Category Archives: Milestones

One Summer Night

The first and only time I snuck out of the house was to hang out in my friend John’s front yard.  I went home before my curfew, said goodnight to my parents, and quietly went back out the door.  I walked two blocks to his house, and I sat in the grass and mostly listened to John and his friends talk.  Joe was there, and Will, and Chris, and Julie.  I hadn’t left for college yet, and they had finished their first or second years at school.  It was different than the summer before, when I still had a year of high school left.  I can remember where everyone sat; on the steps and on the grass.  I listened to everyone talking, with passion, about music and the world and I felt like my life was starting.

It was such a shock to learn that John died.   I have been listening to this song, and remembering.

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Then and Now

As everyone knows, I love to stage the same photo over and over again. I was just going to say that I have that in common with my father in law, but then I realized, maybe I got the idea from him?

Probably!

So here are a few pictures of Luke and Jack riding scooters with Grandad.

I think Luke was 3 here?

And maybe 4 here.

20110712-112222.jpg

>The Elmo Song

>Jack is really into the Elmo song night now. (That’s right now in Jack speak.) My favorite part is “H, I, J, KAI, ELMO, P.” It seems like he randomly says, “Bird!” at the end of the video, but he is reading an alphabet book, and there is a bird in it. Note to self, tell Kai’s mom about Jack’s homage to him in the alphabet song.

P.S. That is Luke snorting in the background – not me.

P.P.S. Obligatory puppy photo:

>The Apple and the Tree

>Luke was happy to sit in the car cart at the grocery store with Jack last week, possibly because he could read while I was shopping. We went out to breakfast on Sunday and he started reading as soon as he finished his pancakes. And then Luke wanted to leave his bike in the bike rack and ride home in the trailer so he didn’t have to put his book down. Ahhh, Luke, you remind me of myself. Of course, I was much, much older when I picked up a book and didn’t look up for 7 years until I got my driver’s license.

Yes, we have entered the world of chapter books, and it is very exciting.

>File Under TMI

>I’m thinking of starting a new category of blog posts that I will label TMI. Maybe not, depending on how this one is received… But I have exciting news! Jack peed on a tree this weekend while we were camping! He saw Luke do it, and then several times over the course of the weekend he said, “Potty. Tree. Pee.” After it stopped seeming like a fluke, and started seeming like he was peeing after he said that (we could tell from the far away look in his eye) we started to try to rip off his diaper and give him an opportunity to pee on a tree. And he did it once! I think this is major news on the potty training front. It is a very, very exciting development.

>If That Doesn’t Work, Try Throwing Me Down The Stairs

>At least a year or so ago, Luke’s friends saw an America’s Funniest Home Videos episode about different ways to get that loose tooth out of your mouth, and they have been dying for a chance to try some of them out. And that is how Luke came to have one end of a string tied around his tooth and the other end tied to a hippity hop.

From May2009

Dave and I both find loose teeth to be sort of disgusting, so we had to leave all the string tying to our good friend.

From May2009

The plan was to throw the hippity hop down the stairs to the basement. It didn’t work, but between you and me, I think Luke was pushing the string off his tooth with his tongue at the last second. I came to that conclusion because in the video, you can hear, “You are pushing the string off your tooth with your tongue!” I’d share the video, but it’s just the back of everyone’s head as they crowd around to see the spectacle.

After a few tries, Luke said, “Hold onto the ball and throw me down the stairs.” That’s when I decided to stop the madness.

This all took place about 2 weeks ago, and I am happy to report that the tooth is finally out. This morning I noticed that the tooth appeared to be about 1/4 inch taller than the rest of Luke’s teeth. I think it was just resting on his gums because when he wiggled it with his tongue it just came out. Finally!

>The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

>According to Luke, Alexander didn’t have anything to complain about because at least he didn’t end up in the emergency room. But the way I see it, if you fall out of a tree and end up the E.R., but it turns out you just have a (Pause because Jack is throwing up. And… I’m back.) bruise and a flesh wound, then hey, it’s a good day. Well, that’s what I was going to say before I cleaned up a bunch of vomit.

