A few days ago I was doing some yard work, and instead of putting the nozzle on the hose I let it run so the kids could play with it while I worked. At our old house, the kids played in the hose all the time. Sometimes with the sprinkler, sometimes with the slip ‘n
This month Thomas got a new nickname. We’re calling him Screamy. And it’s not an affectionate nickname or a clever nickname, it is a very literal nickname given by two parents who are exhausted by a sweet little imp named Screamy. Thomas has hit his stride as a toddler. He’s realized that though he is
Thomas is 14 months old. By the time his siblings were 14 months old, I was already pregnant, and so they both remember month 14 as “the month Mommy fell asleep.” But this time I’m not pregnant, and I’m still exhausted. Which makes me wonder, was I exhausted the past two times because of pregnancy?
Sometime before Thomas’s first birthday, he was standing by the couch and let go, took a few steps, and then plopped down. I watched him and willed the moment to crystalize in my memory. My baby, learning to walk right before my eyes! So beautiful! This moment is why we have children! And then he did the same thing
The other day “Happy” by Pharrell came on the radio and David and Mary Virginia both started screaming from their carseats, “IS THIS MY SONG? THIS IS MY SONG!! MOMMY!!! MY SONG!” And then they started having a fight about whose song it was, and I rolled my eyes because does this song belong to
This is Thomas’s 12-month update, even though he’s 13 months and two days old. I wrote most of it when he was 12 months — before his birthday, before we moved, before Mary Virginia’s birthday — and then it sat unfinished in my drafts folder. Even though he’s 13 months old, and he’s standing on his
So much has happened since Thomas’s first birthday, it feels like so, so long ago. Because of everything going on, I decided to give myself a month to get all his birthday stuff posted. And I’m giving myself until David’s birthday to write about Mary Virginia‘s birthday. And then until Christmas to write about David’s. Christmas 2020. My
They way Thomas is standing, it looks like I caught him in the act of something naughty. What I caught him doing was standing. I was taking photos of his fancy three-year old sister in the front yard and I turned around and he was showing off his new trick. Thomas has been pulling up since mid-February, but he just
Today is Thomas’s birthday. At 12 months, Thomas can eat an entire hotdog by himself. He is nowhere close to walking, weaning, or sleeping through the night, though. He does hold my thumb while not-doing those things, though, so I’m not only complaining. We celebrated by having a party last Sunday. It was almost a week early, but family
Last Sunday, just before his first birthday, Thomas was baptized. Baptism is a practice in which the pastors of a church increase the faith of parents by asking them to stand on stage with their young children. (Picture Tom reading this, looking up at me and saying in a stern voice, “Amanda. Do not make