All The Small Things

It's that time again... I've been collecting kid anecdotes for months, and now I've finally convinced myself to sit down and write them out.  When will I learn to do them more regularly so it doesn't become so overwhelming?

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*Thane loves the color black.  One day he told me, "I want you to paint my bedroom.  I want the ceiling black!"  For Christmas, I gave him a box of all black crayons.  He loved it!

His nursery teachers told us of a time when they gave him a coloring page, but then saw that he was sitting in his chair and not coloring.  They knew him well, because as they got closer they noticed there were no black crayons nearby.  Once they remedied the situation, he happily colored his picture...all black.  

I'm counting this at his "goth stage."  If he tries the same schtick in High School, I'll just tell him, "Sorry, you've already filled that quota."  Think the same plan will work for contrariness?

*One Sunday morning back in November, I was trying to help Thane get dressed for church.  I grabbed a pair of pants from his drawer and pulled them up his legs only to discover they were a solid 2-3" too short.  "Yikes," I thought, "it must have been a while since he's worn these!"  I pulled out a second pair of pants.  Same problem.  Then a third.  You guessed it, same problem!  He wore high waters to church that day, and that afternoon we went through all his clothes and pulled out his 4T stuff, even though he had just hit 3 1/2.  I have a sneaking suspicion he might end up our tallest kid.

*For the last couple of months, Aubree and Bryce have been playing the "Quiet Game."  You'd think that would be a parent's dream come true, but it's really quite aggravating.  When I ask them a question, they just look at me with big eyes, which clearly indicate, "Obviously, I can't answer you right now!"  Then, there are the constant calls of, "Pause!," so they can make a comment, then "1, 2, 3 GO."

Thane realized pretty quickly that he was no match for Aubree and Bryce in the Quiet Game.  Not one who likes to be left out, one day he invented his own version... "1, 2, 3, 4, TALK! I Win!" Rinse, repeat.

*Here's a game I do love...Bryce calls it the, "do whatever you say game."  And just as the name indicates, when he's playing it, he quickly and happily does whatever I say.  I've made it a point never to suggest we play the game.  It's always his idea, and sometimes it will last for hours.

*Thane loves puzzles, and he's amazingly adept with them.  He shows tremendous focus and persistence and is always pulling one or two or three out of the closet to work on.

*Aubree prefers to do her own hair these days.  She's perfected the pigtail braids, and is working on a number of other hairstyles.  I don't think I did my own hair till I was forced to by going away to 6th grade camp for a week.

*Thane has almost overcome his habit of saying "me" instead of "I."  Yaaaaayyyyy!  In the middle of this transformation, whenever he would start a sentence with "me," Mark or I would then repeat the sentence back correctly.  One day he got fed up with our response, and argued angrily, "Me did say I!"

*Dear Graham is just as cute as can be and is trying really hard to be a big kid.  When I had preschool co-op at our house, I had a really difficult time getting some of the 3 year olds to stay sitting on their mats for circle time.  Graham, however, saw an empty mat, and immediately came and sat down, looking patiently ahead!  

G's first foray into dress up... thanks, Aubree

He comes with me into Primary Sharing Time, and would rather sit on his own chair than on my lap (he equally likes to wander around and cause distractions).  He loves it when it's singing time and tries to copy the motions of the big (compared to him) kids when they sing "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam," and "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes," and "Once Their Was A Snowman."

He's old enough to start going to nursery next month, but I just can't wrap my brain around that.  He's just my little baby, isn't he?
*Graham also FINALLY got over that forever cold at the beginning of January (though he started getting sick again yesterday, will this ever end?).  Since then, he's had an insatiable appetite.  If I try to pull him out of his high chair and he's not had enough to eat, he screams and throws himself to the side.  Quite often he out-eats his siblings.

*Thane has an odd fascination with grandfather clocks. Random, I know.

*One day after I ran into a friend while we were out running errands, Aubree sighed, "Why do you chat so much?"  I tried to argue that she chats with her friends just as much, but she responded, "kid's don't chat, they play and talk."  Turns out there are specific guidelines for what constitutes the dreaded label of "chatting."

1. You must be over 16 to "chat."  Anyone under 16 just "talks."  

2. Any conversation lasting over 5 minutes is considered "chatting."

And Aubree assures me that even when she grows up, she will never, ever, chat.  Good luck with that one, kid.

*Graham loves to help out around the house.  When Mark gets home, Graham is his little helper... folding laundry, collecting the trash and taking it out, turning out lights... Sometimes, he even "heps" me.

