I passed the 36 week mark, which means baby’s lungs are developed. At this point he’s just getting fat, which is a good thing. I’m hoping for a real butterball this time. Of course, compared to Brinlee, Kimball and Sawyer at birth, even 5 pounds would seem like a butterball. We are so grateful that I have made it this far with no real problems. We just have a few more weeks to go./
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/Brinlee, Kimball and Sawyer have just been too funny lately. Their personalities are developing more and more. They are so different and bring their own unique spark to our family. /
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/Only a few weeks after deciding he was willing to walk, you can hardly tell a difference in Sawyer’s walking and Brinlee’s and Kimball’s walking. He doesn’t run like they do, but he does just about everything else. He quickly left the cowboy walking stage (he looked like an outlaw coming down main street at high noon. Bowlegged and hands to the sides, ready to grab his pistols). He is becoming more and more attached to Brinlee. He calls her BB. He’ll sit and chant her name and pat her on the back, or just point to her. He is also super talkative. At meals, he will constantly say, “more” or “all done”, even though he has everything on his tray, and he’s not all done (just try taking his tray and see what he does). We’ve decided that those are two phrases he knows will elicit a physical/verbal response from us, and what he really wants is to participate in the conversation. Since he hasn’t learned to say, “How was your day?”, that’s really all he has to contribute. He just grins and giggles when we say, “but Sawyer you have everything on your tray” or “You’re not all done if you are still putting food in your mouth.”/
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/Adam has been introducing more culinary delights to the kids. They currently enjoy chocolate milk, syrup on their pancakes (and in their hair), and chocolate candy. I had to change my sheets today because they were covered in chocolate drool from Adam feeding Easter bunny to Sawyer (while he is teething and drooling like crazy)./
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/The most abused word in the house is “Up!” I think they realize the height disadvantage they have. They always want to see what I’m doing or what is on the counter. Then they’ll say, “Down!” only to beg to get back up in our lap or arms. They seem to enjoy making requests and getting a response from us./
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/Kimball and Sawyer have discovered that tickling our feet is really funny. The good news is we always have a warning. When we hear a high-pitched “aaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!,” we know they are headed our way. They grab our toes and we shake our feet like we can hardly stand it and scream back. They love it./
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/If Brinlee is having a hard time, we give daddy a call at work. The sound of his voice immediately elicits giggles and grins from his number one girl. As he asks her questions and talks to her she’ll say, “Yes. ok.” She says those two words a lot. She talked to Granddad on the phone the other day, and as he asked her questions, she responded “yes.”/
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/We have an old cordless phone and a few pretend phones we let the kids play with (in an effort to get them to leave the real ones alone). The kids bring me the phone so I can pretend daddy is on the phone to talk to them. I answer the phone, and then hold it to their ears while I talk to them for daddy. Sometimes Kimball will take the phone and hold it to the Brinlee’s or Sawyer’s ears (or whatever body part he can reach the easiest) so they can talk to daddy when he’s done./
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/Fake sneezing and coughing still get big laughs, but the favorite game right now is peek-a-boo. Kimball usually starts it with one of us or with Brinlee and Sawyer, and before long, everyone is covering their eyes (or cheeks) and yelling, “Boo!”/
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/Shoes are still very popular. Every morning they bring us their shoes so we can put them on for them. They also bring us our shoes all day (maybe I should put my shoes away and it wouldn’t be a problem…). They are going to outgrow them soon, and we are going for laces instead of velcro. Why? Well, velcro offers a lot of convenience, which we have enjoyed, especially Kimball. At least once a day he un-velcros one of Brinlee’s shoes, takes it off her foot and makes a run for it. We spend the rest of the day looking for it, and she spends the rest of the day limping like a pirate with a wooden stump./
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/This week I installed their carseats forward facing, all on the back row. We went to the grocery store and they were fascinated with being forward-facing and all together! It was funny to watch them as they saw the scenery coming toward them, not leaving them. They started noticing things in the car like lights. Sawyer was pointing out all the lights and saying the word. I do feel guilty about turning them around, but we had to. I had hoped to keep them rear-facing until 33 pounds (that’s the limit on their seats) because it’s the safest, but there is no other way we can all get in the car. They passed the legal limit for turning them long ago, but we wanted to keep them that way as long as we could. With baby brother on the way, we had to make the change so he will have a seat./
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/In the house the kids ride their little cars by pushing backward with their feet. Adam is convinced it’s because of how they ride in the car, and they believe that backward is the only way people travel. I’m not sure I buy that./
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/Life has gotten a little easier for us at meal times. We’ve been giving them big kid bites with foods they can bite through. It started because they always wanted to eat bites from my fruit. Now they won’t eat things that are cut too small (except meat, which they have to have small). They want their apples in wedges, their bananas in chunks, their pretzels (which we call crackers because they can say that) whole, and their cooked baby carrots in matchsticks. Fine with us. Less work. Go big kid bites!/
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/Brinlee has joined the local police force. By local I mean in our house. When she sees Kimball do something he shouldn’t do (and let’s be honest, Kimball is in time out 90% more than Brinlee and Sawyer put together), or if he’s doing something to her that she doesn’t like, we hear, “Uh-oh!” (that’s our trigger phrase that someone is doing something naughty and is headed to time out). Or if she walks in and sees him in time out she’ll say, “uh-oh!” and walk out. Maybe she needs to watch the Brady Brunch episode where Cindy learns that no one likes a tattletale. For now it’s cute, but it has the potential to become super annoying when she gets more words and attitude (like my precious little girl could ever give me attitude). She also works very hard every day to fill the fireplace with any toy she can get her hands on. One at a time, with a look of hard work and determination she fills it every day. Sometimes the boys will complain and point to some imprisoned goody, and we’ll retrieve it. Every night we empty it and create work for her the next day. We’re so cruel, making her work so hard./
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/The kids are loving books these days. They are constantly bringing us books to read to them, or that they read to us. They also like to point out objects they recognize, like balls, babies, bears, etc. Though they love any word that starts with B, for some reason they call books gooks (Kimball) and geegee (Sawyer)./
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/Our favorite new accessory is hats. The boys have little baseball caps and Brinlee has a cute gardening type hat. They love to pull them out and say, “Hat, hat.” Sawyer does the sign at the same time. They like for us to put them on for them, and they walk around the house talking about their hats. Then they take them off, bring them back to us and ask that we put them on again./
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/If I want Brinlee to come to me, all I have to do is say her name, open my arms wide, and she will grin, open her arms wide and run to me. All that’s missing is the sunny meadow. If I just call her or hold my hands out, it’s hit or miss whether she’ll come, but wide-open arms are a guarantee./
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/Our guys chillin on the couch. Kimball’s shirt says, “I love Mom,” and Sawyer’s says, “Chick Magnet.”/
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/Lounging in their chairs is no longer the preferred method of watching videos. Now they hang on the fence, which you’ll recognize as salvaged pieces of the baby jail./
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/Brinlee and Kimball playing with daddy before bed./
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/Somebody must be letting Brinlee watch WWE because out of nowhere she started body slamming Adam. She would turn around run away, then turn and run and throw herself on Adam’s chest or legs (off the ropes style!), laughing like a goon the whole time. She was brutalizing Adam and he was begging to be rescued from the attack. All I could do was take pictures. Sorry honey./
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/Adam finally gets control of thie situation and his attacker.