March Birthday Parties

We had a small party for Adele's birthday, March 6th, with just our family. The boys helped her open gifts, and we laughed as her face ran the gamut of emotions during her first bites of cake. We decorated in girl colors, per the boys' instructions, and made some small balloon friends.

The pretty little birthday girl ate all the graham crackers she wanted that day. We did presents as soon as Daddy got home from work.

This is how she dances to baby folk music.

From Grandma Sara, Adele unwrapped a jean jacket and frilly skirt, a pink baseball, and a singing walker toy that all three kids loved. Aunt Stephy sent two cute baby swim suits. Grandma Cheri gave her a pretty little outfit and some music books that the boys hijacked. And we got her a toy shopping cart that will hopefully help her start walking.

We saved the cake for last, because of the guaranteed mess.

Is this okay? Is this allowed? No one is stopping me and I'm getting suspicious!

If you watched the video, you'll know there was a lot of cake-slapping at this party.

 Her hands must have tired from reaching all the way up to her mouth, because by the end she just brought her face straight to the cake.

After that, it was off to bed to rest up for Jude's birthday. I changed out a few streamers and a tablecloth, added some balloon animals, and we were set. Fortunately, Jude had spent a chunk of Adele's birthday decorating his own cake.

Jude's birthday was on a Saturday, March 7th. That day, he had his first T-ball practice. He inspected Adele's gifts from the night before. He tried really hard to wait patiently to open his presents, so we decided to do it earlier in the day.

He got a super cool orchestra toy from Grandma Cheri, a bunch of little Ninja Turtle things from Aunt Stephy, a Kirby Bat figurine from Josh, Legos from Grandma Sara, two puzzles from me, and a Ninja Turtle video game and treasure hunt from Dad.

(picture from the next day to show awesome orchestra toy)

 That night, Zeke and his mom Courtney came over to have cake and celebrate with us. Zeke gave Jude a giant Ninja Turtles coloring book. If you can't tell, yes, we are still obsessed with TMNT over here, even though we haven't watched the show in months.

These boys were so excited together that pretty much every pictured turnout out blurry like this.

The next few days brought some birthday cards from my family. They conspired together, and five of them each sent Jude a card with four dollars inside. (Grandma Sara, Grandpa Steve, Julia, Stephanie, and their kitties.) He was so excited to hold twenty dollars in his hands at once! He spent most of it on Legos, but is holding onto some for popcorn days at Josh's school.

It was not the big party that I threw for Josh on his fourth birthday, but Jude still had fun.

At this point, I am not one of the moms who can't believe her children are getting bigger. I like that they're getting more independent. I'm happy for their new stages and new skills. There will come a time when I want them to go back to the cuddly phase, but I'm sure I'll be able to steal someone else's baby for a quick fix. Right now, I'm just happy to get them through one more year without totally messing them up. They came to me in good shape, and I'm trying to keep them that way.

Four-year-old Jude

Jude turned four on March 7th.  I'll post party pictures later, but I want to write down some things about four-year-old Jude before I forget.

Jude is a special boy in so many ways. He is sweet and sincere, sneaky and creative, full of energy and fire and ideas, determined, dramatic, artistic, rough, talkative, an enthusiastic friend, and a playful, loving brother. At his age, the tone of our home is heavily influenced by his mood and his actions. For being so obsessed with his big brother, it's surprising how different their personalities are. He is such an important, fun part of our family.

Jude is handsome. Just unbearably cute and sweet sometimes. His chatty voice is perfectly pleasant to me (when it's chatty, not whiny). I hope he holds onto those dimples for life.

Jude is starting to like the piano even more, and he's a pretty good student for a four-year-old. He really likes to sit down with me and learn new songs. I need to do more of this while he's interested.

He smiles a particularly sneaky smile when he disobeys or gets into trouble, then completely freaks out when he's put in time out. Like he didn't see it coming. He's very mischievous, especially when he decides to pick on Adele. This is one of his recent schemes with Josh -- taking everything from the family room and throwing it in front of the refrigerator. Just for fun.

He's starting to write letters daily, asking how to spell words for his pictures. He currently loves the show "Word World", and that's helping. He draws pictures constantly and I think he's a pretty good artist already. Here's an example of a bunny card he made for Sister Martin, his Sunday school teacher. She sent him a bunny card for Easter, and he decided to copy it.

He lives to play his Ninja Turtles video game with Josh. Matt has started to show them old Looney Tunes clips before bed. I wish I could say the TV wasn't their favorite toy, but this is definitely their favorite spot in the house.

Jude loves to wear his rain boots from Aunt Stephy, whether it's wet outside or not. They make him slower, but they're so cute. He really enjoys choosing what to wear. This mummy hat was his choice on a pretty warm March day. It was ridiculous.

Jude started to play T-ball. He's the second youngest on the team, and he is excessively cute in a helmet. The games and practices are hilarious. T-ball is the cutest sport of all the sports.

Jude has tantrums still, but less often. Sometimes I video them in an effort to subdue my rage and try to laugh about the idea of sharing them later. He needs a couple naps a week lately, and will ask me to put him down in my bed. When he's sleepy, he really loves to have his back scratched or his hands massaged. 

At Josh's baseball practice while we're waiting, Jude fights invisible bad guys by himself in the grass. He tells me not to looks at him. I think he's starting to really value his alone time.

That's not to say that he doesn't enjoy friends, though. He's a social boy. This is his best buddy Zeke, who he asks about every single day. Zeke is also his only buddy here so far, but we're working on that.

Jude picks every dandelion he sees on his way home from Josh's school and saves them in a bowl of water on the table for me. He rotates out the dead ones daily. He loves to crush the camelias that have fallen onto the sidewalk, and detour onto every stepping stone and "balance beam" he sees along the way. I need to be in a hurry less often so he can wander.

