Three years old!

I’m backdating this, but the truth is I have fallen so far off the blogging wagon, I can’t really see the wagon ahead of me in the distance…but I’m going to try.  Parker is now three years old!

Three years since we had this sweet not-so-little (8 lbs, 8 oz) baby boy looking so innocent in the hospital room.

My how that spikey dark hair has changed!

I have a hard time thinking that first picture is Parker at all, but with that pout-face in the second picture, I can tell that is Parker!

He was such a good little baby.  He slept through the night at nine weeks and was content to be the happy-go-lucky second baby.  He never really would take a bottle, but he went to bed easily and made life not too hard on us.  When he started smiling, he did so with gusto.  His whole face smiles when he is happy.  Here he was at six months:

All his hair fell out and it took awhile to come back substantially.  But it did.  Here he was at about one year old:

By the time he was 18 months, it was time to give that curly mop a trim…and he was still all smiles.

Before we knew it, he was two!

Then six more months passed and he was two and a half…

And now he is THREE!  THREE YEARS OLD!  I cannot believe it!

Where do I start to talk about Parker!?  He is a troublemaker!  He loves to laugh and he laughs the hardest when he knows he is doing something he should not do.  He thinks he is quite hilarious when he is being mischievous!

But while he likes to have fun and be funny, he also does not like to disappoint you or make you sad.  I’ve worried sometimes that I’m setting him up for some lifelong issues because when he will not listen and do what I ask, I will tell him, “Parker, you are making Mommy sad.  Do you want to make me sad?”  He will say no and then vow to do whatever it is he needs to do to make me happy.  If I pretend to cry, he will bawl and promise to behave.  He has a great heart.  He does not like to see anyone sad or hurt; if he does, he expresses concern and wants to help. 

He loves to give love.  He still loves for me to hold him and if he really doesn’t want me to let him go, he still wraps his legs around me like a monkey and squeezes tight.  He is still my little Monkey.  Other nicknames I call him are Monkey-doodle, Doodlebop, Parkie and Park-Park. He also is still an avid…thumbsucker.  I guess if you are going to do something, you should do it well and commit to it fully.  I’d say he is still fully committed…and he also still loves to twirl his curls (or just hold on to them) with his left hand while he sucks his right thumb.  Many nights when I come check on him he has a death grip on his hair.  So funny.

Parker thoroughly enjoyed his first year of school.  He wanted to go on days when he did not and he eagerly looked forward to the days he did go (Tuesday and Thursday mornings).  He loved his friends and teachers dearly and gets SO excited when we see his friends outside of school.  His teachers said he was delightful and loving.  Developmentally, they said that despite the fact he was the second youngest in his class (and a boy), he was developmentally on track with all the other children in his class. 

The only area in which he might lag is potty training.  We are working on it, but I think I need to get serious and throw out the pull-ups and institute a potty boot camp around here.  Strangely enough, he does great with one aspect of potty training (#2), but not with the other.  Go figure.  He must be potty trained by mid-July when he is scheduled to attend camp at his school, and I think it will happen.   I’m pretty sure his love of school will help when we tell him he cannot go unless he can successfully wear underwear!

Parker is a talker.  I understand what he is saying most of the time and he has tremendously improved his speech.  He makes a conscious effort to properly pronounce words that begin with two consonants and now it’s starting to come naturally enough that he doesn’t have to try so hard (words like “speed” were “peed,” but now he can say it right!).  He still has a bit of a problem with the letter “R” sounding like a “W,” but he is trying.  It’s funny though because today he was wearing his “Robin” costume (of Batman & Robin).  He said I needed to call him “Robin” (but it sounded like “Wobbin” when he said it to me).  I said, “Ok, Wobbin.”  He said “NOOOOOOO!!!  Wobbin!!!”  I said, “Wobbin?”  He said, “NO! WOBBIN!”  And I said, “Oh, ROBIN!”  And then he confirmed, “YES!!! WOBBIN!”  So he KNOWS what it should sound like, but he just can’t quite say it yet.  Otherwise, his vocabulary is great and he knows all of his letters and numbers (the basics). 

