Living

I was all ready to up and quit the whole blogging thing.  It has recently just felt a little too much like yet-another-thing-I-could't-keep-up-with and it was getting me down.  So instead of going down with it, I was just going to quit.  (I am sure there is a life lesson in there somewhere.)  But then something came over me today and I just felt, well, I wouldn't say inspired, but perhaps motivated.  I didn't want to give up this little window into my kids' lives.  The windows might be smaller and there might be fewer of them but at least they are still there, in case some day my kids ever want to read and learn about their lives.  Perhaps that is the historian in me, creating my own little family archive.

And, I don't want to "catch up" because that would imply that I fell behind, when really what I was doing was living my life and trying my best to enjoy it without getting overwhelmed with the smallness of my children and the bigness of their needs.  I am mostly successful, but not always.

We have enjoyed Thing #3 growing and developing, sometimes slowly and sometimes all at once.  She refused to walk for about 6 months, despite the fact that she knew perfectly well how to do it.  She just wasn't ready to let go, but then she did.  And now she is gone, all over the place.  It is good that we moved into a smaller house because between her and Thing #2, they can't go too far.  I gave Thing #3 her first haircut.  Unfortunately, it was not pretty.  I mean she was totally adorable but I cut her bangs way, way, way too short.  Someday I hope she will forgive me.

For a while she was obsessed with wearing these bracelets, all of the time.
This is her showing it off.
This was also about two months after I cut her bangs.  (Sorry Alice!)

Thing #2 is hilariously exhausting.  He talks to everyone and anyone who will listen, often introducing himself, even if you have known him since he was born.  He knows how to spell his name and just the other day he traced every single letter in the alphabet in about two minutes.  He is good.  He loves doing crafts at school and is very proud of what he makes.  And he still lives in his own little world in his head.  He can be looking right at you but have no idea what you are saying, or even that you are talking to him at all.  He is just busy....thinking.  He is deceptively smart.  Just when we think he is doing something very silly or frustratingly bad, it turns out that he is doing something very perceptive or clever.  I am working on the patience to see his thoughts through to the end.

And Thing #1, well, he turned 6.  What?  Yes, he turned 6.  He loves being 6.  Loves it!  He loves Kindergarten and loves the bus.  He loves playing at home with his brother.  He loves chasing after his sister and playing hide and seek with her.  He just loves everything about life at the moment.  But he is also very realistic.  The other day he developed a "Save the Animals" game with the rescued stuffed animals from our garage that I was hoping would end up in someone else's house but instead found their way back into mine.  He was so happy to see the return of his beloved animals that he played with them nonstop for the entire weekend, saving them from the lava or the ocean or whatever else he came up with.  He dedicated a lot of energy to this game but not all of the animals made it.  In fact, every time he played this game, different animals died.  He just stated it calmly and rationally, like it was just a fact of life.  And, I guess it.