2021 had a rough start for our country. My stomach dropped when we heard what had happened at the Capitol Building. I can't say I was surprised. We do, after all, live in a time of absolute moral degradation. With all the corruption and violence that is out there, horrible things like this are bound to happen- as we saw pretty much all summer and fall in 2020.
I'll admit, we were in mourning for at least a week at the thought of how such an event would affect anyone who could possibly be construed as connected with those responsible. It is a frightening thought, for we live in Orwellian times. At the same time, obsessing over it did us no favors. We both struggled to sleep which never helps with parenting. After many conversations, Dane and I concluded that all we can do is raise our children with love and discipline, sharing with them our testimonies of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and teaching them correct principles. That is the only thing within our control and we have to let everything else go. Ha ha, and let's be honest- we can't even control our cute kiddos, as they love to remind us every single day.
In stark contrast to the events of January 6th in Washington, D.C., our home had a much happier beginning to the year. Dane's cousin and her adorable family came and stayed in a nearby Airbnb so we got to spend the evening with them three days in a row.
Our families couldn't be more compatible. The boys wrestled and played like crazy while we oohed and ahed over the baby girls in each family. They even came one morning to participate in the American Heroes class I'm teaching weekly for several boys.
It was so much fun and we can't wait to spend more time with them.
Look at this cuteness!
Saying goodbye was so hard!
The other highlight of our month was finally making it to Bearizona, a zoo found in Arizona.
The animals were amazing and so close! We loved it and want to go again.
All of the animals were awesome but this had to be our favorite spot. They have a black panther and jaguar that live together. They played the whole time and came right up to the glass. Atticus got a stuffed black panther to remember it. Hinckley brought home a stuffed bear pillow.
Our Lucy-lou just keeps growing.
At her four month appointment she weighed 13 lbs, 13 oz. (in the 30th percentile) and was 24 and 3/4 inches (60th%). With those numbers, alone, she is our tallest, leanest baby (but you can see that in the side by side photos I finally put together this month!)
At four months she had to get some shots and had a low fever for five days. She was already teething (and has been, on and off, all month) so that was a pretty hard week. Even after the fever wore off she still has had some rougher days with 20 minute naps that honestly have left me desperate for reinforcements by the end of the day. So we've gotten less sleep this month but are trying to count our blessings- the little cutie always manages to string together at least 5 or 6 hours for her first sleeping spell.
She is just so adorable. She has started growling every so often, in addition to her cooing. She can grab at anything nearby (loves grabbing at lips, cheeks, etc.) and loves to chew on my chin. She is now rolling back and forth (practicing this skill does, occasionally, keep her up at naptime...)
Above and below you can see her at exactly 4 months old.
Here she is in a sweater and booties that my Great-Grandma Eastman made. We have a few pairs of these and a couple more sweaters that I just love. It's funny how, though I never met her, having Lucy wear these so often makes me feel close to that grandma. We were studying D&C 2 which is all about the "hearts of the children" turning to their fathers and it made me even more eager to learn about her.
My sweet mom shared some stories that got us started as we learned about more of the boys' great-grandparents. We discovered some letters that Dane received from his grandparents that were just treasures. It was a great month for family history!
The last thing I wanted to record was how very determined she is. She was on our little bouncer and she wanted to play with the toys on it so she scooted herself down so that she could play with one dangling toy with her hand and the other with her foot. She looked so proud of herself.
Atticus had an interesting start to his month. He was involved in something outside with friends that sounded worse than it actually was. (His description made it sound like he had clothes-lined his friend on his bike! In reality it was quite tame.) I, unfortunately, overreacted and grounded him for the first time. It was a few days and I was shocked by how well he handled it.
The part of the story I really want to remember, however, happened while he was trying to get the courage to go and apologize. He felt so bad about the situation that he became really emotional- so much so that he felt completely out of control. He was really distraught and, out of the blue, told me he wanted to go up to his room for a little while. I thought he just wanted to be alone and calm down. It turned out he was going upstairs to pray so he could feel calmer. It was the sweetest opportunity to talk about how the Holy Ghost had prompted him to go up and how his prayer was answered.
In early January he had his 6 years appointment and he weighed in at 48 lbs and was 47 inches tall.
After months and months of not having night terrors Atticus had a couple this month. They have been the first ones where he has gotten up and ran around. Fortunately, he didn't get hurt and we've now discovered that almost every time it's because he has to go to the bathroom. The first time it happened little Hinckley woke up and asked, "Why is Atticus running around? Is Atticus going to sleep after the monster leaves?"
We love our little army man. He has read two warrior kid books and we highly recommend them. One Saturday he was so motivated that he got up early, cleaned all sorts of rooms in the house, worked out and kept asking for more tasks. We'll take it!
