We've been busy...
although with nothing other than typical daily life with a 4 and almost-2 year-old.
Clare continues to light up a room. She is engaging, communicative, perceptive, bright, responsive, creative, energetic, and compassionate.
Our favorite "Clareism" as of late is when she says, "I love you ten hundred million, eighty-one, two." It is ALWAYS that exact "number." The fact that she tacks the extra two on the end is like her little trademark way of saying that it's way more than just ten-hundred million and eighty-one.
One of our new daily routines is reading from "
The Jesus Storybook Bible." Clare LOVES it, and I am fascinated at how she soaks up the stories and deeply desires to know more about the people in the Bible. She woke up one morning last week and said, "I just realized that I will get to see all of the people in heaven." When I asked her what people she was talking about, she said, "Moses, Noah, Daniel, Joseph, and Jonah." She wasn't so sure about Adam and Eve. :)
We've been talking with her about forgiveness. That's pretty big for a 4-year old, but we knew that she was catching on when she recently told me (after getting very frustrated with something) that she "was going to forgive me, but her brain was still very mad."
Clare's newest thing is abbreviating words, or adding an "s" to the end of a word, or both.
For example,
- Hey Moms...when I'm the ONLY mom in the room.
- Can I paint my pumpk (translation "pumpkin")?
- Where are Pops (Papa) and Meems (Mema) coming back to Florida?
Our favorite, and the one that has really stuck, is that she almost always calls Isaac "Bruvs" (short for brother...or bruver in 4-year-old-diction).
Isaac is tender-hearted, active, curious, determined, and very go-with-the-flow.
Isaac still isn't talking that much, although he definitely lets us know what he wants/needs. His receptive language is spot on, and he knows exactly what we're asking or what we want him to do. The screaming, which we thought was a thing of the past, has resurfaced...most likely as a result of his frustrations with not having all of the words that he needs to communicate.
Some of Isaac's little quirks include:
- Opening the fridge and pulling things out (i.e. raw eggs, grapes, etc.)
- Moving from one obsession to the next. Today it might be cars, tomorrow it might be DVD cases, and then the next day it might be socks. Whatever the obsession of the day, you can guarantee that he will not let it/them out of his sight.
(Notice the car in his right hand.)
- He insists on having some trinket clutched tightly in his hand when he goes to sleep. It may be a book, an Elmo figurine, a DVD case, or a sticker...but it's sure to be something.
- We have a set of mini-motors that includes 5 firetrucks, 5 cars, 5 airplanes, 5 trains, and 5 boats. He will dump out the box and find the five cars within seconds. He proceeds to carry around the five cars and disregard the other 25.
- He LOVE, LOVE, LOVES smoothies. He has a peanut-butter banana smoothie almost every day. I think he would have smoothies for every meal if given the choice.
These little munchkins, who wake up way too early, make countless messes all over the house, create more laundry than imaginable, and keep us constantly ON OUR TOES, are undoubtedly the joy of our lives.