*One afternoon, Thane was washing his hands in the bathroom and I was working right next to him installing new towel hangers.  Suddenly I heard him start gagging.  Confused, I spun around and pulled him over to the toilet as he continued to dry heave.  Turns out, the foam soap on his hands looked so enticing, he couldn't help but taste it.  Must be a boy thing.  Bryce did the exact same thing about 2 years ago.  He learned his lesson the hard way, though thankfully he felt better within the hour.  

*A major downside of Aubree going to public school is that her relationships with Bryce (and Thane) have deteriorated.  It took almost a whole week of Christmas break before Aubree and Bryce were back to playing together.  However, once they remembered they really like each other, they proceeded to spend the next week holed up in Bryce's room creating "picture books."  In all, they created twelve "books" of just pictures on such topics as, "A Million Desserts," "Pirates of the Sea," "Let's Shoot Those Angry Birds and Get Some Pigs!," "The Gingerbread Village," "The Wondrous Zoo," and "Dino Mountain."

*Thane's very best friend just happens to live on our street and go to our church.  He's a blessed kid.  Every Sunday when we would pick him up from nursery, we would have some variation of the following conversation:

Me: "Who did you play with today?" 

Thane: "Finley"

Me: "Who else did you play with?"

Thane: "Just Finley."

Me: "Did you play with Spencer."

Thane (dropping his chin, looking me right in the eyes, and speaking slowly and deliberately): JUST. FINLEY!

*And speaking of Finley...one afternoon not long after Christmas, Thane was standing next to our poinsettias and told me, "When I marry Finley, I'm going to give her these flowers and she's even going to live with us."

*Bryce and Thane have a long-standing pretend game going.  Thane is a puppy and Bryce is his owner.  Interestingly enough, the puppy doesn't have a name, but the owner is called "Baby Blue."  Thane loves it when Bryce fashions a leash and puts it around his wrist. 

 

When they're not playing puppy and owner, they also like to play camel and rider.  In this game, though, Bryce is the camel and Thane is the rider.  That's all well and good, until the rider slides up too far and smashes the camel's face in the ground.

*Graham has the funniest little glare.  You never quite know when he'll do it, but sometimes you'll turn around and he's scrunched up his face, and half-closed one eye.  It's so funny you can't help but belly laugh, which immediately makes him crack up too.  As a result, it's been impossible to catch on camera.  Which is sad, because I hope to never forget it.  

*Bryce is such a tender-hearted kid.  When we were at the store, he noticed a box at the check-out stand with coins in it.  He asked what it was, and I explained that it was for a charity to help out children in need.  He wanted to know more, so we talked about the idea of giving money to help others, and about specific different charities and the kinds of things they do to help others.  Ever since then, he always tries to remember to bring some of his money with him when we go to the store so he can put it in the box, and he always prays, "please bless the poor people, that they won't be poor anymore with the money from tithing and other things."

Bryce in his "Milky Way" Threadless shirt

*Bryce also has a wild streak, and often struggles to rein himself in.  It's pretty easy to tell when he starts to reach his out-of-control stage, because his laugh changes to an almost pant, and he'll sometimes start flapping around (not in an autism spectrum way, just an over-excited, can't-contain-all-this-energy way).  Recently he's worked really hard to identify some methods that work to keep himself under control (sometimes he'll exercise, sometimes lay still on the couch, sometimes try to read a book... and sometimes nothing works at all).

*Aubree's "trained" Graham... when she puts a pillow on the floor, he will run over and lie down so she can cover him with a blanket.  In the picture below, however, he pulled out his own pillow and made himself comfortable.  Maybe getting up at 5:45 am wasn't such a bright idea, eh little buddy?

*Thane has an astronaut shirt that he loves to wear.  One morning he put it on, and he and Bryce decided they then needed to make a space shuttle or rocket.  Aubree helped a little bit before she left for school, but I helped not at all, and this is the result....

*Graham has an obvious favorite place in the house...he's claimed the preschool table and chairs as his own.  If you're looking for him, you can usually find him either climbing around in that corner, or pulling everything out of the tupperware cabinets.  Sometimes both...

*Like many kids her age, Aubree jumped right on the rainbow loom bandwagon.  However, she recently came up with a novel use for her bands... a bookmark lock.  You see, Aubree is always in the middle of reading a book or two or three, and her little brothers can't resist pulling the tempting bookmarks right out of those books.  As you might imagine, this causes Aubree all kinds of frustration. So, I think her solution is very clever...and her brothers haven't thwarted her since.

*Thane really likes to be underneath things.  When we went outside to play one recent, sunny afternoon, he asked me to get out one of the camping chairs.  "You want to sit?" I asked. "No," he answered, "I want to play underneath it."  He also loves to hide and is excellent at contorting himself into small spaces.  

I love my kids! (And phew! Am I glad I'm done writing this!)