My Mosa

Four random things for the fourth:

1)  Suzi picked up some seed pods in my parents' yard and took them to my mom, wanting to know what they were.  My mom told her, in her southern accent, "those are mimosa seeds."  While we were over at their house yesterday, Suzi came running up to me with a little bucket of seed pods, and proudly told me "these are Grandma's mosa seeds!"  Because, see, they weren't mimosa seeds.  They were my mosa seeds. Giggle.

2)  Kids' Halloween costumes.  I have it all figured out.  Now I just need to get started sewing.  Suzi wants to be a bat.  Easy enough, that's just a black outfit with awesome wings on the arms and a hat with bat ears.  I asked Ivey if she wanted to be Ponyo and she said yes.  I'm a little unsure about sewing a red Ponyo dress.  Might have to get some help on that one.  Then I plan to use orange hair chalk to make her hair look like Ponyo's.  She is going to be adorable!  And then yesterday it hit me that with his hair short, Robert looks a lot like Harold of "Harold's Purple Crayon."  So, basically, I'll just need to hand him a purple crayon on Halloween and he'll be all set!  I might try to find a little blue outfit for him if we don't have one already.  Also, Jordan said we should probably just make him a pretend crayon out of cardboard.  He's probably right.  Otherwise little Harold will be coloring things purple wherever we go.

3)  Life is so much easier when the dining room table is clear.  It's usually buried, but today it's clean and we've been homeschooling at it.  I think I'm going to start clearing it several times a day, even if I have to dump the stuff somewhere (anywhere!) else.

4)  Bike riding has finally clicked for Suzi.  She's still using training wheels and probably will be for a while, but she has such a good time and I'm sure she'll progress to two wheels quickly now.  I'm not sure which she is fonder of, the bike itself or the Buzz Lightyear bell we got for her.  She rings it at cars, and also calls out greetings such as "hello, friendly cat!"  Have I mentioned she wears black Converse All-Stars while all this is going on?  I can hardly take the cuteness.  Seeing her ride her bike makes me so happy.

NAK: A Robert update

I've had this blog since 2007 and have never done a write-every-day-for-a-month thing, so I thought maybe I'd do it now.  Also, this blog has been rather neglected as I've tried to also post somewhat regularly on my homeschool and derby blogs.  I'm going to try this and see how it goes.  Not exactly sure what I'll write about every day for a month!

Today, I'll start with Robert.  I've been meaning to post about him.  He'll be 18 months old next week--one of my favorite, yet one of the most challenging ages.  His haircut has really grown on me.  Now, instead of a bunch of curls and wispy hair in his eyes, the first thing you notice is his big, sweet eyes.  It also looks very blonde since the big haircut.

Bouncing at a friend's house

He's using more and more words and phrases now.  The ones I can think of right now are Mama, Daddy, shoes, cookie ("cook-cook"), water ("wa"), "I want," yeah, no, and outside.  And then there are my two favorites:  "thank you" and "ruff-ruff!"  If he hears a dog barking, he barks back.  I love it.  Oh, and he also says "boo-boo."  That's when he wants to nurse.  He was nursing while I typed a lot of this.

Since it's been warm anyway, I've hardly put shoes on the boy until recently.  He loves to wear them and holds his little feet up for me to put them on him.  With his cute little Skidders shoes on, he spends a lot more time running around with the big kids.  When we go to the church for our homeschool co-op, I take him out of his car seat and just put him down to let him follow his sisters inside.  On the playground, he runs around and climbs the structures.  He looks so proud when he gets to the top of something.  We took the kids to the zoo yesterday and he had a great time looking and pointing at all the animals, and then playing on the playground.

He loves Daddy.  On Friday he stood on our love seat looking out the front window, asking me questions like "Daddy?  Is Daddy?  Daddy ha?"  Poor little guy.  I totally understand.  I miss Daddy when he's at work too!

He can be a pain in the butt as well.  He pours drinks in the floor, pulls out items from drawers and cabinets I really wanted him to leave alone, and doesn't do much napping except for when he's nursing or being held.  Jordan has the golden touch for putting him down so he stays asleep, and getting him right back to sleep once he wakes up.

He doesn't watch movies like the other kids (and the dog).  He much prefers climbing on things and just generally wreaking havoc.

Oh, little troublemaker Bob.  He's my constant companion.  The girls go to Grandma and Grandpa's house regularly, but Robert runs them ragged and they can't handle it.  Except for once or twice a month when they keep him for just a couple of hours for me to do something like take the girls to a Tri-Art show that is only for ages three and up, it's me and Bobber.  Together.  All the time.  It's not always easy.

He's so sweet, though.  I love him and am still so happy he was our big surprise.  I think about nine months or so in the future, when he will be a little more predictable and will probably be learning to use the potty, and my life just might be evening out a bit.  It helps get me through the tough days of nonstop messes and having to be on constantly, watching and intervening and never getting very much done.  It lets me enjoy the sweet toddler cuddles and cuteness of now, knowing it's all a season.  A wonderful, messy season.

I'll try to post every day this month.  Sometimes it's hard to find a minute to concentrate.  There may be a few days I write two sentences about how tired I am and hit publish.  Oh well.  Doing the best I can!