Parker is still an independent child.  He likes to do things by himself and he will let you know that he is perfectly capable of doing just that!  He enjoys being outside and got a bike for his birthday.  He loves riding it, but gets a little nervous if he starts going too fast!

In terms of sleeping, it’s funny that he was such a good sleeper as a baby because he is not such a sound sleeper now.  When he was about 18 months he got several ear infections in a row over the course of about four or five months.  These infections disrupted his sleep and he started learning that if he cried at night, his Mommy would come eventually.  Around that time he also seemed to start having more frequent bad dreams that caused him to cry out at night, even though he is usually still asleep.  This has continued for the past 1.5 years.  Sometimes he is crying out and it wakes me, but when I come to him, he is not really even awake.  Or he’ll be crying about something and I can’t understand what he is saying.  When he truly wakes up (after I calm him), he can’t ever remember what was making him upset.  Also, Thomas will sleep through a bad thunderstorm…Parker will not.  He also does not like fireworks or any loud noises. 

At three he is a decent eater, but he would prefer to eat fruit all the time if he could.  When we go to Chick-Fil-A, I have to beg him to eat the chicken nuggets, but he would gladly eat three or more bowls of fruit.  Frequently I have to make him eat his meat first and then his fruit/veggie.  His favorite place to eat out would probably be either Moe’s (he likes a burrito with rice, chicken and black beans) or Jason’s Deli (chicken and cheese wrap). 

His favorite person HAS to be his big brother.  He loves Thomas and wants to always know where he is.  They fight with each other sometimes, but they also love each other dearly.  I love watching their relationship grow. 

He also has other friends and he loves to spend time with all of them.  His teacher told me that he got along with all of the friends in his class and everyone loved to play with him.  He did tell me one day that his best school girlfriend told another little girl one day that Parker could not be her (the other girl) friend because Parker was all hers.    So funny. 

In looking for pictures for this post, I saw this old picture of Parker and his first friend, Sarah Ellen.

And here they were a few months ago:

It is so crazy how quickly time passes!  I cannot believe our baby boy is three.  It’s hard to think of him as a baby since he weighs 40 pounds now.  Yeah, our little boy who was born weighing in the 90-something percentile, then dropped to the 40th percentile for quite some time, is now exceeding the 97th percentile.  He is a BIG baby boy…and he is, sadly, THREE!

Slow it down, please! 

Photo sharing

I have long wanted to and talked about having professional photos taken of the boys.  Beyond a few trips to Portrait Innovations, it’s just not something we’ve been able to do.  Many thanks to my Mom for offering to do this for us this year. 

I know many of you have seen some of the photos on Facebook and elsewhere, but now that I have the full CD, I thought I’d share more of them here.

All photos are copyrighted by Crescent Moon Photography.  We worked with Blakely (my college roommate my junior year) and she was wonderful!

She did such a great job of capturing their personalities.  She asked me what I wanted and told her I wanted candid, natural pictures of them being them.  I think she succeeded.

This is such a typical scene.  Both of them involved in a conversation, and usually it seems that it must be quite interesting…

This one I love because Thomas is being the great big brother he often can be.  They have come to a driveway, and as you may notice, he stuck his arm out to hold back his brother as he peeks to see if a car is coming.  It melts my heart!  Love it!

There are more, but those are some of my favorites.  Now if I can only decide which ones to frame!!!

Egg dye craziness, 2011 edition

For the past few years, we have managed to get the boys together with a few friends to dye Easter eggs.  It’s not something to usually holds their attention too terribly long, but it still tends to get quite messy. 

This year our two brothers hosted two other sets of brothers.  Six boys, 42 eggs, and 8 containers of egg dye equals a fun time with a bit of a craziness factor thrown in there. 

