unfettered slumber
for months, the turkey has been keeping his pull-ups dry through the night. we’ve told him that he’s ready to ditch them but he hasn’t had the confidence… until last night. my precious boy is now wearing und!3s around the clock!
i’ve been trying to teach the turkey buttons for a while now but he hasn’t had the inclination. yesterday, over the weekend, the sequel was playing with daddy’s buttons while brushing teeth and he totally figured it out. that got big brother interested so, yesterday, we got out the button straps that i had made for the busy board that i never assembled and they both worked on them on and off all day. the turkey finally figured it out. this morning, both boys wanted to wear button shirts. the sequel lost interest after the first one but the turkey managed to button the entire shirt by himself! after bathing in watermelon juice this afternoon, he also unbuttoned the whole thing on his own.
in other news, they had their best bike ride ever today. they did about two miles and they both pedaled hard enough to make momma jog the whole time! the sequel asked to take the training wheels off but i told him we’d make daddy cry if we did it while he’s out of town.
for months, the turkey has been keeping his pull-ups dry through the night. we’ve told him that he’s ready to ditch them but he hasn’t had the confidence… until last night. my precious boy is now wearing und!3s around the clock!
two weeks ago, my little baby woke up and declared that he wasn’t going to wear diapers anymore. i tried to talk him out of it. it was monday morning and we were going to be starting a long roadtrip wednesday… the timing, dude! but he was not to be dissuaded. he donned his big boy underpants and hasn’t looked back. we traveled to orlando, spent days at disney, traveled to alabama, and traveled back home. in two weeks, he has had three accidents – all wets. he is totally rocking this! i’ve cancelled our diaper subscription and increased my laundry frequency. my little itty-bitty baby is now a big boy and it breaks my heart but i’m so proud of him.
i sure do love my sequelisms. here lately, he’s coined the term “whobody?” while saying his prayers, he’ll go through and pray for several people and then ask us “whobody else?” when we’re going to see friends, he gets all excited asking which friends we’re going to see and end with “and whobody else?” it cracks me up.
tonight, out of the blue, he declared that “momma makes me happy!”
it’s been a seriously dreary fall/winter around here. so many foggy, rainy, or cloudy days make for restless boys and a depressed momma. however; whenever we have had the slightest window in the weather, we’ve been going down to the pool to drain some energy and collect some smiles. they’ve both been doing really great but today was exceptional. the turkey has been a mostly self-sufficient swimmer for a while now. he started surfacing for breaths a few months ago and he just took off after that. the sequel has been frighteningly brave for a while now… he’ll just jump out into the water with no announcement and expect one of us to know he’s coming and get him. he has not figured out surfacing for breath yet but he doesn’t panic. he just looks up at us from under the water with complete trust that we’ll get him. i’ve been so concerned about his survival abilities.
while he’s been all about swimming to us, he’s been completely unwilling to swim away from us. instead, he’ll swim from the steps to us and then ask us to take him back to the steps. today, he did something completely new. he started jumping off the wall and swimming to me (about 5-6 feet) and then swimming back to the wall to climb out and do it again. i don’t know what got into him but i was so proud and he was having a blast. and now i feel a lot better about his chances of surviving if he were to somehow fall into a pool without us noticing right away.
we were at the zoo with some friends today. in the past, the mom has shown that she is not a fan of going into the aviary and having the birds flying around her. today, when the boys said they wanted to head over to the birds, she made a sarcastic comment. the turkey looked at her in all earnestness and said “miss m, can you be brave? i’m brave and i can help you.” it was hilarious that he would even think to say something like that and also completely precious that he would think to say something like that.
the sequel spent his first night in his new big boy bed last night. he’s so proud of it. big brother is jealous of his new “wheels” but is actually being surprisingly gracious about it (which is good because we plan on getting the same bed for him next week). for us, it was a non-event so you can’t get any better than that!
we have officially joined the dark side and are now living the minivan life. personally, i love it. it’s so spacious and comfy and i couldn’t be happier. and it was so nice to be able to pile my sister and her family into one care to go out to eat.
