Ramblings

I don't feel as though I have too much to say, but I do want to "write."

Life has been so interesting lately. W is learning to crawl. He's mastered movement so quickly. Two Saturday's ago he got on his knees and started rocking, a few days later he started pushing forward with his toes while laying down, a few days after that he started army crawling, the next day he truly started trying to move his knees forward (and then he moves them back), and then over the next two days (which brings us to now) he usually gets one knee moved forward and placed before falling back on his belly. I'm amazed. He's pretty fast with the army crawl too, especially if a cell phone is the bait on the floor.

The last few weeks at school have been difficult for H behaviorly. The same can be said of his behavior at home. H is struggling with listening. He's five. He's a very active little boy. He's smart; sometimes that gets him into more trouble. He's cute and he's learning that that won't get him out of trouble. We're working on manners, on not yelling or speaking unkindly, on being polite and respectful, on how to act in the million situations that arise every day. He struggles with asking to touch something before actually touching it. He loves to wrestle and do demolition work with his daddy. He has such a sweet side that is sometimes so over shadowed by his 5-year-old, aggressive, active, self-centered self. And then tonight, when we are talking about whining and how blessed we are and how there are children who are not as blessed he says, "Can we bring them to our house? Why can't we help them all?" My eyes teared up. He's learning. I know I fail him daily in showing him patience, some days I feel like he's always in trouble, but he's learning and if I pay attention I can see all throughout the day how he's trying to bless the lives of those around him, how he's trying to be kind and loving, how he's yelling because he's upset with his brother but he's using kind words like please or excuse me, how he's so sensitive and wants to be everybody's friend. He shows me the type of person I need to be (not whiny or aggressive, but concerned for others :) ).

The twins have been clingy. They did really well after W was born, and the honeymoon period has been over for a while. They're ready to have as much of my attention as possible. They want to cuddle and love on me constantly. They want to be held and to sit on my lap or next to me all the time. Now when I say I have to feed W I will sometimes hear a no instead of an ok. They are both more opinionated than they used to be. J is more loud about his defiance. G likes to try and fly under the radar, thinking if he doesn't answer or he quietly does something else no one will notice. I see them playing more but also fighting more. They're learning to be individuals. They are extremely focused on the color of things because blue means it "belongs" to G and green means it "belongs" to J. They even see things in orange, red, yellow, pink, purple, etc. and decided that those colors mean it "belongs" to other specific people. I had no clue that one day my children would be color coded, even when we found out we were having twins that wasn't a thought in my brain. Here I am 3.5 years later and so much of our lives is separated by color - dishes, clothes, toys. Some of it is done by me and some by them. We were at a friend's house and G found two tape measures, a green one and a blue one. He took the green one to J and kept the blue one to play with himself.

My boys are growing. W is 7 months old, the twins are 3.5-years-old, H is 5-years-old. It is hard to believe.

We met with some friends yesterday that we haven't seen for about two years. Their daughter is four. She's changed a lot in those two years and at the same time she's stayed the same. It was weird to see her as she is when I picture her as she was. I was talking to my friend and she commented on how big the boys were. She stated that it doesn't surprise her that her daughter has grown, but not seeing our kids it was easy to forget that other kids grow too. It's true. Those big changes are so startling. The problem with the little changes is that they are so small we adjust easily or don't even notice and then when we look back the change is so obvious and shocking. H is graduating from Kindergarten this year. Time has flown. It doesn't seem possible that this first little boy who made me a mommy, who was a scrawny little thing to begin with, who crawled around 9 months and walked around 11 months, who used to blow raspberries on my arm to make me laugh when he could see I was frustrated is old enough to be in school and is so close to finishing his first school year. I'm trying to cherish it as I work on surviving it.