January Recap

Wow, it feels like it took most of January to catch up on the things we let "slide" during December while we were busy being festive. And December was super busy too. We drove all over Puget Sound for Christmas, then a week later, we hosted a New Years party, drove down to Seattle for our nephew's first birthday and then hosted a 30 year old birthday party, all in three days.

Part of January we just laid low and tried to get a better routine to handle Annika's 2 1/2 year old case of the crazies. It seems to be working, she has less bladder anxiety unless she is in the pool or tub when the urge hits. She is still waking up at night a lot, but generally it only takes me 5 minutes to get her back to sleep. Can't really figure out how often she needs naps, but skipping them now & then seems to work best.

Tonite I played soccer and Saben was there watching with his friend Simon. "Watching" is a bit generous, actually they were scurrying around doing boy things like searching for aliens & finding treasures. Probably some shooting was involved too. Its an indoor field and at the end of the game, Saben ran out with Simon to kick the ball around. I couldn't stop grinning, he was so adorable, little legs going as fast as they could, hair bouncing around. (he really needs it cut).

I was struck by how old and young he is at the same time. He's seemed so old lately when we are doing our normal day to day things. He's helpful, articulate, curious and constantly talking. CONSTANTLY. He has made a good friend at preschool. Unfortunately this friend loves to use "potty language" and has really enforced Saben's love of words like "underwear" and honed his ability to make realistic body function noises with his mouth. ("mom, when I make this sound, it is like a log coming out of my mouth!" Sorry Grandmas.)

Its hard when your kids start laughing and loving things that you don't think are remotely funny or interesting. It is so tempting to sneer at him when he makes yet another plllllbbbbb noise, hoping that his audience's stony silence will convince him its not actually a funny thing to do. But then I start to feel bad, like I am not supporting my son. Who wants a mom who constantly sneers at the things he thinks are funny? Is the message I'm sending more like "mom doesn't like me"? So I'm working on finding that balance.

Anyways, my point was that he seems so old. Then I see him running across the gigantic soccer field and he's just a little nugget again, so cute that I want to go grab him. He still has a bit of the baby fat left in his face and it will soon be gone. Five years old looms in just a couple months.

And Annika. 2 1/2 has been a trial, but maybe it always is. I keep thinking that we only have 6 more months of having a baby in the family and I try to savor it. The last bits of teaching language, numbers, colors....days of constant time outs, whining, screaming fits. Pretty soon that will all be over. HA! But still, a phase is definitely nearing its end. 3 and 5 are SO OLD.

Its been fun watching Annika start to interact with her friends. She has started to really engage younger cousins & Ayda. (all around a year old) We found some friends who have a daughter that is very similar to Annika in age and temperment and they have just started to truly play together. Secretly when they get in fights, we just want to stand back and see who wins...because they are both so crazy like that. But last night they were both playing with dolls and making them talk and it was the most adorable thing ever. (until I discovered the dolls were also disassembling our humidifier...but I digress)

At our new years eve party (or was it the birthday party?) the girls were sitting at the table and one sort of yelled or screamed. Then the other one yelled and they kept going back and forth, louder and louder till they were both just screaming. Her parents & Kyle & I were laughing hysterically, and couldn't even bring ourselves to intervene. But for some reason all the other guests looked panicky.... MAKE THEM STOP!

Hopefully I'll have the energy to get some pictures up this week. We've got some great ones of annika & saben dressed in princess dresses, but saben combines his with dress-up SWAT gear and swords and calls himself a guard. Soooo funny.