the sequel is pretty excited about it too since he is now forward facing. he finds the improved view to be quite a momentous occasion.
the sequel’s new favorite phrase is “i don’t know. let’s find out!” i wish i could catch him saying it on video because it’s not just the words but the way he says it. it’s so funny.
the turkey is officially a big-boy-bike rider. i finally convinced the hubby to remove the training wheels from his pedal bike yesterday and the turkey cried and whined for the entire twenty minutes of training and riding. he didn’t care at all that we were so incredibly proud of him because after only about five minutes of “training,” he was up and going. today, we dragged him out again and he whined all the way from the car to the park but within minutes of going, he was smiling ear to ear and biking fast enough that we had to truly run to keep up with him. and so, just like that, he is a bike rider and he is loving it.
the sequel amuses me to no end with what comes out of his mouth. for halloween, i told him as we walked up to each house to say “trick or treat”. i finally got him to say it but he wouldn’t give up his own tagline: “trick or treat i want some!” (one run-on sentence). i couldn’t help laugh even though it came off rather rude. he did at least say “thank you” of his own accord.
for weeks, he’s been on a “you make me feel sad” kick. i’m not even sure where he got this from but the really funny part is his use… he says it when i get onto him to do something like eat or drink or brush his teeth.
his answer to every “why?” is “because i like it.” why did you take your shoes off? because i like it. why is your shirt wet? because i like it. why is there food in your ear? because i like it. it’s the end-all answer.
of course, “all by myself” and “i’m big boy” or “i’m a big man” are hugely popular as well. he is stubbornly independent and over-confident. the turkey has a lot of quit; the sequel doesn’t know the meaning of quit.
it’s been four years since i felt your heart stop beating. four years since i kissed you goodbye for the last time. four years worth of tears and laughs and all the feels in between. you’ve missed so much. the turkey asks about you and loves looking at pictures of you. the sequel… oh my goodness, he’s a character! you would get such a kick out of him. i wish you had met him. i give him a kiss on the forehead from you every night but i don’t know if he’ll ever be able to connect. at least the turkey has pictures and videos of you holding him; he knows how much you loved him. for the sequel, you’re just an abstract. it breaks my heart all the time. as if i don’t think of you enough this time of year, you were with me constantly the last week and a half. we were just barely missed by a major hurricane. while we sat, safely evacuated, watching the coverage all i could think is how you would be having a heart attack over it. what i wouldn’t have given to hear your frantic phone calls. it’s been too long, daddy. i love and miss you.
at lunch, the turkey asked his grandmother if she was having a good day. she said she wasn’t because her leg was hurting her. the turkey’s response was to bow his head and say a prayer for his grandmother. i’m so glad i was able to witness such a beautiful moment.
i almost missed the whole exchange because i was so absorbed in twc’s coverage of the hurricane barreling down on our home. a slight shift to the east at the last minute spared us from the brunt of the storm’s damage. we were so fortunate but i’m heartsick for all of those who ended up in those crosshairs that we thought were trained on us.
i just shut down my work pc for the last time. i’ll mail it in later this week. i’m astounded at how difficult this has been for me. i’ve been with this company for 15 years. i’ve been working for financial gain for 28 years. i’ve always felt financially independent but now i’ll be contributing nothing to our household income. my entire worth is going to be measured by whether i can make two little boys mind and learn. it’s very scary. in addition to being the lowest pay job i’ve ever had, it’s also the most important. i pray that i don’t fail.
on monday, friends we haven’t seen in a very long time came over to swim. it was the girl the turkey plans to marry and her older sister. since we haven’t seen much of them this year, this was the first time he filled her and her mommy in on his plans to wed her. her mom was as amused as we were. this morning, we ran into them again at the monthly hd kids workshop and we had a great time together. this evening, i received a voicemail from the mom saying that her girls were arguing over who was going to marry my turkey. apparently, the younger girl settled the argument by saying “well turkey gets to decide and he chose me!” verily, i am amused.
i wonder if i should tell them all that i already picked my best friend’s little girl to be my future daughter-in-law when i first got pregnant with him.