Right Now in My House

There is a blossoming giggly one year old, a crazy lovable almost 4.5 year old, a Mommy who is on a mission to get our house and schedule organized, and a Daddy who just started a great new job. 

Colin is so giggly lately.  If I hand him something he is wanting he gives several little chuckles of delight.  If he can tell we get what he is pointing at and we say what it is, like "that's right, Colin a light," he just giggles.  He just gets tickled so easily.  And his belly laughs...well those just need to be bottled up.

I started basic sign language with him around 9 months or so and for a while he would learn a new one, use it for several days, and then I wouldn't see it again for a while.  He is now using many of them consistently to communicate with us.  He loves it when we respond to what he is needing and we are just loving this new connection with him.  Colin now shows us the signs for eat, more, all done, milk, where, puppy, bird, and his own sign for want. 

Today as I was checking out at a store, I looked down at him with a big smile, waved, and said hi.  I was shocked, as was the clerk when I got exactly that in return.  Clear as a bell, the word "hi!" I was so excited when Jackson started using lots of words between 15 to 18 months, but I will have to say I think I'm more excited this time around because I know how amazing it will be hearing what this little unique guy will have to say this year.  Wow, a lot of amazing connections with our sweet boy will be taking place this year.  I'm so excited!

He is just as busy, if not more so than Jackson.  He is constantly moving, trying to run these days, and climbs on everything!  The difference is that he is quieter than Jackson, which equates to being much harder to keep track of.  We have to be diligent in keeping all bathroom doors closed and potty lids down as the act of dipping his hands in and giggling about it is by far his favorite sneak away activity.  Well, that along with climbing on top of our little kid table which I pull him off of every 30 minutes or so. He can climb by himself (shadowed by me of course) up the tall ladder on our playset and really has no interest in the little "baby" tykes ones that I brought down from the attic that are more appropriate. 

At his check up today he weighed 21 lbs 11 oz. (21%), and was 31 inches (81%) tall.  He has stayed perfectly on his curve, but I'm always so shocked to hear such a low weight percentile because it does not at all reflect how my arm and back feel at the end of the day.  Everyone that picks him up always says how solid and heavy he is.  I guess that must be due to his height.  I was going to wait a while before turning around his car seat because like everything else, he was very content, but I realized that there was no longer enough room for his long legs that were buckling at the knees. 

Jackson has been equally crazy and lovable lately.  He is just very intense.  And I don't mean that negatively, in fact it's pretty cool how intensely he listens to us and remembers everything we say, read and do.  His intense joy is contagious and while he needs lots of reminders lately to not let his intensity turn into just plain crazy it's cool to watch him love life.  His hugs are fierce, his kisses many, his questions way beyond things I'd be answering now about life and God.

Speaking of God, he's been telling us lately how much he loves God and is daily amazing me with his curiosity, love, and faith.  His dinner prayers make our mouths drop some nights with the maturity and compassion with which he speaks.  The night of the Tucson shooting Bryan and I were discretely talking about it at the dinner table. He interrupted us reminding us that we didn't say our blessing yet and offered to be the one to say it.  He began his prayer as he always does with "Thank you God for our wonderful day and for all the people in the life."  And then proceeded with asking God with such compassion and seriousness to "please please be with the people that got hurt and the people that are sad. Help them get better and not be scared."  Yesterday when he told me, "I love God better than anyone," I responded with how cool that was and then reminded him that God wants us to also love one another.  He told me he hadn't read that yet in the Bible and wanted me to show it to him after nap time.  We did just that and in a shared writing wrote out 1John 4:7 and put it on our refrigerator.  Just the day before at Bible study one of the mentors spoke on how powerful scripture memorization can be.  Well, this is ours for the week, spurred on by the curiosity of my sweet Jackson, "Let us love one another, for love comes from God."  In Jackson's writing we had to put an exclamation point after God because "that's exciting Mommy!"  I am excited to have found a great resource in the blog, Totally Tots, in their In the Heart section on teaching scripture to children through visuals and songs.  Really cool!

Jackson has been an angel of a brother lately with sharing even his ultra special Star Wars action figures with Colin.  Jackson made a game up for them to play together called "Fill the Boot."  He takes his action figure bucket, dumps it on the ground in front of Colin, and then he proceeds to fill up one of Bryan's big boots with each figure one by one, encouraging Colin to help.  He calls Colin the "Action Figure King!"  It's kind of a weird game, but hey I love that he is sharing and I love that they are playing together.

Speaking of Star Wars, it would be quite the understatement to say that it is a huge love of Jackson's who always is heard saying, "Let's talk about Star Wars!"  This has been going on since his birthday when Bryan got him the first movie, New Hope, and a green light saber.  Jackson went right out the next day and spent his own birthday money on buying a blue one for his Daddy.  But it's not just the gadgets and action figure collection that he loves.  It's the plot, the characters, etc.  He will sit and talk to Bryan and ask him question after question about the ones he has seen (4, 5, and 6) and then tries to get him to tell him about the others he is waiting to get to watch.  This fall I sent Bryan out one day when we were all sick at home with a nasty little bug to stock up on pedialyte and such.  Like every trip to the store he came back with several extra things, including Empire Strikes Back to surprise Jackson with since watching movies was about all we felt like doing. Evidently what Jackson learned from that was if I'm sick then I get another Star Wars movie because as I was trying to swat a fly in our house yesterday Jackson was doing just the opposite and kept trying to get him to land on him.  He said that he wanted the fly's germs so that he could get sick and get another Star Wars movie.

I am currently trying to get our house and schedule really organized.  Brought on by a friend telling me about this book, Organized Simplicity, and sharing some of it's contents with me I was inspired to do a house purge and reorganization.  While looking up that book to purchase it on Amazon, another book called Steady Days caught my attention.  Note the key word in both books, INTENTIONAL.  I love it...just what I had been craving...more intentional organized days with my boys.  I like results and like them fast, but boy have I realized this week that my quest toward having more steady days living in an organized house is going to take a lot of hard work and a lot of time.  I think it's worth it though and while I learned after 3 days of trying to fit in a lot of extra things to help achieve this more quickly, that this woman, a mother of two very busy boys, needs to be more realistic about how many things I can actually check off a to do list in any given day and still have a calm, enriching day.  I don't need to sacrifice that to get what I want in the long run, I just need to scale back and know that this might take a while, or perhaps I  might just have to ship my 3 dudes off one weekend to the grands.

But on to bigger and better things...drum roll please....................................
Bryan just got a new job!  That's right folks, you heard me right.  Bryan just got a new job.  A great job and we are so excited!  For the last two years he had been working for a start up company about an hour, fifteen from here which actually was closer to both of our parents houses than our own.  Weird I know, but man am I going to miss those grandparent switches.  The start up company just didn't take off the way we had hoped and with a little searching, ok a lot of searching, not lacking in stress, Bryan has found a job closer to home, at least minus the traffic,  with great possibilities.  Biased I know, but FMC hands down made a great choice in hiring my man as one of their project managers.  Our friend Nick alerted us to this opening and put in a great word for him and for that we give thanks.  Though it will be quite the transition switching from home building to a brand new field, we know it is the right move and are excited about what this new journey holds for Bryan and our family.  Our prayers have been answered and I'm so thankful!

And right at this moment, my two little ones are taking marathon naps.  Man, life is so good!