don’t know how to do?”

And somewhere between the work + school + birthday + holiday thing we squeezed in a fair amount of life.

Lovely in its ordinariness.

Making cookies

Taking baths (these are really only “lovely” until mom comes in freaking out about flooded floors or someone hits their head on the spout for the umpteenth time.  And I act surprised even though it happens every. single. time.)

Snow!

The requisite post-snow hot cocoa

The requisite silly face

Cooking in undies

Dance parties (may or may not have been blasting Creedence)

A party for a special 6 year-old

Complete with decorate-your-own cupcakes (and adults biting tongues about high fructose corn syrup)

Celebration #2 at Rocky’s Pizza in Spokane (Dom teaching Mo some of his mad dance skillz)

Marveling at the annual Nonna birthday card (wherein he is transformed into Aang, from a favorite cartoon “Avatar: The Last Airbender”)

Letting Morgan help him open presents

More snow!

Thanksgiving in Tacoma (After the arduous 11+ hour trek to get there, we had an absolutely fantastic time)

Playing in the Tacoma version of a snow day (the UPS campus was scattered with cafeteria trays for sledding)

More soon, as I attempt to catch up and stay current with this here blog (though really, One Dandelion is getting all the love)…

That is the irritated, whining complaint I hear eight thousand times a day from the two brothers – and often myself – who have the misfortune of living with this little maniacal tyrant.

So it turns out I spoke too soon.  That two year-old funk?  Still here, actually.  Still raging on.

(I know, looks can be deceiving.)

This little headstrong “I do everything by myself and will automatically recoil from any choice selected without my painstakingly slow and irrational input” stinker continues to try my patience and force a refinement of my parenting skills.  To be honest, I’ve never had too much trouble with the “terrible twos.”  At that age, I was still pretty capable of pulling the wool over their eyes, convincing them that the option I wanted them to choose was obviously the best, most fun, option.  Temper tantrums about leaving the park could be resolved as simply as saying “Say goodbye to the park.”  Bam, mindset changed, crisis averted.  But not with Max.  Oh no.

This one is a pistol.  The other morning he was so pissed that Mark wiped his butt instead of me, he got back on the toilet and forced out an additional turd just so I could have the privilege of taking a turn, too.

He will not be deterred.  He will not let up.  He will not let any perceived injustice stand.  And he no longer naps (all of the parents in the audience just let out a horrified gasp!).

But I guess we’ll keep him.  That cow-licked do is pretty irresistible, after all.  Even his ever-peeking butt crack is cute.

*** Edited to add (though hopefully without jinxing it): Again we seem to have emerged, semi-triumphant (for you are never entirely triumphant in the parenting gig), from the abyss of awfulness.  Tonight, at bedtime, he told me: “You’re my best friend, mama.  We like each other, huh?”  Indeed.