How they grow
Every morning I ask them if they grew the night before. Seems my arms are more and more full with each day's first hug. It's not my imagination either.
Trey stands at chest level to me. Granted I'm no beanstalk, but still. His hands are almost as big as mine. He's on the cusp of exiting the child-shoe-sizing phase. Shirts that fit in late fall are squeezy-peezy in a certain turkey-and-cucumber storage compartment. Spring stock-up has me buying size sevens. Se-ven.
And oh, Aden. While not the chub he once was, the boy after his mother's own heart cannot let go of his double chin or belly. Oh it's delicious. On him, not on me. Poor waistbands. I've had to dig into the storage bin of Trey's 3-year-old winter clothes to cover Aden's big baby belly and teeny tiny tooshie. Or as he calls it, "deeny dahny guushy".
So yes, they are growing. The best reminder of this is for me to try to cradle hold them, which I do on occasion while spouting baby-talk sweet nothings just to irritate them. Well, not just to irritate them. They're my babies. Sometimes a mama has to hold her babies. Yeah, they hate it.
Not only are both boys on the path to making me the very shortest person in the house, their minds are growing too!
Aden is missing only a few letters in his alphabet (upper-case only) and has all but mastered shapes. Very very recently, he has been correctly identifying red, orange, green, and blue. Which is huge for him. Not much progress on numbers. I think maybe he can recognize the written number 3, but not sure. And counting is very obviously just a guessed repetition to him. Boy has no time for numbers.
His vocabulary is changing practically every day. When we misunderstand something he says, you can almost see the wheels turning as he painstakingly works, sometimes over and over, to enunciate the words perfectly. He is working so hard on the "L" sound, and has gotten quite good at it. I'm proud to see his determined spirit in action, but to have to say goodbye to his sweet two-year-old speech patterns may very well break my heart.
Where has my little baby gone? As Aden would say, "I not da baby, I A-DEN!" 'Tis the bittersweet march of time.
Then there's Trey, who super-enthusiastically soaks up every morsel of knowledge that comes his way at school. His writing has vastly improved from the start of school, and he is speed-reading Kindergarten and first grade books. Recently Daddy helped Trey do a little research on volcanoes, which surely must have been the highlight of Trey's year thusfar.
He has positively sped through his Awana Sparks curriculum at church, memorizing five and six Bible verses at a time to complete his book in half a year. Now we are going back through the book to make sure he actually understands what the verses say. And you know what?
He does.
We've been having some deep discussions lately. We have talked over sin, salvation, and Heaven at great length. Let me tell you, this boy is pumped about Heaven. Our latest conversation:
Trey: Heaven is good, but I wonder if there will only be fruit up there.
Mama: Oh, there will be lots of food. Not just fruit.
Trey: What about fruit snacks?
Mama: Probably not, but I bet there will be chocolate, since cocoa is a plant. Maybe even ice cream!
Trey: Dairy-free ice cream?
Mama: Oh buddy, you won't be allergic to anything in Heaven! God will take away your allergy, and you can have all the milk, cheese, and ice cream you want.
Trey: (excited) Really?
Mama: Yep. Nobody will have any problems in Heaven. Daddy will be able to eat chicken. Nana will be able to eat bread. You'll never need your inhaler. I won't need my glasses, because God will fix my eyes. Giga's leg and hands won't hurt, because God will heal her. Granddad's knee won't hurt, because God will fix him.
Trey: (giggling and clapping) I think I want to go to Heaven right now!
Mama: Well, God will take us there when it's time. But it's a good thing to think about, because sometimes there are sad or difficult things in this world. If we belong to God, we know that our reward doesn't happen here, and we can look forward to Heaven.
Trey: Well that's OK. It's just gonna be good.
Amen, son. Praise the Lord for revealing these things to little children. My little, growing children.
Trey stands at chest level to me. Granted I'm no beanstalk, but still. His hands are almost as big as mine. He's on the cusp of exiting the child-shoe-sizing phase. Shirts that fit in late fall are squeezy-peezy in a certain turkey-and-cucumber storage compartment. Spring stock-up has me buying size sevens. Se-ven.
And oh, Aden. While not the chub he once was, the boy after his mother's own heart cannot let go of his double chin or belly. Oh it's delicious. On him, not on me. Poor waistbands. I've had to dig into the storage bin of Trey's 3-year-old winter clothes to cover Aden's big baby belly and teeny tiny tooshie. Or as he calls it, "deeny dahny guushy".
So yes, they are growing. The best reminder of this is for me to try to cradle hold them, which I do on occasion while spouting baby-talk sweet nothings just to irritate them. Well, not just to irritate them. They're my babies. Sometimes a mama has to hold her babies. Yeah, they hate it.
Not only are both boys on the path to making me the very shortest person in the house, their minds are growing too!
Aden is missing only a few letters in his alphabet (upper-case only) and has all but mastered shapes. Very very recently, he has been correctly identifying red, orange, green, and blue. Which is huge for him. Not much progress on numbers. I think maybe he can recognize the written number 3, but not sure. And counting is very obviously just a guessed repetition to him. Boy has no time for numbers.
His vocabulary is changing practically every day. When we misunderstand something he says, you can almost see the wheels turning as he painstakingly works, sometimes over and over, to enunciate the words perfectly. He is working so hard on the "L" sound, and has gotten quite good at it. I'm proud to see his determined spirit in action, but to have to say goodbye to his sweet two-year-old speech patterns may very well break my heart.
Where has my little baby gone? As Aden would say, "I not da baby, I A-DEN!" 'Tis the bittersweet march of time.
Then there's Trey, who super-enthusiastically soaks up every morsel of knowledge that comes his way at school. His writing has vastly improved from the start of school, and he is speed-reading Kindergarten and first grade books. Recently Daddy helped Trey do a little research on volcanoes, which surely must have been the highlight of Trey's year thusfar.
He has positively sped through his Awana Sparks curriculum at church, memorizing five and six Bible verses at a time to complete his book in half a year. Now we are going back through the book to make sure he actually understands what the verses say. And you know what?
He does.
We've been having some deep discussions lately. We have talked over sin, salvation, and Heaven at great length. Let me tell you, this boy is pumped about Heaven. Our latest conversation:
Trey: Heaven is good, but I wonder if there will only be fruit up there.
Mama: Oh, there will be lots of food. Not just fruit.
Trey: What about fruit snacks?
Mama: Probably not, but I bet there will be chocolate, since cocoa is a plant. Maybe even ice cream!
Trey: Dairy-free ice cream?
Mama: Oh buddy, you won't be allergic to anything in Heaven! God will take away your allergy, and you can have all the milk, cheese, and ice cream you want.
Trey: (excited) Really?
Mama: Yep. Nobody will have any problems in Heaven. Daddy will be able to eat chicken. Nana will be able to eat bread. You'll never need your inhaler. I won't need my glasses, because God will fix my eyes. Giga's leg and hands won't hurt, because God will heal her. Granddad's knee won't hurt, because God will fix him.
Trey: (giggling and clapping) I think I want to go to Heaven right now!
Mama: Well, God will take us there when it's time. But it's a good thing to think about, because sometimes there are sad or difficult things in this world. If we belong to God, we know that our reward doesn't happen here, and we can look forward to Heaven.
Trey: Well that's OK. It's just gonna be good.
Amen, son. Praise the Lord for revealing these things to little children. My little, growing children.
Comments