Six going on sixteen

  This girl. She is strong and gentle; she’s a firecracker and a cheerleader. She is wild and all over the place and leaves ALL of EVERYTHING in her wake. She’s creative, she’s an entrepreneur. Doubters do not faze her – nothing is impossible in her little head. She is the kind of friend everyone wants to have. She has tons of emotion; she’s a feeler. She is a force to be reckoned with. She is six going on sixteen and she is freaking amazing.

Most day she blows me out of the water with her wisdom and mature perceptiveness. Her encouraging nature is a gift. Other days, when she is being flooded, helping her manage her emotions is a bit like putting ones face in front of a fire hose, the stream shooting straight up your nose.

Like for instance when she can’t possibly find ANY pairs of pants to wear to school. Which by that she means all of her 12 pairs either have pockets or tags or seams or some other unfathomable string hanging from them that make them absolutely UNWEARABLE.

Or like the times when she finds one of her “precious papers” in the recycling bin or that used popsicle stick she “was saving for a special project” in the trash. Or those times when she catches me literally running to the car with a cardboard box covered by blanket. She has a sixth sense, that girl, when anything is in-route to the thrift store. Sometimes we have to take teary pictures of her with her no-longer-a-baby baby brother’s toys to help her say goodbye.
Earlier this week, we hit a little speed bump in our morning when the sleeves for the T-shirt she wanted to sew BY HAND for the 6 year old neighbor boy BEFORE breakfast just weren’t working out quite right. And then her sister got the purple knife at breakfast. And some critter was eating our green bean seedlings and she just wanted green beans SOOOOOOO badly.

Despite our frequent (though less so!) rides on the emotional roller coaster, I am amazed at all this girl is capable of. 

Whether it is taking her siblings on a spin on the stand up paddle board all by herself or making a really awesome lemonade (scratch that, “LIMEanade”) stand complete with paper bunting out of items in the recycling bin. She is driven and she figures things out and when she has an idea, there is no stopping her.

She has an immense imagination and has a particular affinity for fairies and other imaginative creatures (leprechauns, tooth fairies and the like). In her dream world, one such character would come and live with her in one of the Lego mansions she constructs for them on a fairly regular basis. Just this morning she asked me what tooth fairies do if you lose your tooth while in Canada (where we are heading for the weekend). I love her!
 
Sometimes it’s easy to think she is letting her imagination get the best of her. Like when I find myself comforting her after she bursts into tears because no one has invented a computerized fairy that can talk to you and comes with a locking box and key for storing valuables. Her response when I told her these didn’t yet exist? “Have Daddy make one.” In her eyes, Daddy can make anything. J It finally dawned on me that she’s my little visionary. It can be awfully tempting to try and ground her with a reality check, but instead I’m really thankful for this realization and I love that I get speak encouragement into her life and tell her this world NEEDS people like her to keep the big dreams coming.

And speaking of encouragement, I think it her gift!! She has been an incredible source of unexpected support for me over the past couple months as I’ve been dealing with a couple of disgruntled neighbors. She checks in with me often and frequently writes notes like the following:

“Dear Mom, I am sorry you had a bad talk. Why do you think people are not caring about their own gardens? I love you! I love being in your family. Hope you feel better. Keep praying about the meeting. I am praying for you. Isla"

And then the other day out of nowhere in particular, she says: “Thanks for doing the best job you can parenting. I can tell you’re working really hard to be the best parent you can be.” This kid! She is a joy.

She can rapture a crowd in 30 seconds flat with her incredible leadership skills. She is making so much progress in reading now that she is beginning to be able to have story time with some of her peers.

Thanks for being in our life, Isla June. You make the world a better place.

Jack 29 Months

 Ask him if he's a baby and he'll be quick to tell you "No! I a big boy!"

 

And he's starting to live out his big boy-ness in his day to day mannerisms. We encountered our first clue that he was growing up when we went away for a weekend earlier in the month. We were surprised to have him toddle out of his sleeping quarters after we had put him soundly to bed in his pack and play. We figured his sisters had come to his aid and lifted him out but they were the first to tell us proudly "No, he did it ALL BY HIMSELF!"

And so was the beginning of the end. A short week and a half later, back at home, we could hear him sneaking out of his room to play in the bonus room, long after we put him to bed. His crib-scaling adventures were short lived and after 2 nights of offenses, we saw broken limbs in our future and quickly removed the front railing. Now he's the proudest little dude in his big boy bed and my picture reel is filling with photo captures of his freestyle sleeping antics.  

 

 

Though he does a great job of getting out of bed when we are trying to put him down at both night and nap time, he hasn't fully realized that he can get himself out in the morning hours too. Usually we wake to him yell-chanting some new phrase over and over. He does it in this sing-song yet monotone way that is difficult to describe but oh so very funny. First he began with "Sheet are weh-et, sheets are weh-et" over and over until we finally upped his diaper size to alleviate the issue. Now we hear things like "Nose is run-neeeee, nose is run-neeee!" Or "Nose is running again, nose is running again!" Then the first night in his new bed he threw us a new one: "Bed is broke-ken, bed is broke-ken!!" We hurried to his room to discover that, sure enough, his crib is not actually "convertible" and half his mattress had capsized onto the floor. It was sort of hard not to laugh. I have yet to capture his chants in action but I did get him to do a pretty good reenactment here:

I've said it on more than one occasion in recent weeks - I hope this kid comes with 9 lives! He's becoming quite the little dare devil as of late. We get to swim in the shallow end during Isla's swim lessons every week and HE HAS NO FEAR. I'm trying to teach him to at least count to 3 before he jumps in so I can do my best to be somewhere in the vicinity when he inevitably goes under. He will jump regardless of whether anyone is around to catch him - crazy kid!

He's also getting pretty adventurous on his tricycle and is taking it down bigger and bigger slopes. He loves going "so fast" and will be riding the length of our hill into the cul-de-sac by summer I'm sure.

He's pretty particular about his wardrobe these days. He favors long sleeves and jeans and has about 4 shirts that he finds acceptable. He takes his shoes and socks off EVERY time I buckle him into his carseat (once I'm in my seat and safely out of reach of course). It drives me bonkers. There have been days where I've put those darn things back on 4-5 times in the course of an hour when we are running errands.

His favorite color is blue and his favor animal is the tiger. His favorite vehicle is the school bus but he's busily planning his Gordon (the train) half birthday coming up in the next couple weeks. He also has a growing interest in "diggers" and all things construction. Lucky for us, our church just demolished one of it's buildings and he got to be there to see the digger in action. Each week we come, he's thrilled to see all the (de)construction.

Yesterday was a big day for us. I took him on his first bike ride in a child carrier seat attached to the handle bars. He LOVED it and wanted to "go so fast." I can't wait for many more adventures like this together.

He's definitely my snuggler and is always game to accompany with a good book and blanket. Last night he climbed into my lap and laid down on my shoulder and whispered "I love you" in my ear for the first unsolicited time ever. Graham was in the middle of reading family devotions and I interrupted so that we could all celebrate and savor the moment. *MELT*

If you're lucky, you might overhear him saying one of his other favorite phrases that he picked up from his sisters: "I the BEST. BOY. EVER!!!" We wholeheartedly agree.