I decided to take a quick trip to visit an old friend who just gave birth to twins. Tomorrow I’m leaving on a jet plane and, I’ll admit, I’m a little nervous. This time I will be flying solo and will be away from my family for a week. (Sleep, anyone?)
Before I go, I just wanted to put up a couple pictures to rub in my face every day the cuteness that I will be missing. And, like always, there is so much to catch up on – I may just have to let that go – and I’m afraid I haven’t even taken notes on all the changes the kids have been going through.
- My Old Soul.
Ah, Isabel, you amaze me. I don’t really know what to say right now. She’s all girl now and totally ready to explore the whole wide world. It has now become a ritual to tell her a story at night and we have finally moved beyond losing body parts. One day it would be nice if together we could draw on paper the far-away lands we come up with, among them the Enchanted Forest, Uno, the Jungle and even Thomas’s and her kingdom. Her favorite is the Enchanted Forest, where she and Thomas search for treasures and fight witches, giants and evil kings and queens. My least favorite is the land of Uno, to where kids are tricked into coming to forever play the game and eventually turn into cards themselves. That one (yes, I came up with it) kind of gives me the creeps so I told her I don’t want to go back there anymore.
All this talk of imaginary places has her creative mind spinning. I will catch her all the time acting out her adventures, pulling Thomas along. I also notice that she is trying to speak with more sophistication and often she stumbles on what words to use and either gets frustrated or comes up with something totally nonsensical. It’s a neat phase to see her go through, even though sometimes I’m not sure what she’s trying to say at all.
Isabel still has the spunky spirit but I can see now the influence her playmates have on her attitude. It might be the “vogue” thing at this age, but I notice a lot of “I’m not ready to play with you yet” going around. I caught her saying it to a good friend of hers the other day, which saddened me. It was the first time I saw her deliberately push someone away; I suppose she thought she would try the line on for size to see how it feels. In any case, my struggle will be to teach her to not necessarily join ranks, sometimes it’s okay to do things your own way. (And, of course, I love her way.)
- My little devil.
This handsome little devil makes it so hard to get upset with him. He has this terribly cute feigned look of shame every time he does something bad: he turns away or runs into a corner and then, *very inconspicuously*, shifts his eyes under his lowered brow to see if you still disapprove or not. If he even senses a crack of a smile he shows off his proudest smile and comes running back to you. He’s also discovered the power of his scream and pulls out this weapon whenever he gets upset. Oh, he knows it hurts; he relishes your pain. When he’s not causing ear drums to pop he is an absolute angel.
He still loves to spend hours in the front and back yards. Rats, snails and slugs are no longer the only threat to my strawberry patch. For some reason, he loves the green “awbebies.” Speaking of awbebies, Thomas finally speaks! Finishing words has finally begun to catch on and he can now say: button, moon, bite, da’k (dark), light, down, up, go!, again, bottle, bah-be-ball and my favorite – “I dooooo!” Every day he learns new words -EXCITING!
Like Isabel, he loves living and never stops showing his enthusiasm. Tomcsi’s love for dancing has grown, which means we still bust it out to songs like Dynamite and DJs Got Us Falling In Love Again. The two of them will either hold hands and dance in a circle or the three of us will. I love it.
The best, though, is that the two of them will bust it out together. They want to dance with each other, play together, follow each other. I feel so blessed with this and hope it lasts forever and ever. This doesn’t mean there aren’t little spats here and there but it’s never more than your typical sharing problem, which they are pretty darn good with anyway. You will find no complaints here.
So, I will miss you (my) guys this week and can’t wait to see you when I come back home – Muah! And take care of Daddy while I’m gone!