kiddles

I'm so sorry to the sweet (and crazy) children of mine that their entire summer went undocumented.  Between next to no photos and no writing, it's really shameful that there's no record of how much each of them have changed in the past few months.



This oldest child of mine continues to give me a run for my money.  Sir O has taken to baby-talking and it's quickly become my peeviest pet peeve.  He questions everything, pushes every limit to see where it actually is, and appears to have riotously selective hearing.  He's also actually helpful.  He can run little errands and can play with his brothers really amazingly well. (You know, like 75% of the time.)  I cannot force or induce his interest in any blessed thing, but when he takes interest in something on his own (be it making decorations, lego cars, or kicking a ball outside) he can actually stay engaged for over an hour.  That's huge when you're Sir O.



If you didn't see the Captain between March and now you would think he was an entirely different person.  He can talk!  Somewhere in those blurry early summer months something clicked in his brain and he realized he needed to slow down and articulate in order for anyone to understand him.  So now, instead of muttering a stream of unintelligible vowel sounds he gives us halting, awkward intelligible words.  It is so cool all the insights I now get to gain into his little person. He's mildly obsessed with having a pocket in his shirt, the color blue, wii fencing, and not going to the potty until it's an emergency.  I'm grateful the kid is finally potty trained, but I wish he would aim once in a while.  (How many times a day is it reasonable to have to clean the bathroom?  Because between the 2 potty trained boys I could easily be scrubbing 8-10 times every day.  And some days I do just that.  No wonder I never get anything written.)  The other day during lunch he said out of the blue, "Mommy, I love you.  You are nice to me."  This is what makes it worth spending my life cleaning up little boy pee.  Although in truth, I'm not as nice to him as a I should be.  Pregnant mom has a short fuse.



This little turkey has the biggest and grandest personality I've ever beheld.  He's constantly engaging with strangers in public by smiling and laughing and singing.  He is just so naturally happy and content that he's often a joy to be around.  I think it's partially his age, because I remember the Captain being terribly smiley when he was between 18-24 months.  But this kid makes us laugh every. single. day.
He's also not talking, which means I'm diving into early intervention and special ed a 2nd time.  I figured I'd try to get settled in with it before the baby came, so we're in the midst of evaluations and testing now.  Fun galore.  He's hating being put to bed at night in a room by himself, he just KNOWS he's missing out on fun and important things.  So we're trying to find a logistical solution to put all 3 boys in 1 room that doesn't involve furniture that they will certainly break bones falling off of.  It makes me happy that they like to be together (most of the time.)