leaf jumping

having fun in life

*****Post delayed from last week because Lucy wanted to surprise Grammy and Grandpa!*****

Lucy has had two loose front teeth for so many months. A few weeks ago I asked her if she had been wiggling them, and she said no, she had been too busy having fun. In life? I asked. Yes, in life.

You can't argue with that.

Last night after bed Lucy came into my room, mouth bloody and formerly-loosest front tooth in hand: "My tooth came out," she said.

It has been almost a year since her first tooth came out after last Thanksgiving in Virginia. She put the new tooth in her tooth fairy box but wasn't ready to put it under her pillow yet--she doesn't want the tooth fairy to take it until she has a chance to show it to everyone.


Update:
The evening of the morning when I wrote this post we were heading back from Fred Meyer on a family walk when Lucy, normally our cautious child, missed a big bump in the sidewalk and faceplanted on her scooter, knocking out the other front tooth. (Not fully knocked out, just bloody and twisty until Lucy, in an act of extreme bravery, reached in and twisted it the rest of the way out.) After the trauma of that event subsided, Lucy was extremely pleased for two reasons:

1. She lost two teeth in one day. "I broke the record!"
2. She now looks like a vampire because of the differential between the gums where the two front teeth used to be and the little side teeth that are still there. 

She has been stopping strangers on the street for days to tell them both of these things.

At the end of that day, Lucy summed it up for us: "For a darn bad day, I'm having a darn good time."

three years, 7 months

Dear Oscar,

You sailed past three and a half in October, a big brother now but still almost exclusively wearing costumes and pajamas as everyday clothes. You love bats and fruit and books about superheroes; you are tall and stubborn and often frustrated and very very sweet.

Being newly in the middle is hard--you're not the oldest, and you're not the youngest; you're not big enough to do everything Lucy does but you're too big to get everything Filomena gets. It has been a bit of a rough few months with you: you have trouble not whining about even the smallest things, like asking for an apple or for a place on the couch, and I think you must be growing because your coordination is off--you keep slipping on things, or running into things, or falling down when you're practically standing still.

Yesterday we were sitting on the couch playing with baby Fife and I told you how big you're getting, and reminded you how you said when the baby was born you would not only be a big brother, you would be BIG. Your face crumpled and your eyes got tears and you said in a very quiet voice, I want to go back to being the little baby.

But you are such a good big brother. You love to snuggle her and kiss her; you bounce gently on the bed next to her and make her smile. In the car when the baby cries you sing to her, and you tell Lucy, I'm taking care of this.

After a slow start language has really blossomed for you lately, but you still usually need a little time to get your thoughts out, and you have your own way of pronouncing a lot of things. You get mad when Lucy interrupts you, or when we don't understand what you say, both of which happen relatively often. You say "Mom" a lot in your thinking pauses; sometimes it drives me crazy. You also tell us you love us a lot, just little asides throughout the day. Mom . . . . Mom . . . Mom . . . I love you. When I tuck you in to bed you reach up and touch my face.


Before you knew many words we used a few hand signs to talk to each other. There weren't many signs--there was milk, more, fan, banana, and I love you. Milk is a squeezing motion; fan is just a finger going in circles; banana is one hand peeling the finger of another. At one point Lucy made up a sign for infinity that followed after I love you--it was hands twirling around each other like a wheel. In the mornings when I would leave for the gym, I had to wait outside while you and Lucy climbed the back of the couch to look out the window and sign that you loved me, and I would sign that I loved you back. In your excitement your signs would sometimes get sweetly muddled and it always sticks in my mind--little you standing in the window, blowing me kisses, hands twirling and fingers catching together, signing about bananas and infinite love.

I love you, my love.

Love,
Mama

oscar and us

summer recap: Anne Claire, Ben, and Emma

I didn't post this summer and I keep looking through and finding pictures I wish I had shared, so I'm going to do it!

Back in time, edition one: Anne Claire, Ben, and Emma come to visit