Kiddos Update

First, I just wanted to say thank you to all you who read my blog, be you family, friends, or close blogquaintances. You've all been so supportive and loving and my efforts would be a lot more like drudgery without your cheering me on. So thank you!

So--onward. I realize that I haven't blogged much about what my kiddos are up to! Don't feel obligated to stick around; I wax wordy where my little wonders are involved. Here's the lowdown:

Reed - Reed is liking school a little more, and more, I suspect, than he wants to let on. I asked his teacher how he's been doing, and apparently, he has words now. Many. :) She said he does just fine and seems to enjoy himself. He loves anything to do with Legos and Star Wars right now, or maybe I should say for the last nine months. He still asks me how far away his birthday is, and I try to help him reference time-passage in his mind. Very hard to do, though, and it was very difficult for him that his daddy and sister have birthdays in May, his mama and brother have birthdays in August, and he has to wait all the way until November for his lone fall/winter birthday. He is constantly telling me what he wants for his birthday. I believe a rocket ship was mentioned, as well as a four-wheeler. He can "read" simple books aloud to me. I'm not putting "read" in quotations to lessen his literary achievements--just for accuracy's sake, because most of what he's reading is formed of sight words and the boy has an incredible memory. But he also does some good "real" reading, and I'm just happy to see him enjoying books. I have been reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone to both him and Jaxon at night, and he is deeply interested. He asks lots of Potter questions in the morning, but at night, just lays silently content, imagining who-knows-what in his impressive Imaginarium. :) Reed has a really special bond with both his siblings, and hugs them both when he comes out of school. Often, he and Jax say to each other, "I missed you!" He carries Savvy around a lot, which she loves--her own form of easy transportation. He is incredibly generous, helpful, and creative. He draws, colors, and writes all the time, and his latest project is making stories. He'll bring me sometimes ten brilliantly beautifully colored and lettered pages, and asks me to staple the sides together. Then he reads it to me. His intonations are right on, and the stories are usually funny or cautionary, and always long. He has created characters to go with his various voices, one of which we together named "Bronckley". When we play together, his character usually says things like, "Would you like to sleep over at my house? My mom says it's okay. Plus she says we can eat pizza in my room and watch TV in my room and we don't ever have to go to bed. Actually, my mom says you can live with us if you want."

Yesterday he drew a gorgeous picture of our family, complete with a pet white tiger. In that picture, Phill has a unibrow and ears (which I mention because none of the rest of us in the picture have ears), I have a lopsided smile and somehow weary-looking eyes, oddly scraggly hair, and Reed looks maliciously pleased (Reed loves drawing angry eyebrows) and has tri-colored hair, which he called "rock star hair" as he colored. The tiger is larger than all of us, and written on our house is "21000i". I'm standing in the doorway with open arms, with my weary lopsidedly happy face. Savvy and Jax have no faces and they are tiniest in the whole picture. Our house is surprisingly accurate in its portrayal. Hahahahah.....oh, my Reed.

Jaxon - Jax is obsessed with his water gun and frequently goes into the backyard to squirt all of the water out of it onto the walls or windows of the house. He also likes Savvy's spray bottle (that I use to do her hair) and he can soundlessly empty that out on the back of the couch at lightning speed.

He is getting really good at explaining his emotions, and has perfected his angry posture. (Slumped shoulders, furrowed brow, balled fists.) He can explain most everything he's thinking much better than, say, six months ago, and he has some funny questions. "Mom, are there people walking on the world?" He doesn't usually nap anymore, although he has replaced his naptime with either quiet glazed-eyes introspection or chatty Lego play.

He loves toast. He would happily eat toast for every meal if I let him. Usually when he wakes up his first words are: "Mom, my diaper's soggy. I want chocolate-chocolate milk and eggs and toast." He prefers to be fully dressed first thing in the morning, although he has finally grown out of his desire to wear everyday clothes to bed.

He growls when he's shy or at a loss for words, and he laughs readily. He's found kind of a threat in Savvy, who has started to be pretty bold and will happily walk up and take a toy right out of his hands. The first few times she did that, he followed her around, whining at her to give it back please, but finally absorbed what we kept telling him and figured out that he could just take it back. (I know, I know, we ought to encourage him to share, but she gets away with snatching toys away all too often. And when he gently takes back his toy, which he almost always does gently, she just walks away and finds something else.)

Jaxon loves to color, too, and used to ask that we make his colored paper into a ship. But now that he's seen Reed's recent projects, he asks for it to be made into a book. He hates to be sticky and loves to get wet. He loves hot dogs and toast and usually turns up his nose at anything that looks more complicated than that, although he's eating a little more adventurously lately (finally). His favorite joke is: 'Guess what?' -What? 'Chicken butt!' and he spices it up with all variety of substitutes for "chicken", including monkey, mama, potato, and toast. Sometimes that joke is the first thing he says to me in the morning. :)

Savanna - Savvy is deep in imitation mode. She talks on her cell phone (her hand), saying "Heh-doe??" She gets dressed (in Jaxon's clothes, which end up splayed out all over the bedroom). She combs her hair (while I try to do it). She kisses her babydoll and says sweetly "bay-beeeeee....." (after biting its head). She yells, she shakes her head no, she gives slobbery kisses, she pats your back if you're hurt or crying, she knocks on her wall when she's done with her nap, and she has a few words:

Hello (heh-doe), buh-bye (with a wave now!), hi, Reed (Wee or Weet), I love you (lut-youuuuuu), mine (courtesy of Jaxon), here you go or there you go (deer-doe or dare-doe), where are you (wah-youuuuuu?) the baby signs for 'dog' and 'more', and owee (usually this one is coupled with incredibly dramatic faux crying and gnashing of teeth and flopping helplessly onto the couch cushion or floor, generally her elaborate ploy to get attention).

She loves to stand on the dishwasher drawer when it's open. Today to keep her occupied while I did dishes, I buckled her into her chair and gave her two crayons and some paper. First she panted at the sight of the crayons, then shrieked with happiness as she marked up her paper. Then she explored the nutritional value of crayon wax, deciding it was a healthy addition to her diet.

She is strong-willed, sweet, and loves to make us laugh. She plays peekaboo by only covering her mouth or peeking out her fingers with both eyes. She loves her brothers and walks through the house calling for them when they're gone-"Weet? Dah-ee?" In three months she will go to nursery. She applauds herself when she dances.