As with most things, Parker felt the need to make it a true hands-on experience.  Thank goodness for L’Occitane soap (though thankfully Thomas didn’t get it on his hands because that miracle-working soap causes him to break out in an awful rash of sorts—we think it’s the shea butter).  Nothing else was getting that stuff off his hands (wouldn’t be as big of a problem if he wasn’t a thumb sucker and every time he put his greenish blue thumb in his mouth, it would get wet and then put dye on whatever he touched next!).

I think at this point most of the other boys had run off to play upstairs, but Parker was still focused on coloring the eggs!

After sending a dozen home with both of the other sets of brothers, we were left with all of these.  Someone liked blue! 

I ended up making deviled eggs for the first time since I had so many eggs.  At least I was able to contribute something to our Easter dinner at my parents’ house!

Parker’s class Easter egg hunt

Today was Parker’s turn to have a class Easter egg hunt.  He was very excited about it and all the children in his class looked so adorable in the bunny ears they made especially for the big event.  Here is Parker with one of his school buddies:

As soon as he reached the playground and saw an Easter egg, he was off on a mission!

Like his brother, he wanted to stop and inspect his eggs.  In the end, he didn’t even get the minimum number that all the children were supposed to get because he kept stopping to see what he had!

He didn’t mind.  A large cookie and a plate full of yummies were calling his name!

This was the second to the last class before his teacher went out on maternity leave (well, she had the baby!).  Parker has loved Ms. Klauber this year and we have been so happy with her too.  Thomas also was in her class and we were so happy for her to have a baby of her own, but I was also glad she made it almost the whole year with Parker!

I posted the one above because he was actually looking at the camera, but this one shows more how he feels about his teacher.  L-O-V-E. 

It was a fun day and a perfect end to a busy school week (Thomas’ egg hunt and class party on Tuesday, brought doughnuts to Thomas’ class on Wednesday for his birthday (I didn’t stay to take pictures) and then Parker’s hunt and party today.  Whew!

Birthday celebration #1

Thomas’ birthday was yesterday, but his party is not for a few weeks.  There’s no way we (or he) could let his birthday pass without allowing him to open some presents and eat some cake, so that’s what we did.  Nannie & Papa and Aunt Beth were able to join us for dinner and cake (and Nana & Umpa joined us by phone to sing him Happy Birthday). 

And of course, as soon as he woke up he was ready to open gifts.  We had three gifts waiting for him and he was eager to get them open (and so was his little brother!).

Imaginext Fire Station was met with rave reviews.  Good.

He was “intrigued” by the Trio set (in other words, not sure what it was and if he should like it…but hey, I got it for free with the Imaginext toy, and he needs to work with things like this to improve his focus and fine motor skills, so whatever!).  And then the last of the morning three was a set of Matchbox cars (superhero themed though!). 

But what he REALLY wanted was the spy scope he picked out for a friend a few weeks before.  We had not procured the said scope in the morning, but while Thomas was at school, little brother made his way to the toy store and made sure to get exactly what Thomas wanted.  Thomas was quite happy!

Aunt Beth gave him a special card with her gift that included a sticker announcing his special day.  He was quite proud of that and wore it for a few days until it lost its stick!

 

After dinner (we gave the boys pizza – Thomas’ favorite – but we had grilled chicken and fixings….), it was time for cake.  Thomas had asked for a cake with red icing.  I thought that would take far too much food coloring, so I decided to go with a little bit of red and he was fine with that.

So proud of himself for blowing out his candles!

Homemade Mommy cake #1 (he gets another one for his party)

I still cannot believe he is FIVE!

Thanks to everyone for coming (or calling in!) to celebrate Thomas’ special day!  He enjoyed every minute!

Five years old

I can only imagine how I’ll feel thirty years from now. As Thomas just turned five, I kept thinking of a quote our minister used at our wedding. It was from the song "Sunrise, Sunset" from "Fiddler on the Roof" (many thanks to my mom for remembering this for me and correcting my previous statement!) and it went something like this: “Is this the little boy I carried? Is this the little girl who played? I don’t remember getting old, when did they?”

