I love my kids

Wow it’s late and I should be sleeping. But instead I’m writing because I feel this mad need to capture all of the things about my children that I have enjoyed this week before they slip away and I forget. Like the way the Girl is enthused over her anatomically correct horses. She’s seen a few real horses and asked, “What is that?” when she sees the boy horses. Needless to say, now all of the plastic horse toys that we put on her birthday cake are assigned gender. She checks to see if they have a package or not between the legs, some do, and then gives me this constant running monologue.

“See mommy, this one is a boy horse because he has a penis but this one isn’t a boy because it doesn’t have a penis, but this one is because it has a PENIS!”(Emphasis hers)

I discovered the other day that the boy is a pretty good pinch hitter when it comes to baby holding. I sat him in the chair last week and let him hold her all by himself for the first time and he was radiant, and he held her even after she started fussing and kept caressing her face and cooing, “It’s okay Baby, I’m here.”

If she starts to cry both the Boy and the Girl go running toward her and give her their hands to hold and talk to her and put their faces close to hers. In the car they give me a constant update from the back seat. “The Baby’s holding my hand mommy.” “And she’s holding mine too.” “Mommy the Baby’s asleep now.”

I turned around the other day and the Baby, whom I had previously left propped up in a chair to watch everything as I cooked dinner, I can see her the whole time except I wasn’t looking just then, was suddenly in her brother’s arms and he sat there holding her looking as pleased as punch with himself that he’s picked up the Baby all by himself and was holding her.

“I’m a good big brother mom. I’m being very careful not to hurt the baby. I’m good at holding the baby, I’m a good helper for you aren’t I?” He says this all in that tone of voice he reserves for when he’s making statements, very matter of fact and grownupish, except that it’s coming out of a 5 year old. Then the girl started to jump up on the chair too and wedge herself in next to them to be part of the action. And there they were all three of my children looking sweet and adorable and full of love for each other. The girl with her bright red lips and flushed cheeks and blue eyes that smile with impossible brilliance and the boy with an expression of sheer delight as he held his sister. I ran to get my camera, and couldn’t get it to work, its flashing camera code at me and I don’t understand it.

This morning when I woke up the Boy was making his sister breakfast. I put whole grains in the crock-pot before going to bed and in the morning he can get his own porridge out. I over heard him telling her, word for word, what I’d told him when I taught him how to get it in the bowl and add the frozen fruit and the cinnamon. When I came into the kitchen they were both standing on little chairs next to the counter with their heads together as they made breakfast.

The Boy only calls the Baby by her middle name. He likes it better. When she was first born we asked him what he thought her name should be. He responded, very seriously, “I think her name should mean rejoicing.” I found a middle name that means rejoice and that’s what he has called her ever since, it’s his name for her and he’s on a one boy campaign to have the rest of us call her by that name too by saying it so often. We’ve all slipped and called her by her middle name thanks to his efforts. Now the Girls has taken it upon herself to defend the Baby’s first name. Every time the boy calls her by her middle name the Girl pipes in “And her name is {first name} too.”

Everything the girl plays with these days has a conversation. Her carrots start talking to each other at the dinner table. Her spinach will engage in existential debate before it is consumed.

“Who are you?”

“I am gomflung, who are you?”

“Why are you Gomflung?”

“Because.”

“Mommy I eat it.”

Yesterday the Girl stomped on the Boy’s face with her shoes on. He cried. She didn’t mean to hurt him, she just forgot that she was wearing shoes and yes, he doesn’t mind if she stomps on his face when they’re playing together most days, just as she doesn’t mind if he grabs her and throws her down on the floor mid stride, most days. They can play ”the hitting game”* for hours and giggle and giggle and giggle. But yesterday the Boy got hurt. It was so sweet to see the girl go up to him as he cried and say, “I’m sorry.” And to watch him reply, through his tears, “I forgive you.” Then they gave each other a hug and bounced apart laughing again, completely reconciled.

I want to suck up and treasure everything about these days; I know they won’t last long. The Boy has already begun to grow a bit of a world-weary edge sometimes. The refrain of “I don’t like that, I don’t want to do that, I just want to stay at home” comes easily to the lips of a boy who used to virtually explode with excitement when ever I proposed something. Now I hold onto those moments when he jumps up and down and enthusiastically yells, “Mommy’s making us SANDWICHES FOR LUNCH. Thank-you mommy, I like sandwiches, that’s really good of you to make us sandwiches. I asked you for them and then you made me them thank-you mom. WOOHOO! Girl mommy’s making us SANDWICHES! Do you want sandwiches?” “Uh huh” “Yeah because sandwiches TASTE GOOD and their really yummy and their good for my body.”

They are at the age of wonder right now, and it’s going by too fast.

Happy Love Thursday