Above you can see him doing a pioneer simulation with the boys in our heroes class. Below, he's working on a science project. He loves science! But, honestly, he enjoys almost all of his classes.
He is getting so old that we only have a couple quotes from him this month. It almost makes me sad.
Atticusisms:
"I'm going to watch Thomas and Jerry." (I ended up having to block youtube on his school computer.)
"I wonder if we have another kid up in Heaven watching us and waiting to come down..."
"I have super ears. I heard you talking to Bobba and Nana the other night!"
"You be Batman and I'll be your pet cougar/anything animal." (Said almost every day to Hinckley. It’s their favorite game this month. Atticus usually calls himself "Razor mouth.")
I feel like I could write a book about Hinckley this month. He is our Jekyll and Hyde. So stinking adorable one second and a total monster the next. I guess that's just how most three-year-olds are. No wonder they call them "threenagers."
He is completely potty trained now (hooray!) and has actually elected to be potty trained at night. He said the pullups were "scratchy" (more on the sensory issues later) so he has gone a good week without pullups for his naps and nights. We're thrilled!
There are, of course, problems that often come with this stage. He will use almost an entire roll of toilet paper for one bowel movement if given the opportunity (he has clogged two of our three toilets so far) and he doesn't like to tell us when he's done. He yells at us to leave so he has privacy and then suddenly we'll hear the water running, which means he thinks he is done wiping and is already washing his hands. I won't bother you with details about his soap use. Let's just say his hands are very clean afterward and I'm constantly running out of soap.
He LOVES Dr. Seuss books (well, he loves pretty much all books) and has The Cat in the Hat almost memorized. For weeks he would ask to read the entire book before naps and at bedtime. While I like to sneakily read just a bit of each page it became a problem because he wanted to "read" it to me... and if he messed up sometimes he would start back at the very beginning. I now have the book pretty much memorized. Even on our road trip he was quoting the book at the top of his lungs. So, so cute (and impressive!)...but so annoying when it wouldn't stop.
He keeps drawing squiggle pictures and taping them up around the house. I'm not kidding, we have seven of them on one small wall in our kitchen and he probably has seven or more over his bed. I've joked that his pictures remind me of the girl in the movie Signs who has glasses of water all over the house. Maybe he knows something we don't...
It makes us laugh because if there's a fold in the paper or something goes wrong with his illustrations he screams and cries that it's "ruined!" even though... we can't see anything and when we ask what he has drawn he seems to be making up what is there on the spot. It also cracks me up because a couple of times I've helped him hang up a picture and he'll gasp, outraged, "It's upside down!" But I love how he expresses himself and his tracing tells me he's going to be a great artist if he can conquer his perfectionism.
Speaking of which, the problems he used to have with his Batman and Spiderman costume (about them not closing and fitting just right) are now spreading. None of his shoes feel right now (he was saying they hurt so we're going to try buying some wider shoes) and a lot of his clothes just aren't right. He wants to wear athletic shorts every day and we rarely fight him on it.
He is coming so far in his Joy School class. He seems to behave well for all the other moms and he even did well when I taught, which came as a surprise.
This month I got to teach them and I so loved the kids' reaction to the gunny bag (it eats leftover toys.) Some of them screamed and cried the first time they saw it. Others would "feed" the gunny bag with toys or would take it and chase their classmates. Hinckley yelled a bit when some of his toys were eaten but loves to sing the gunny bag song. Now he tells me that the next time he’ll punch gunny bag “in the face!”
Hinckley Speaks:
- "Watch this magic trick!" (Said before doing pretty much anything.)
- ("What do you want to be when you grow up?") "I want to be Jesus!"
- "Uncle Adam don't like me. I don't like him." (He started referring to a memory a year ago when my brother-in-law watched him while we were skiing. I think he's intimidated by tall people.)
- "And Aunt Bobbie will come and take Baby Lucy again." (He still seems to think Lucy came from my sister who watched the boys while Dane and I were at the hospital.)
- "I want some oitmul!" (Oatmeal)
- "I want to play with my fyiends."
- "Mommy? You'll come when the monstuhs come..." (Whispered through the monitor at Bearizona- we were in another room.)
- "If you wake me up again I'll slice your head off."
- "Mommy, go! It's going to stink!" (When about to poop. He will hold it until we go now.)
- "If you do that again, I'll punch you in the face." (It'd be funnier if he didn't have a punching problem right now...)
- "I'm going to stay here the whole night!" (To our sweet adopted Grandma Betty.)
Oh man. Threenagers. Here's to being one month closer to turning four!