Five years have flashed by in the blink of an eye. It does not seem like five years ago we were gazing at our little miracle baby sleeping peacefully in the bassinet:

I hope Parker understands one day, but there will never be a better moment in my life than the one when Thomas was born five years ago. After everything we went through -- the loss, the complications, the bedrest, the everything -- just to get him into this world, when he was born and he cried for the first time, it was a moment unlike any other. It was undoubtedly the very best moment of my life. I was in tears, but it was the most happy, joyful tears I've ever cried.

It is best summed up by 1 Samuel 1:27 -- "I have prayed for this child, and the Lord has given me what I asked of him."

Before long, he was our little chunky monkey, full of rolls and full of smiles and laughter. (here at four months)

And then he was one…

And then two (about two weeks before he came a big brother!)…

Then a crazy three year old…

Then another blink and he was four.

And now, after a busy year, he is five. Five. I cannot believe it!

This has been a big, big year for Thomas. We have moved twice, he has learned to write all his letters and has started reading simple words (he asks me ALL THE TIME what different words say and mean). He gave up training wheels and learned soccer and t-ball. He is drawing real pictures (sometimes) – more than just scribbling on a page. He still loves pizza, being outside and TALKING.

His teacher told us at his last review that Thomas is a very friendly child. She observed that he likes to greet everyone who comes into the classroom and that everyone likes him and wants to be his friend. At this point in his life, that is one of the most important things I want to hear! I remember a wise judge (not my father, in case you are wondering) telling the courtroom one time that you “have to get along with people.” I think it’s a really important trait and so far, Thomas seems to have it mastered. He loves talking to anyone and everyone.

He is still a picky eater, but follows my rule of trying at least one bite of everything on his plate every single night (and there is almost always a vegetable at dinner). He still doesn’t like chocolate, which is almost a blessing when it comes to his peanut allergy. I never have to worry about him eating a Reese’s cup or something because he would take one look at the chocolate and turn up his nose. Though with the allergy, we try to remind him never to eat things that we have not approved first. It is a challenge, on many levels, and I do hope and pray that somehow, someway he can outgrow this limitation one day.

He is still waiting for his official party next weekend, but he was mighty proud to turn five on the 20th (I’m backdating this post!).

He kept reminding me that there needed to be five candles on his cake and he was sure to doublecheck that I had followed his instructions properly!

It’s hard to believe that later this year he will start kindergarten and before we know it, five more years will pass and he will be 10. If I were to really think about it, I’m sure I would be in tears.

He is such a special, special miracle and I am so thankful for the blessing he is in our lives. He is a wonderful big brother and a loving son and we are so lucky. Happy 5th birthday to our dear, sweet Thomas.

Growing up too fast

Our big little boy turns five tomorrow. FIVE. How is that possible!?! He has been counting down the days for quite some time, and keeps talking about how he’s going to get bigger when he turns five. Tonight once he was in bed I told him I had to give him a special goodnight hug because it was the last night he would be four. He told me he’d probably grow a little by morning time and I laughed and said “Sure! You might be too big for your clothes!” He laughed and we said our “good nights.”

About 10 minutes later he appeared at the top of the stairs, I couldn’t see him at first, but I could hear the sadness in his voice. He was fighting back tears when he said to Trey and me, “I’m a little sad.” There was a pause as he was still fighting back those tears and we asked him, “Why?” He said, “Because tomorrow I probably won’t be able to fit in my fireman’s costume or my Buzz Lightyear costume anymore.” And then he completely lost it. He was sobbing.

Trey and I ran up the stairs to hold him and assure him that I was just kidding he won’t grow all that suddenly and everything will fit him just fine for a good while longer. And I promised him that when he did get to be too big for any of his costumes, we’ll get him a new one.

After more tears, he finally calmed down and soon after fell asleep.

But our sweet little boy will be five tomorrow. How can that be?!?! Now it’s my turn to cry!