You're a wizard, William...

Tomorrow is "Dress as Your Favorite Character from a Book" Day in William's kindergarten class.

Look at what I can do with a Revlon eyeliner pencil!



Some mad cosmetic skilz there, am I right, folks?

I think they're doing this in honor of Dr. Seuss' birthday. I'm just glad that he didn't have to dress as his favorite character from a Dr. Seuss book because I don't know where I would have dug up a costume for, I don't know, Sam I Am or someone like that.

William's more into the Magic Treehouse books and the Harry Potter books than the Dr. Seuss book right now, so we decided to go with those. After all, he could have been either Harry Potter or Jack from the Magic Treehouse books with the same pair of glasses.

Can't wait to get him all dressed in his robes and scarf tomorrow, too.

Andrew at two

Andrew turned two years old on Friday, February 24. Happy birthday, sweet boy!

Here he is with his "Elmo boon" that he got for his birthday (don't worry, he got other presents, too. He might be the second kid, but come on, give me some credit):




















You know, I often fretted about how it might be hard for a second child to come into our family, what with William having such a larger-than-life personality. I wondered how on earth another child could possibly keep up or compare.

Ha. Ha ha ha ha ha! As it turned out I had absolutely no reason to worry whatsoever. Andrew more than holds his own. No worries about this kiddo. In some ways, he is more tentative than William, who has never met a stranger, but in other ways, he is far more fearless. He is most definitely His Very Own Self.

He loves Elmo, canteloupe, his big brother Wuhhh-lum, balls, diggers, Special K, fish sticks, Corduroy the bear, Clifford the Big Red Dog, and Cookie Monster. He tells everyone to have a good day, and he loves to ride in the beep-beep car. His favorite item of clothing is his new red shoes, followed closely by his zip-zip jammies. He ends every meal by inquiring hopefully, "Go play Elmo?" He is not afraid of the big slide in our backyard, and he wants to brush his own teeth, thank you very much. Sometimes he gets very quiet, and I get nervous, but when I creep off to find him, he'll be sitting there in a pile of books, very carefully flipping the pages and studying the pictures.

Here's a retrospective, since I always enjoy looking at old photos of my little guys, and I hope you will, too.

Andrew, shortly after birth:







































Look how small he was on that big quilt!







































































Oh, yeah, check this next one out. He's never been afraid of those stairs at all. As soon as he started crawling, he wanted to take on the staircase. And then, once he started walking, he was determined to master walking up and down the stairs as soon as possible. None of that babyish crawling or scooting on the stairs for Andrew. No sir. In fact, he goes up and down those stairs so fast now that it will take your breath away. I'm trying not to think about it.











































































































And the birthday boy with his white chocolate raspberry birthday cake. He bypassed his own plate of cake and tried to go straight for the rest of the entire cake with his little monkey fork. Silly boy. Although I can't blame him...it was darn good cake.

A weekend snow day

Snow!



Sort of. We've had a mild winter, but we had a big long wave of wet snowy flakes this morning. Even though William had a fever last night, he begged me to let him go outside for just a few minutes. He couldn't bear to miss what might be his only chance to get out in the snow.

And since I had ZERO pictures of Andrew in snow, I needed to take him out for a little while, too.



Poor Andrew. He finally managed to get over the unpleasant sensation of big wet things landing on his face and started enjoying himself. He went off, having fun toddling around for a few minutes. Then he took off running and wiped out on the wet sidewalk. That about did it for him. I had wanted to get a picture of the boys together, but he was sobbing. Then he fell in the yard on the way back to the porch and got his knees and legs all muddy and wet.

And so we came back inside.

Incidentally, I am grateful that today is Sunday and tomorrow is a school holiday. We won't have to use any snow days for this, woohooo!

Talking up a storm

Andrew is talking up a storm these days. A veritable storm. He's repeating things that we say, and we can actually understand him. And he's making up his own little short sentences and phrases, and most of the time, I can actually figure out what he's saying or trying to say.

Relief!

David says that Andrew's right in the middle of the normal range when it comes to speech and language development for his age. It's just that William was so freakishly verbal from such an early age (in a good way, sweetie, she says, in case William is one day reading this) that it seemed odd that Andrew wasn't talking as much as William was at the same age.

Well, Andrew seems to be making up for lost time.

My current favorite thing is what Andrew always says when William leaves him. Every morning, William hops out of the minivan and scampers down the sidewalk into the school. And every morning, Andrew looks longingly after his beloved big brother and says, "Bye, Wuhhhm. Ha' a good day!" He says a similar version of this if William happens to leave the house too. I wish you could have seem him standing at the front door the other day, waving after his brother and calling "Bye, Wuhhhhm! Bye, Wuhhhmmm!"

"Wuhhhm" is also starting to sound a lot more like "William," too. I think I might really miss it when Andrew no longer calls him "Wuhhhhm." I still miss a lot of William's old toddler expressions, like "tomos" instead of "tomatoes" and the way he used to say "Super Rocketship!" when he got all excited. Very few of William's Williamisms hung on for a very long time, much to my dismay. David and I still call the remote control the "mote-can retrol" because we think it's funny, but honestly, William only called it that for a month or so. It wasn't even like we tried to correct him, either. He just figured it out on his own and started using the correct words. Bummer.

My other favorite Andrewism right now is the way that he says "beep beep car" for "car." William, David and I have all fallen into the habit of referring to a car or any vehicle as "a beep beep car." And Andrew's zippered pajamas are now the, you guessed it, "zip zip jammies." I have a jacket that is the "zip zip coat." I love this. Something about the way he gleefully says "zip zip!"

Ah, my sweet baby boy. He's going to be two in two weeks, and I can't quite believe it.

This year, I resolve to...

