If David and Mary Virginia are both awake, they are bickering. They fight in the car, during meals, in the stroller. Whenever I’m on the verge of making me LOSE MY EVER-LOVING MIND, I try to remember that they’re kids and this is normal kid stuff. Having siblings is just one way we learn to interact,
David: Mommy, is tomorrow Friday? Me: No, tomorrow is Tuesday. David: But it’s not raining! Me: That’s because it rains some days but not other days. Since we’ve never really talked very much about the days of the week, I wonder if he’s asking these questions because he’s learning about them in school. So I ask: Me: If yesterday was
While I was pregnant with them, I knitted blankets for both of my babies. A green one for David, a purple one for Mary Virginia. They have their initials on them, and as soon as they’re born, I use it all the time to try to convince them to choose it as their comfort blanket. These take a
Last night we went to a Thanksgiving celebration with friends, and we were driving home a bit later than we should have; not respecting bedtime quite as closely as we promised we would. When we stay out too late, Mary Virginia is not a happy traveller. While she cries the entire way home, the rest of us
Even though I work really hard to limit his screen time, David is a full-on TV-loving kid. He’ll watch anything, anytime, anywhere and if the TV is off, he asks me non-stop if we can turn it on. He tries different techniques all the time: “I have a good idea, Mommy! Let’s watch TV!” Or my
David was sitting on my lap reading books, and he started to flop around and get rough like toddlers do, so I asked him to stop… Me: David, please don’t jump on Mommy. David: Why? Me: Because that hurts Mommy. I’m not wild like you, I’m old. He stops and moves on to something else…a few
First, some context. David likes to ask me what people say, what inanimate objects say, or what people are going to say. Then he makes me do a full mock conversation about, for example, what the car in front of us is saying. It’s saying, “You can follow me!” It’s a cute routine, and it can
Last Sunday we had an unusually hard time getting ourselves and the kids ready for church. By the time we were all dressed and had everyone’s bags packed, and were walking out the door, church had already started. We loaded everyone into the car, and as we drove Tom and I discussed the intricacies of
This happened a few months ago, but it was such a sweet conversation and I don’t want to forget it. One night, David woke up with a high fever. We took his temperature, gave him medicine, and tried to settle him back to sleep. In the morning, David woke up happy and fever-free. I went
In our part of town, it looks like someone came through the neighborhood planting Dogwood trees Johnny Appleseed-style. The yards are full of them — white and pink — some houses have two or even three trees. And, wow, they are beautiful. The other day we were on a walk and I was telling David