Musings

Last night Michael left the bedroom in the middle of the night to go check on something.  He opened the door and nearly tripped over a little bundle of girl, curled up just outside our door on the hallway floor.  She looked up at him and said in a small voice, "Buggies."  He picked her up with a hug and took her back to bed.  Poor Zoe has had the worst nightmares lately.  We're at our wits end on how to help her. Some nights she is up six or seven times screaming. She's just super out of it at night and none of the usual suggestions seem to work.  I think she's growing. But in the meantime, between the baby and the buggies we are all very tired.
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Zoe attended her first all-by-herself all-girl birthday party this week and I almost cried after I dropped her off.  She is so different from Jed, when I asked her if she wanted to stay by herself, she gravely nodded yes.
"You can stay and play dollies with your friends?" Nod yes.
"And watch the movie and play games?" Nod yes.
"And have cake and ice cream?"  Double nod yes.
"Ok, then, give mommy kiss bye."  A grave little kiss on the lips and she turned around.

I'm not ready for this growing up thing.  The very thought of my children leaving me behind fills me with the greatest dread.  I understand my mother so much better now.  I feel really bad about not answering her phone calls freshman year at BYU. You hear me mom?  I am REALLY SORRY!  (Even if they were at an unholy early hour, I should have answered!) My mom is owed a lot of kisses and phone calls. Because being a mom is hard on the heart.
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Meanwhile, Jed is tall and strong, riding his bike out on the road and engaging the mail lady in embarrassingly long conversations every day at the mailbox.  (I bet she really does not look forward to our house.  But hey, what a monster-truck education she is getting!)  He loves playing pictionary and singing songs and begs me to draw out battles from the war chapters in Alma (in the Book of Mormon) again and again and again.  None of his clothes fit right, they all seem far too big or far too small for his long, lean frame topped by a rather large noggin. He got his head stuck in a shirt twice yesterday.  He loves looking at the globe and has a special fascination for the north and south poles.  We have been reading "Winnie the Pooh" and "House at Pooh Corner" and together we giggle and giggle and snort and laugh at the funny antics of those silly little animals.  I do think, though, that poetry is still is favorite.  He would sit quietly at my side as we read poetry for hours, if my voice could keep up with his attention.  I don't think he understands half of it, but he loves the way it sounds.
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Zoe likes to read little kid books with me, but she isn't quite as attentive as her brother was.  Her mind wanders a hundred directions.  Today she was laying on the floor as we read, flat on her back and rolling around back and forth while softly singing an Easter song and flapping a board book in the air. She likes the tradition of our reading time, even if she isn't really paying attention half the time. She loves Maisy books and we get two of those every week, and read them every day. Zane likes reading time, too.  I prop him sitting up over by a pillow and he gnaws on whatever his siblings have handed him to play with.  He likes listening, and I reach over every so often to gently pull him back into place from wherever his little chubby body has listed or lurched or sank while his waving hands have tried to grab mommy's book.