Jude Turns Three

Written on March 7th

Today is finally Jude's third birthday! He has been looking forward to this day since Josh's Ninja Turtle birthday party in June. I mean every single week he has made an excited comment or a plan concerning his upcoming birthday. Josh wrapped a box full of pictures he drew for Jude way back in November, and for the last four months, Jude has toted it around the house obediently saving it for his special day. It's been a long time coming. Maybe that's why he keeps telling people he's four now instead of three.

Or maybe it's because he's a total doof.

Jude's birthday party was a bit of a bust. He was stuck bringing the party to my hospital room, but I don't think he really minded. He opened presents, ate pizza and cake (sans candles due to hospital fire rules), and touched every button and off-limits piece of medical equipment he could reach until Matt swept him away for bedtime at home.

Here are some wonderful things about my little Jude Griffin as a brand new three-year-old...

(Disclaimer: Please keep in mind that as I write this, I'm sitting in the hospital high on pain meds, because I had a c-section last night. Yes, Jude got a baby sister for his birthday!)

Jude has the best imagination. He fights bad guys constantly. He carries weapons around in his pants or down the back of his shirt, and doesn't leave the house without some form of protection. He's constantly thinking of make-believe scenarios and dialogue for me to repeat as we go on missions throughout the house. 

His dramatic play is full of whispering, shouting, tip toeing, and running; there is no in-between. And his sound effects are unmatched by any other human child. Some of my favorite things from his brain recently have been the "cute little invisible Shredder, who is my friend, and is nice" who stands in the palm of his hand, and his use of my old contact cases as "mutagen bottles".

I love this. He pulled down Adele's headband and was so excited to tell me, "Look! I made she a pirate!"

Another of his favorite activities is making pretend food for me in the playroom, and making me pay with real coins that he can run through his cash register. He's quite the imaginary chef/checker. In fact, he once helped himself to some ingredients in the pantry, got hold of some scissors and a mixing bowl, and proudly made a little concoction out of white chocolate chips and sugar cookie mix. Fortunately I caught him before he broke into the beignet mix. That would've been tragic.

Jude loves all types of physical play. He goes wild at gymnastics, and climbs everything from the bunk bed ladder to the shelves in the playroom closet and pantry.

We recently bought bunk beds for the boys, and although they love to play on them, sleeping has been an adjustment. Jude needs me to lay down with him every time he takes a nap. He asks me to scratch his back and sing songs or tell stories, is very good at negotiating for more, and has a huge arsenal of excuses for getting out of bed after bedtime. Usually, he and Josh end up sleeping on the same bunk together, surrounded by toys and books. I'm glad they like each other.

He runs to play the piano every time he sees me on it. He takes out Josh's piano book and tries to play his songs, and pretends to write his own music notes on anything I leave out on the stand. He can already play a pretty close version of Hot Cross Buns, and that's just from watching Josh.

He decided nine months ago at Josh's fifth birthday party that he would have a Raphael cake on his birthday (just like Josh's Leonardo cake), and he has stuck with it this whole time. When he's determined, he's determined. Seriously, don't try to argue with him. I lose on the regular.

He is getting really good at doing puzzles, cutting, gluing, and holding a writing utensil. He's even starting to write some letters on his own. (I say "on his own" because I've been horrible at sitting down and giving him any sort of direction. Thank goodness for educational TV shows, right?)

Speaking of my awesome parenting and little control over screen time, Jude is getting very competent with a computer mouse. It's actually pretty impressive. He's like a little adult.

He potty trained very well and very quickly! We started in late January so he'd be finished by the time the baby came, and he is now a champ. It was so much easier this time around (for me). It renewed a little of my faith in myself as a parent, even though I'm certain that potty training has little to do with the parent and mostly to do with the individual child.

Jude is my sweet talker. He tells me I'm pretty or beautiful often. When I wear a dress, when I brush my hair after the shower, and any time I'm being exceptionally attentive and smiley, he pauses to admire my happy face and give me a bit of positive reinforcement.

On the other hand, he reminds me often not to yell at him, even when I'm not yelling. If I use a stern tone of voice or an angry face, he gets defensive right away and can't be rational until we're both calm.

Jude likes to clean. Whenever I clean the floors, he leads the way with a squirt bottle and wets the areas for me to mop. He also loves to wash windows, sweep, wash dishes, and try to push the vacuum. And he especially looks forward to turning his Q-tips yellow after we shower.

Here are some cute things he says lately. Please use your imagination to get the full effect -- this boy doesn't say his R's or L's, and lisps a little on his S's. It makes every sentence infinitely cuter.

When we put on winter gloves, "I need to pick some weeds! Where are some weeeeeds, Mom?" I love that he associates gloves with gardening.

In a high voice and says, "I'm a baby. I'm shrinking so small so you can hold me." This is because I've been too pregnant to carry him much lately, but it results in a lot of extra snuggling on the couch. He doesn't actually use a binky now -- he just found this among his toys and thought it added something to his baby bit.

Every day he's someone new. I'll call him Jude, but he'll answer, "No, I'm Raphael." or "No, I'm a puppy dog."

In the bathroom doing his business, he says "Close the door, I need some privacy." This is just proof that he copies absolutely everything Josh says and does.

When I say, "You're so handsome", he says, "No I'm not handsome, I'm happy." That's right, buddy. Attitude will always be more important than your pretty face.

When he accidentally bites his tongue, he cries a little and then says sadly, "My tongue is not food!"

When he's particularly excited about a job I ask him to do, or a make-believe scenario, he yells "I'n on it!!" and sprints out of the room.

And in case I haven't embarrassed his future teenage self enough...all the girly stuff in the house has caught his interest recently. He likes to look so pretty!

