lucistill my little light. actively engages lij in play. they have a game called "buttcheeks" which means they make a large fort in the living room (so all the blankets and pillows end up there). they identify any object, then subsequently identify its butt. they tiptoe up to it (e.g. doll, car, ottoman) and touch its 'butt' and yell, "BUTTCHEEKS!!!!" then they scamper into the fort and peek out to see if, somehow, the buttcheeks are coming after them. i've had the pleasure of joining in this from time to time. i also like playing hide and seek, but she gets mad if she can't find me. after a couple bad hiding spots - wearing a coat and standing in the coat closet, getting caught half-inside the dryer only to find at the last second there was laundry in there... i finally found a spot where even gary couldn't find me ... the fold of the hall closet door partially opened! they looked in but not really! so hard to keep from laughing out loud!
she's reading 'jack and annie books'. and the clincher... read to lij for almost 30 minutes the other day while gary and i had coffee and 'couchtime'. i hear at lunchtime she sometimes plays by herself, so she brings her journal to write/draw. i try not to get sad thinking about it, but she thinks of it as a valid option.
luci has a lot of questions about life, death, and faith. what if someone you love doesn't love Daddy God? is santa claus really real in the north pole or is this something kids are just told? why do we have to die to get to Heaven? i found her in the laundry room saying a quick decade for happiness in general. she added that she preferred purple flowers to reach Heaven with each Hail Mary. i'm sure Mama got the message.
we were driving to school last week, and as always, we pass the cemetery and say a quick prayer. she said, "mommy, if i died before you, would you put a pumpkin by my grave?" i was silent for a moment. she continued, "if you died before me in the fall, i would leave you a pumpkin and a pile of leaves. if you died before me in the winter, i would leave you snow angels to keep you company. if you died before me in the spring i'd bring you flowers... and you'd still get a mother's day card. if you died before me in the summer, i'd bring a beach umbrella to shade you." by the time we reached the school i was quietly sobbing, hoping no one else would notice, including her.
lijah-bulljaghe's almost four! my weary heart is so sad... he is officially outgrowing thomas the train! i knew in the back of my mind that this eventually happens, hence the "gently used lot of thomas trains" for steals on ebay/craigslist. there's one song that gets me -- 'james and the red balloon'. so sneakily wistful... like thinking of that crisp fall day where he leaves for his first year of college.
lij is morphing into boy. but parts of his body still scream toddler, like his chin/cheeks, toes, hands... i love nibbling the parts that he'll let me; 80% of the time he prefers his
daddy, but he lets me indulge as long as he knows daddy is nearby in case he wants to escape.
he announced yesterday that he will marry luci, his friend. (luci would rather be late for class than miss giving him a hug goodbye in the hallway). he still has a fear of vacuums, and was, according to gary, mesmerized by a transformer episode where a piece of... transformer, i guess... fell onto a kitchen floor and all the appliances became transformers. lij recounted how the dyson-like vacuum became a transformer. so cool.
above all, lij is actually quite simple. he draws several "great walls of china" where he picks different markers and simply blends the colors into large loops of circles until the sheet of paper is saturated. over and over. luci encouraged him to pack their toys up for thanksgiving, and she began stuffing a mini-suitcase full of dolls, polly pockets, books, jewelry... until she couldn't zip it shut. we're only gone for 3 days, i reminded. lij collected 5 sheets of paper, some of which had already 'great walls' on them, 3 markers, and a photo of all of us on his first day of preschool. and his one transformer car (which he only half transforms and thinks the head is the butt and the butt is the head)...
simon babya.k.a. pork gourd, gourdie, gourd-geous, happy wetty simon (lij's nickname), and formerly called 'spooks' but he grew out of the bulging eye phase. grandma used to get sad when we called him spooks, saying, "poor baby... you know they don't have any neuromuscular control at that age!"
i can't believe he's one! we had a "pork & gourd" theme for his birthday. the menu: pork ribs, pork chops, acorn squash, pumpkin pie... he's growing up too fast! four teeth. the gourd slowly shrinking. walking at 9 months... breaking down baby gates by ramming them at top speed with beach balls at 9.5 months... preferring lij's trains and cars to, duh, baby toys... he said 'mama' once at 6 months and one day old. then never again. how strange, it was his first word. (yes gary... IT WAS!!!) but now all he says is 'dada'. i'll sashay up to him and ask sweetly, simon, say mama. he'll vigorously shake his head and say "dada!!!" i believe he's playing me. the kids were watching a cartoon where the main character didn't have a shirt. they began screaming and giggling, "totoy!" simon looked up and exclaimed, "totoy!!!!" i was like, great, can't say mama but says totoy.
his favorite color is green. i figured this out when he only played with lij's green trains... and luci's green doll accessories, the green fridge magnet letters, the green boats in the tub. his morning routine is to sit in his food chair and watch mother angelica while the rest of the house gets ready for work/school. i still sneak out the door when he's not looking to avoid a meltdown. apparently the kids were all watching home videos one afternoon, and simon lost it when i came onscreen. oh my gourdie!
simon gets so dirty by the end of the day it's a pleasure to give him a bath. gary showed me a picture of him at lunchtime - a barbecued rib in one hand, the other hand rubbing the grease into his hair and belly. ugh. he figures things out little by little. on his birthday he made blowing motions to his candle. during school Mass he finally put his index finger up during the last chorus of 'this little light of mine'. and now when we sing it he puts up your index finger too if you're not already doing it. oddly, when fr. robby came over for his birthday, he folded his hands during his blessing. hmmm.
left: blues clues
left: lij falls asleep in the sun while i work around him
left: simon baby's shadow
elijahsaurus rex awakens
she's reading 'jack and annie books'. and the clincher... read to lij for almost 30 minutes the other day while gary and i had coffee and 'couchtime'. i hear at lunchtime she sometimes plays by herself, so she brings her journal to write/draw. i try not to get sad thinking about it, but she thinks of it as a valid option.
he announced yesterday that he will marry luci, his friend. (luci would rather be late for class than miss giving him a hug goodbye in the hallway). he still has a fear of vacuums, and was, according to gary, mesmerized by a transformer episode where a piece of... transformer, i guess... fell onto a kitchen floor and all the appliances became transformers. lij recounted how the dyson-like vacuum became a transformer. so cool.
his favorite color is green. i figured this out when he only played with lij's green trains... and luci's green doll accessories, the green fridge magnet letters, the green boats in the tub. his morning routine is to sit in his food chair and watch mother angelica while the rest of the house gets ready for work/school. i still sneak out the door when he's not looking to avoid a meltdown. apparently the kids were all watching home videos one afternoon, and simon lost it when i came onscreen. oh my gourdie!