Tape is his favorite art supply, and that's saying something because he loves art. He will tape pictures all over the house. He will cut up papers just so he can tape them back together. He will go to the tape as soon as anything needs fixing. He loves it so much that my mom wrapped up a roll of tape and sent it to him as a birthday present. It was a hit!

He picks on Adele almost every waking moment. Grabs her. Rolls around with his arms around her stomach. Pulls on her legs. Pokes her head. Takes toys away. Squishes her arms hard. It's a tough love that we're trying to moderate, but I think it comes from a good place. I understand, because I kind of want to eat her too.

Jude is my chocolate lover. He makes me share my "chocolate nuts" from Costco. He'll grab them from the kitchen and bring them to me on the couch so we can snuggle and binge together. It's dangerous.

He's my buddy everywhere I go. The gym, the grocery store...well, that's pretty much everywhere we go while Josh is at school, but it's nice to have a talkative little friend. He doesn't like when I exercise without him, so sometimes after the gym, he asks me to make him an exercise list and walk him through it. Yesterday he came up with 2 jumping jacks, 30 kicks, 3 push ups, 20 somersaults, and 100 spins. It wore him out.

Jude forces me to snuggle him. He sits on my lap, leans his back against my chest, pulls my arms around his belly and holds them there. It makes me stop for a few seconds and remember that my real job is to make my kids feel loved, rather the thousand other things that I feel like I should be doing.

This boy is a real delight, and a real piece of work. I'm grateful for everything he brings into my life, how he forces me to be patient, to slow down, to prioritize, to wrestle on the floor, and to enjoy the little things.

One-year-old Adele

I'm six weeks late in posting about Adele's birthday. But I'm kind of glad for that, because since this girl turned one, her personality has come screaming through more and more every day. I like to think it all started with her discovery of birthday cake.

  

She is sassy and stubborn, hilarious and contagiously happy, affectionate and tough. I am so lucky that I get to watch her grow by the hour. I'll take all the hard work if it means I get to see this smile every day. Seriously, is this not the happiest little face you've ever seen?

  

Birthday party pictures will have to wait for another post. Here are some of my favorite things about one-year-old Adele, recorded over the last couple months.

Adele is very good at communicating her feelings already. She quickly gets angry when things aren't going her way, and yells nonsense until somebody fixes the situation. In the last two weeks, she has perfected the stinkiest stink face ever. It's not nice to laugh at a child's anger, but in this case, it's really impossible not to. I can't manage to get a good picture of the face, but here's a mild version of it.

She races to the stairs at every opportunity. She can climb them all easily, and tries to climb everything else she can get to. She also races to the bathroom to drop toys in the toilet. Her pride in these little feats is ridiculous. It makes it really hard to tell her no.

Trying to scale the fence at Josh's baseball practice.

She can stand alone for a few seconds, and loves to take steps while she holds my hand. I haven't found a pair of shoes that she'll actually keep on her feet though, so walking outside the house is tricky.

Every time we leave to walk Josh to school, I carry Adele in the bjorn. She kicks her legs and arms excitedly like a swimmer as soon as we step outside. When it's time to lock the door behind us, she slows us down by sticking her fat fingers in the key hole. She loves key holes, buttons, light switches, and is so proud when she figures them out.

She also loves tissue boxes.

She wants to eat all the time. She's liking baby food less every day, and prefers to try real people food with her seven teeth. She's not a fan of sitting in her high chair and being spoon fed. She wants to feed herself, especially when there are yogurt samples at Costco that she can fling everywhere.

She says bye bye, dada, baba, muh (more), ada (all done), mama, daaahhh (Josh?), iy (hi), uh oh, and dogga (doggie). I'm gonna say the first word she actually meant as a word was dada. She adores that man. In the video above, Matt tried to catch her saying "bu-bye mama" after I left, but he was a little late.

She likes to sit on the floor with me in the morning and have bites of my cereal for breakfast. She makes the best faces when she tries something new.

She doesn't like people to know she's a girl right away. I know this because she pulls off her headbands quickly, and throws them out of sight so they get lost. I don't have the energy to buy or make more. And even when she's wearing pink or a girly headband, I still get people commenting on my cute baby boy. Poor little bald baby...who sometimes wears her brothers' hand-me-downs, so maybe sometimes the comments are my fault.

She thinks she knows how to hold a pen already. She can take off the lids to markers and suck them down in the blink of an eye.

Her purple tongue after quietly sucking a stamp pad dry.

She loves to play peekaboo, dance to any kind of music (mostly in her shoulders and torso), and read books to herself. She is also known to snuggle with Jude on the couch, when he's not trying to knock her over or pull her socks off.

She has a shy face that will melt you. This is used any time she meets someone new, then she buries her face in my shoulder and looks up every few seconds to check them out again.

She is becoming extremely attached to me. She often won't let me work out at the gym, because a certain babysitter calls me after twenty minutes of crying and gives up. This is really weird for Adele, because she's generally a happy baby. I've had to schedule my workouts around the one babysitter she tolerates. It seems like she's happy with other people (like extended family and close friends) as long as I'm not in the room.

Rejecting Aunt Julia's love because I'm too close.

Almost every night, she sleeps 11 hours, and has for many months. She's my best sleeper by far. She often wakes up to whine, but puts herself back to sleep within a few minutes. She wakes up and plays or "reads" in her crib before letting me know she's awake in the morning. Having had a non-sleeping first baby, I realize how lucky I am with this one.

Adele is a smart, beautiful, happy girl who makes literally everyone smile. I hope that's true for the rest of her life. I also hope her skin stays this soft and squishy forever. It's the least she can do for me.