Happy New Year!

What? Okay, so I'm a couple of, er, weeks late. I've been busy. We've been busy. It's been a busy time.

But here we are in 2012. So far this year, we've had a trip to the doctor, two sick days and a snow day. Actually, that was just since Wednesday. Yeah, we've been busy.

My brother even came into town for a night, which felt like no time at all. But I did at least snap a good photo of him with the boys while he was here. This may not seem monumental to you, but let me assure you that it is. All three of them are looking at the camera and smiling. At the same time. Miracle of miracles.



















So anyway. Y'all know that I'm not much of one for New Year's Resolutions. Some years, I half-heartedly make a few. Some years I don't bother. I'm a little cynical about them. I tend to think of New Year's Resolutions as well-intentioned promises that are nearly impossible to keep. At least for me, that is.

Last year, I said I wanted to get some of my articles published in national publications--and I did! Granted, it was on the websites of national publications, but if you ask me, I still think that should count. But I didn't really consider that a New Year's Resolution. It was more of a professional goal made at a time at which it was natural to outline some new professional goals. Let's not argue semantics, though.

Just for fun, I asked William if he knew what a New Year's Resolution was. He mulled it over for a minute and then admitted that he didn't. I explained what they were. And he said he wanted to make one for himself. And he did! His resolution for 2012 is to be able to read chapter books. (Not necessarily the big long hard chapter books, but perhaps some simple chapter books). I said that I thought that sounded like a great idea.

And he's already working toward that goal. Right after William returned to school, his teacher decided to put him in the Accelerated Reader program. He's not overly impressed with himself for this accomplishment but he is looking forward to getting to answer questions on the computer about the books he reads. The computer part is what sold him on the advantage to working hard enough to qualify for Accelerated Reader. It's all about technology with kids these days. In MY day, we had to answer questions about books we read with a PENCIL and a PIECE OF WIDE-RULED PAPER. In the SNOW. BAREFOOT. Who remembers having to write out book reports on loose-leaf paper? Raise your hands, kids, if you ever sweated over a term paper that you wrote out with your Bic pen and your trusty bottle of Wite-Out by your side. (Okay, no, I didn't have to do that in kindergarten. It wasn't until fourth or fifth grade. But I still have flashbacks about it.)

So reading chapter books is William's goal for 2012. And my goal for him is to learn how to swim. For real this time. No floaties. No pool noodles. No doggie paddle. If I have to call it a New Year's resolution to make it happen, I will. It just needs to happen. The summer seems like eons away now, but it will be here soon, and the boys will be clamoring to go to the pool. William has got to be able to swim without me. Andrew is shaping up to be our daredevil, and I'm going to need both hands and both feet to keep up with him.

If you're wondering if Andrew has any New Year's Resolutions, the answer is, "I don't know." I know that David is eager to make him get rid of his pacifier. But Andrew himself isn't so hot on that idea. We'll see who has the stronger will.

Olive you

What's the one Must Have item for your Christmas stocking?

For my husband, it's baseball cards. His mom...er, Santa Claus...always put a pack or two of baseball cards in the toe of his stocking when he was a child. When we got married, the task transferred over to me.

For William, it looks like it's going to be a small Lego set of some sort. I think this is the third year in a row he's gotten something Lego in his stocking, and I guess that makes it a tradition, right?

For me, it's olives. Yeah, you didn't see that one coming, did you? Not unless you are my friend Giles from church, who is the only other person on the planet who absolutely must receive olives in his Christmas stocking. Frankly, I'm amazed that that it's not just me.

And I actually don't know how it started for me. I just know that from the time I was very small, Santa's little red-haired elf (that would be my mom) always put a can of black olives in my Christmas stocking. Back then, I derived great pleasure from shoving my fingers into the little hollow olives so it would look like I had big swollen black fingernails. So appetizing, no? Since I got my own can of olives, no one could tell me to cut it out either. They were all for me, for me! for me! so I could do whatever I wanted with them. Ah, the good old days.

When I got married, the chore of buying olives and making sure they found their way into my stocking fell to my husband. That got tricky when we were flying back and forth between California and Tennessee at Christmas. Since we weren't allowed to even carry water bottles onto the plane in the post-9/11 era, there wasn't much chance that David could get away with sneaking a heavy glass jar of olives in his carry-on bag. So my mother-in-law or my brother-in-law had to step in and make a last-minute run to Kroger to scoop up a jar. I love that they all did this, even though I know they must have thought it was utterly absurd.

And yes, it was a jar by then. My taste got fancier as I got older, and a plain old can of generic black olives was no longer quite as desirable. Santa and his elves took to buying jars of Kalamata olives. Last year, I even got TWO jars. That was all good. One jar even featured olives that were stuffed with sun-dried tomatoes. I'm feeling a little dreamy, just remembering. But still, every year, there was always, always, always a container of olives. Of some sort. There had to be. And there was.

This year, my poor husband got a indescribable (trust me on this) case of stomach flu on December 22. He even stayed home from work on Dec. 23, which should tell you something because it practically requires an Act of Congress to convince him to call in sick. But he managed to somehow get to the store and buy a jar of olives (green this year, interestingly) and put them in my stocking on Christmas Eve. Along with an iTunes card, it was all I got, but it was what mattered. Don't get me wrong, I love the olives themselves, but what I love most is that someone loves me enough to humor me every year and indulge me in my quirky little affinity. David also puts ice cubes in my orange juice, even though he also thinks that's weird. That's love, kids.

What about you? Does Santa always bring you lip balm or a grapefruit or slippers or what?

Merry Christmas!

I'll give a full recap later, but I just wanted to wish you and your families a very merry Christmas from me and my boys.



Hope it was quieter at your house than it was at ours!