Will you be in my heart?

What a wonderful month.  We'll miss our fun swimming parties... but we're ready for the school year to start.

My head is spinning from all the changes these boys have experienced in the last four and a half weeks.

Hinckley started finger foods this month and early on in the month he has started biting during the day...  I was beginning to think that was that and he would be weaning soon but then constipation became a problem.  I hate seeing him in pain (again!)  Since he's still sensitive to cow's milk products, I'm for sure going to keep getting him plenty of milk for the next month.

He started saying, "Mama" this month (it sometimes comes out with an "N") and he got his two top teeth.  No hillbilly stage for him, lucky little fellow.  His left tooth (#3) popped through on Aug 15th and the right came on Aug 19th.  Those teeth are so stinking cute.

And speaking of cute, he was just adorable when he sat in a shopping cart for the first time, kicking his legs, laughing at all the funny colors and shapes and trying to reach the produce.  He takes such pleasure in the simplest things- like the first time he looked out a store window and saw cars passing by.

He is still crawling backwards and has gotten faster.  He gets up on his knees and rocks forward and back all the time now.  He just started going from the crawling position to sitting vice versa.



Atticus continues to mature.  He is such a great helper.  Just recently he has started opening every door for me to be more of a "gentleman."  He really, truly helps me with some things, like when we grind wheat or work with the pool cover.  He not only brushes his own teeth but loves to brush Hinckley's teeth and the two of them are so, so sweet together (90% of the time!)

As you can see, I absolutely love watching the two of them interact.

I know Atticus feels some jealousy but he also feels needed- more and more each day.  And I know he feels loved.  After too many times of having him run away to his room yelling, "You don't love me!" last month, I have started randomly reminding him how much I love him.  He'll even use my words sometimes to me now, "I will never stop loving you- no matter what."  It sounds a little over-the-top when I write it down but it's working.  And he's become more affectionate and expresses his love much more readily.  It brings me SO much joy.

He is so excited about learning his letters and continues to progress.  On August 31 he wrote WLUF on the board free-handed, with only a tiny bit of help from me (just the sounds!)

Above is some of his "homework."  The coloring page was from church.  He called it his "Batman family." :)

 

He LOVES wolves ("and jackals and tigers...") and pretends to be a wolf so much that he's rubbing the skin raw on his knees.  In fact, he went to his cute friend Coraline's party as a "Wolf Prince," as you can see in these pictures.

He had a pretty big first this month- his first kiss!  He loves playing "family" and he was pretending to be the dad with his cute friend Skye when she planted one on him!  I was so unprepared for it.  It was hysterical.  Atticus didn't even notice.

He also had to get an emergency haircut after getting slime in his hair.  You can see my feeble attempts to cut it out of his sideburns.

I love his growing spiritual maturity.  We attended a baptism and when he went missing with a little friend I panicked a bit.  Afterward, when I was trying to have a teaching moment with him about staying close to me he told me, "I felt the Holy Ghost tell me to turn back but I didn't listen."  Wow!

He also will leave the room sometimes and come back, saying he prayed for me to not get mad or for Dad to not say mean words.  Sometime he seems to be doing it as a joke, but he's often quite serious about it.

Dane's birthday is at the end of August and this year and we celebrated, Schrute-style.  ("It's a statement of fact!")  I'm especially proud of his card and the cake, ugly as it turned out in the picture.  I try not to do cheesy shout-outs if I can help it, but we sure are blessed to have him as a husband/father.  And I have to say, he still gives me butterflies- especially when I watch him with the boys.



Atticusisms (there are way too many this month!):

• "Go, Mommy, Go!"  (cheering for me during my exam with the optometrist)
• "I love swim lessons.  You're my best fwend." (to his awesome teacher and our dear friend)
• "Daddy doesn't work hard.  He's lazy.  He just sits around with me." (also during a swim lesson)
• "When someone asks for help you help them!" (when I delayed helping him get down from a wall)
• "I want to buy a dog, a cat, a hummingbird, a polah bear..." (lists about 10 more animals)
• "Why does he have a lollipop?" (when he saw a man with a cigarette in his mouth)
• "Let's play in the darkness land." (the shadow from the fence in the backyard)
• "But you have to be the farmer, Mommy."  (we play farm at least once a day...I'm often a little rebellious...)
• "Will you be in my heart?" (while I try to convince him to go to his swim lesson- he loved them but would have a little panic attack about them every day)
• "I want to put a picture of me in Hinckley's room so I can be in his heart."
• "I'm not ready to talk yet.  I'm still too mad."
• "Do you know why I'm mad?..." (explanation follows)
• "We need to have a talk!" (while angry)
• "You look pretty today.  I learned that in primary.  Now tell me that I'm handsome."
• "Do you want me to rip this/destroy this?!"
• "I had a bad dream, so I said a prayer and Heavenly Father takeded away the dream."
• "I love you but sometimes I get mad at you."
• "Gravity will keep me up.  Jesus gravity in our bodies to help us up. (when I told him I felt like I might fall over)
• "You get YOUR toothbrush!"
• "You're a nerd/butt/brat/piece of crap!" (we've had some ROUGH moments!)
• "Will you be my wife?...When I'm a grandpa will you still be my mommy?  Who will be the daddy?"
• "Mommy, will you marry me?" 
• "Did Jesus have a wife?"