In return for sharing her headbands, Jude shares his weapons with Adele. He brings her weapons all the time and works hard to pry her little hand open so she'll hold it right.

He's already a good protective big brother. When he sits next to Adele, he pretty much always has at least one hand on her. 

On that note, and with this little video, I will leave you. Maybe that way you'll think of Jude more as a sweetheart than the tiny little terror that he often is. (It's okay, he knows when he's a terror. I'm pretty sure it's 90% intentional.) We love him SO MUCH.

Deck Building

And now we travel back in time all the way to 2013 for a special post dedicated solely to our beast of a summer project: 

THE DECK AND PATIO

When we moved into this house, we didn't have enough cash to build a deck area right away. So we had the builder just leave us a few temporary steps at the back door. Here is our sad little back porch in 2012. It stayed that way for almost two years.

After pricing the cost of contracting out this project, Matt decided he was going to learn to do it himself. I admit, I had very little faith. I didn't doubt his skills or his aptitude, but I did doubt that he'd make the time for such a massive project. With all the little projects we never seem to get around to, this one seemed like a big stretch. But, he and YouTube proved me wrong. And it turned out to be a really cool experience -- one that I was involved in as much as Matt.

First step: remove temporary steps and dig a ton of super deep post holes. We had to dig below the frost line, which in our neck of the woods, is about four feet into the ground. Multiply that by 16 holes, and you get a lot of dirt...that has to be dumped somewhere. That's how we ended up making our raised garden.

Next step, cement in those posts and attach strong beams around the edges for everything else to rest on. Getting it all perfectly level was definitely the hardest part, in my opinion. Also, calculating all our angles just right. We went the difficult route and built an odd-shaped deck instead of a rectangle, so that made it tricky.

Next, build a frame around the edges and put all those cross beams in place.

Then, start screwing in deck boards. Space them perfectly. Trim them neatly. Do all this after the kids go to bed, with a little backyard spotlight. This is how we spent a lot of our summer nights -- working in the warm outside air, taking advantage of daylight until the sun finally set around 10:00, getting consumed by mosquitoes, going to bed with sore muscles, listening to good music and talking while we worked. It was so nice to not just watch TV every night. It felt productive, and energizing, and awesome to build something together.

Once that first deck top was in good shape, we started the deck coming off our bedroom door, which would eventually lead to a hot tub. Then we rented tools to tear up the grass, and dug and dug and dug about 400 square feet x 7 inches deep to build the foundation for a paver patio. This was by far the most awful part of the process. In hind sight, we should have just rented a Bobcat tractor because this step took FOREVER.

Once the depth was okay, a huge truck delivered a couple tons of gravel that we had to spread, level, and compact.

Once we finally finished building all the steps and their toe-kicks, we pressure washed and sanded the whole thing. Then Matt's mom and brother helped us paint the first layer of deck stain. We figured we would finish the dirty work before putting on a nice top coat.

Then came enough sand to cover the whole area with about 2 more inches. (Our grass is still recovering from the weight of that dump truck.)

Then came a zillion gray bricks, which were actually really hard to pick out. We had to install a border around the edges of the brick/sand/gravel area, level the sand just perfectly (another crazy headache), and then lay the pavers in exactly the right pattern. We decided on herringbone. This was my job.

Meanwhile, Matt would push sand around. We ended up with a lot of extra, so one day I made a little sandbox for the kids.

This is the day I found out I was pregnant. The work pace slowed a little for me after that, but we were at least able to finish laying the pavers before leaving for a big summer trip.

Here we are an an unfinished, but somewhat functional level.

Later, the boys helped Matt spread a special sand over all the bricks. When this sand gets wet, it turns into a sort of cement that holds the pavers together. After that was solid, we had to paint the pavers with a clear stain that made them look darker and will protect them from weather and chipping.

We built the benches on labor day weekend, but didn't get around to staining them for a while.

We eventually painted another coat of stain on both decks and finished the benches, sandbox, and garden box to match.

Next, we dug the foundation for the hot tub. Then we put big and small layers of gravel down and let the electrician do his thing with wires and tubes. We had a crazy time trying to move the hot tub into its position (in the rain), but it's finally done!

I think the very last step was attaching the lattice to the open edges. It looks much nicer this way. However, we still haven't managed to get a picture of the final product because it started snowing...and kind of never stopped. We still haven't had a complete snow melt since December, so our little backyard masterpiece is currently covered up. I'll get you a picture when spring decides to show up.

The Rest of February

February brought us even more snow, but we tried to make the best of it. Once, I even took my boys outside to PLAY in it for the last few minutes of light. Can you believe that?

Jude didn't last long. He said his feet hurt because he got snow in his boots, and was scared every time he got stuck in the deep stuff. But Josh was all over the place. He was determined to dig up treasure, specifically a certain shovel he knew was buried by snow somewhere in the yard. He only had an acre to cover. No big deal.

I made the mistake of laying down in the snow to try to form snowballs. When it's that deep, and you're that pregnant, it's exactly that difficult to get back up.

Our Smith friends invited us over for a little Olympic Opening Ceremonies event. We all brought food from different countries. Sarah made borscht in honor of Russia and it was GOOD. We brought Brazilian lemonade and pao de queijo.

On yet another snow day, I got a little ambitious and tried some extra activities with the boys, including making our own play dough and beanbags. Good use of fabric scraps.

Sometimes, watching Ninja Turtles can get a little intense.

And wrestling can get dramatic.

Snow days made potty training a little more convenient too. Jude did great, to my complete surprise and relief! (And don't try to tell me you don't love toilet pictures.)