Expecting the unexpected

From the day he was born over four years ago, I have been consistently delighted with Little B.  As he has grown and moved through the young developmental stages, I have never known what to expect other than that he will surprise me and, most of the time, continue to be a joy.  This is not to say that we haven't had our challenging times, because we certainly have, but love forgives a multitude of sins, right?!

Even four year olds love to be held by their mommies

Little B has found a new stride since he turned four and he constantly delights and amazes me.  For example, I needn't have sobbed with grief when I found out Baby P was a boy and I wouldn't have a little girl to enjoy girly things with, because Little B has been enjoying the Frozen soundtrack more than me!  I finally indulged the girly-princessy part of me and bought it for myself a couple weeks ago and ever since Little B has asked to listen to it almost every day.  I even hear him singing the songs to himself under his breath.  I love that he loves it!

Enjoying the snow at Gramma and Grampa's house (with Gramma's gloves!)

He is also, with practically no effort from us, mastering his letters!  He seeks out opportunities to point out and name letters, which I hope is building a foundation in his brain for starting to read.  I'm not in a hurry for that to happen, other than that I know he will be so pleased with himself.  He's also starting to learn numbers, again, completely unprompted.  He regularly asks to push the buttons on the microwave, naming them as he goes, and tells us the numbers on the clocks and digital thermometer.  Hooray for an active, growing brain!

The main thing I don't like about this age is his forceful, commanding attitude that surfaces whenever we tell him something he doesn't want to hear.  For example, when I say, "Little B, it's time to go, please put on your socks and shoes," he will immediately bark out,  "NO!  I don't want to go!" or "Blaaaast!" (Perhaps he is starting to internalize Jake and the Neverland Pirates a little too much?!)  It's a pretty disrespectful tone of voice, so we're trying to react in ways that encourage him to correct the tone and use nicer words.  Or maybe I should just starting shouting pirate words back at him and see how he reacts!

Brother sledding!

Perhaps the most meaningful thing for my mommy heart right now is how Little B is learning and thinking about God.  He sits through our entire church service with us every Sunday, sometimes more wiggly than others, but by his own choice.  I don't think he necessarily learns things from the sermon yet, but he enthusiastically puts his two quarters in the offering plate, he'll sit with us as we pray and recite the Lord's Prayer, and he always lets me hold him when I go up to take Communion.  It is so special to me to share these traditions of our faith with him, and to see him desire to experience them with us.

My precious boy being in worship the way he needed to experience it that day

Much of my parenting mindset these days is wrapped around the fact that almost everything for my kids is a stage.  Little B won't scream at me like a pirate and be disagreeable whenever I ask him to do something forever.    Baby P won't enjoy dumping boxes of cereal out under the kitchen table forever.  Neither one of my kids will constantly ask me for hugs and cuddles multiple times every day.  I'm doing my best to, as they say, enjoy the journey.  It is an amazing privilege.

Decided he needed to sleep in his tent after we had tucked him in!

 

Little words from a big handful

My life is filled with one-word conversations these days.  Baby P's vocabulary has grown dramatically in the past couple months and this stage of baby words tickles our hearts.  I can't capture his inflection or tone through words, but I'll do my best to give you (and future me who won't remember) an idea.

We weren't perfectly equipped with Baby P sized snow gear, so he spent quite a bit of time on the ground

My days often begin with one word - "Ower!" meaning over, which translates to "lift me over the edge of the crib so I can get out!"  In short order he then asks for his "moothie" (smoothie) and "bagel,".  Other favorite foods include "matos" (tomatoes), "nilk" (milk), "cado" (avocado), and "ot dog" (hot dog).  He is also very aware of what cookie, candy, and ice cream means.  Hard to sneak anything past this one!

   

Baby P's favorite word is "hug."  He asks for hugs all day everyday, which is often followed by him enthusiastically throwing his arms around your neck.  His little friend at church has told him that he asks for too many hugs, and this week proposed that they hold hands instead!  Baby P thinks that a hug is the solution to every hurt, either his or someone else's.  They are a pretty endearing apology.

Look at that smirk - it says, "I outsmarted mom and pulled cereal out of the pantry - again!"

 Now that I think about it though, he does have another word he's pretty fond of - "more!"  We hear this quite frequently, whenever he wants more food, more books, more songs, or whatever fun tickle or wrestling game we are playing with him.  We also hear "up" pretty often because although he's closing in on two years old, his favorite place to be is still in the arms of the people he loves, especially mommy and daddy, although let's be honest, it's mostly mommy (sorry Hubby T).  He has heard me say, "In a minute" so often that he'll just repeat "minit" in response.  At least we both understand each other.

First time sledding ended in an exuberant high pitched, "More?!"

And, of course, he has family names down pretty well.  He knows all his grandparents and aunts and uncles.  He loves looking at our family scrapbooks so we point and label the people in the pictures on a regular basis.  Little B did that as a young one too, which has made all the effort I put into scrapbooking the last couple years seem worth it.  The only Baby P word I can't explain is "may-may" which is what he calls his blanket.  No idea how that sound came to be associated in his brain with blanket, but oh well, at least we know what he's talking about! 

Baby P doesn't have too many phrases yet, but those he does have follow a very specific pattern: "Read it," "get it," "got it," "hab (have) it".  If you could hear his tone when he says these phrases, you'd understand that he can be quite bossy, I wonder whose side of the family he got that from?! 

His favorite non-verbal sound is to shriek at the top of his powerful little lungs.  Most of the time this is in reaction to his brother taking something or tackling him or whatever situation he's in that has made him unhappy.  I can mostly distinguish between this general shriek that we hear all the time and a genuine cry of pain, like the one that followed this shiner today, courtesy of his big brother.

Not sure if the black and blue comes through well in this picture, but it's definitely there, right under and to the side of his eye!

Baby P has a very forceful, exuberant personality and I love the ways that it comes through in the way he speaks to us.  For better or worse I have my hands full with this kid.  I'm pretty sure "no" will continue to be a key word in Baby P's vocabulary with me and vice versa! 

Up next - update on Little B!