What happened? Luke fell out of an apple tree and landed on a stump or something. I had my back to the tree, so I didn’t see it, and that seemed to make the nurse think I was a terrible mother. Luke wished Aunt Beth was a nurse at the hospital and I did too! He got the wind knocked out of him when he fell and he was pretty scared and upset, and he said it hurt to breathe. So off we went. X-Rays showed that everything was fine. I had imagined canceling the whole summer of camp and swimming lessons and soccer and just laying around healing, but instead they said to take it easy for a few days, and no tree climbing for 6-7 days at least. Totally doable!

As for Jack, I think we’ll have to see how the rest of the night goes! Wish us luck!

>Last Day of Kindergarten

>So many boring details about my life so little time to post. Consider yourself spared!

I did shed a tear or two on Luke’s last day of kindergarten. It seems like the first day was just yesterday! I put him in the same shirt for the last day of school, but we had to go with a different pair of shorts, because he actually grew out of a pair of shorts for the first time ever.

Speaking of how Luke never grows out of shorts, I put Jack in a pair of 18 months shorts and I thought to myself, “Hmm. I think Luke wore these until he was four. For some reason I don’t see that happening with Jack.”

And then, as I was digging through the unfolded clean clothes pile for shorts for Luke, I decided to play a joke on Luke and I handed him a pair of Jack’s pants (size 12 months) to wear instead. He didn’t notice. I had to tell him.

I wish I could link to a picture of him wearing these pants 5 years ago, but they aren’t really that cute, so the only picture I have is on a Christmas ornament that the daycare made.

>15 Month Checkup

>Luke recently had his 15 month check up and the milestone checklist went like this:

Q.How many words does he know?
A.10
Q. Has he put two words together?
A. Yes. (This isn’t really true, it just sounded true to me at the time. Unless “Ruff, Gwirl” counts.)
Q. Can he stack blocks?
A. Yes.
Q. 4 blocks?
A. No
Q. Two blocks?
A. Yes
Q. If you put a crayon in his hand does he scribble?
A. Yes
Q. etc. etc. etc
A. Yes. Yes. Yes
Q. Does he imitate you doing housework?
A. ? (queue crickets chirping.)

OK. of course I said yes. As you can see above, I assume that Jack is a borderline genius, or at least on track, so the answer to all questions must be yes, so I don’t have to think about them very hard. I was obsessed with Luke’s milestones, and I know he was behind on the block stacking, so I was surprised when I saw Jack stack a block and I made a mental note of it for the checkup. But as usual, I answered yes to everything and then came home and ran through the list with Dave and friends to see where I had exaggerated. We agreed that he isn’t really putting two words together. And that, “does he imitate you doing housework?” seems to be a question left over from an earlier era.

He imitates me working on my laptop. He imitates me talking on the phone. He takes knives out of the dishwasher. But that is probably less about imitating and more about augmenting his weapons cache that I can only imagine is somewhere behind some curtains, with his emergency food supplies. Also, when Aunt Suzy said, “Come here kitty” and patted her knees, Jack patted his knees. So clearly, he can imitate people… But hmm, housework?

Now I could go two ways with this:
1.) How sexist! Why ask if he can imitate me doing housework? Why not ask about the million other things I do? Why not just ask if he imitates me?
2.) Ha ha ha, I never do housework, so how could he even know how to imitate me?

But the more I think about it, the more I think that it would be great if Jack was imitating me doing housework. While it’s true that I am not the best housekeeper in the world, and it’s also true that I outsource a lot of the housekeeping, I still do a lot of housekeeping, and so does Dave. But a lot of it happens after kids are in bed, during nap time, and before they wake up in the morning. And maybe if more of that happened when the kids were awake, then there would be more imitating. And by imitating I mean, I can’t believe I have two little indentured servants in the house and I haven’t been making them work for their keep!