April 2021

April felt longer than your average month.  I guess we just packed a lot in.

It started with a camping trip to the Valley of Fire with some friends in our ward.  Man was it beautiful!  The kids were able to climb until the sun went down (and even afterward.) 

Our little Lucy didn't sleep hardly at all, which came as no surprise, but the boys did great!  We count it as a success and look forward to doing more camping in the future.

The camping trip was just before Easter weekend (which also happened to be General Conference for our church, as well!)

It was a wonderful Easter.

We are so proud of Atticus.  This isn't just because his paper airplane game is on point, although it most definitely is.  (In case you're wondering, those little ones were tiny!)

We have seen him struggle and push through.  He has been a peacemaker- for his parents, his siblings, for friends.  He is making huge strides and being rewarded for his hard work and practice.  He is not perfect but he tries so hard.  I get teared up just writing about him.

First, he is kind.  He loves being at school with his friends and his teachers.  He is so friendly and, from what I can tell, kind to all of his classmates.  His teacher says he is one of the students that make her job worth it, which makes my momma heart so proud.  She has had some tougher days and so he has prayed that his teacher would have better days and he'll draw pictures for her and brought her an apple one day.

He started playing piano last month (I may have mentioned this already) and he has progressed a ton!  He asks to practice and, while he still gets angry as he practices, he really seems in it for the long haul.

Like I said earlier, however, there have been things that have been hard to watch and hear about. 

For starters, there is a boy in his class that seems to be giving him a hard time.  According to Atticus, the boy was his friend at first but now the boy is mean to him.  "I think I found a bully," he told us the first day.  There have been a few hard days but Atticus seems safe.  He tells us that he likes "silent lunch" because now that boy can't say mean things to him and his classmates.  I don't think we need to intervene, for now.  He has said he just ignores the boy and we think that's a pretty good way to respond.

The struggle that has weighed most on my mind has been his anger during soccer games.  

He has natural gifts (I am sure it's from his paternal grandma, Marti) that allow him to really see the field and position himself in just the right places.  In addition to these gifts, he has worked hard so that he is one of the fastest kids on the field and he has an excellent first touch as well as great accuracy.  So you'd think he'd be amazing, right?  He will be- when he can get his emotions under control.  

There was one game, in particular, where he had to sit out for a quarter and a half because he was beside himself over losing.  We lost by a lot (6-0, I'm sorry to say!) and it would have been a much closer game if he had stayed in.  I am happy to report, however, that he didn't lose his temper once at the following game and he has been doing a much better job since then.  When he played like that, he was seriously unstoppable.

Atticusisms:

• "Mom, are you 100?" ("Yes.  She's 100," his father was quick to reply.)
• "I really want to homeschool.  She didn't give me a bandaid!" (Said while showing a small cut he had gotten on his finger while at school.)
• "Stupid wind!" (Said while rotating back and forth and trying to "hit" the wind with his basketball.)
• "I prayed that Dad would be happy." (Said after hearing his parents argue and when he saw his dad smile.)

Oh, Hinckley.  So cute.  So terrifying.  

At the beginning of the month he was talking about how he wanted to have a wife and kids, all so he could have a "beohd" (beard) and go to work at the office.  Now he is very adamant that he doesn't want a wife because he doesn't want to do "kissy-kissy."  (Oh, the effect a big brother can have!)

He's coming along with his tracing and artwork.  Below you can see his "python."  It's the best he's ever done!

We've started doing FHE using Zoom calls with our family (which we love!)  For the first week Dane's dad asked the boys to draw something they would take with them on their mission.  Atticus drew a crocodile (for protection- it would eat anyone who tried to hurt him while he was sharing the gospel.)

Hinckley worked on the picture and explanation above with me.  I tried so hard not to laugh while helping him.

We just love so many things about him at this age.  The way he runs is so adorable.  He twists his whole upper body from the hips from side to side, pumping his arms.  And when he dribbles a soccer ball he does little poses as he traps the ball.  (He's getting pretty good!)

Speaking of soccer, he is dying to have his own team.  He wants to go to every practice and game for Atticus and always wears soccer clothes, long socks (Atticus's practice socks if he can) and cleats.  We've had many conversations and tantrums when he's been reminded that this season is just for Atticus.  At the last game, he even asked me if he could go in and play during half time.  He took it pretty well that time.  

I'm excited to have him start this fall.

The last thing I wanted to mention tugs at our heart strings.  He feels so small and wants so very, very much to be a big kid.  Almost once a day he'll ask me when he's going to get bigger in one way or another.  And there are many times where he still needs help but utterly refuses help, making the situation virtually impossible.  For example, he wants to buckle his car seat.  Now, he can do this.  He has done it several times.  But it takes him a very long time, during which time I am not to move the car because "It's a dangewus woad!" (Good point, kiddo.)  I'm not to even back the car out of the driveway.  When I'm already late for our carpool...  Auggggh!  And if I even come near him and suggest that I could help him, he makes me regret it.  

I just have to take deep breaths.  And I need to leave earlier.  For everything.

We love his independence and know it will serve him well.  In the meantime, however, it makes for some very difficult days.

Hinckley Speaks:

• "Chocolate makes my poop brown!"
• "Who fills them with milk?" (Pointing at Mommy while she was nursing the baby.)
• "I not beautiful!  I'm powerful."
• "I have two gulfwends." (At the beginning of the month.)
• "I'm going to mawwy Georgia, Elsie, Evelyn and Faye, too."
• "Pockets hit me... he thwew a wock at me and his mom said, 'POCKETS, COME HEOH!" (After some detective work I discovered he was talking about his friend's cousin who is named "Hawkins.")
• "I don't like cats." (After a cat had attacked our dog while we were on a walk.  It was traumatizing for all of us.)
• "What kind of bones do you have?"
• "Can I see yo bone?"
• "I have to take my sho-uht off so to play basketball/wohk out/westle." (Any excuse, right?)
• "Wawwior kids take theyuh sho-uhts off when they do fwips." (On the trampoline.)
• ("Let's play Goldilocks.") "Okay, I'll be Batman." ("Batman's not in Goldilocks.") "...Okay." (While playing with some Joy School friends.)
• "Why am I not big?!!!"
• "I'm so stwong because I wohked out."
• (After falling down he grabs his knee...) "I'm okay.... Cover it... " (I cover his knee.)  "Kiss my weg." (I give it a kiss.) "Yep.  I can see bone, all wight."  (For the record, it didn't even break the skin.)

Oh, our little Lucy Laurel.  Dane is starting to call her Lula.  I still find myself calling her Lucy-Lou.  

No matter the name, she is such a little lamb.

She loves to be held tight and holds you right back.  I rub her back when she's in bed or just before she goes to sleep and I can often feel her little hand rubbing me right back on my arm or shoulder.  When I hold her on my hip she often squeezes my arm- little squeezes as we go on our way.  Don't get me wrong- she still bats at our faces and seems to want to tear off poor Max's beard but she can already be surprisingly gentle for being so small.

That hasn't stopped the boys from trying to frame her.  Oh, no.  While they were taking a bath I saw some mysterious little floaties in the water (gross!  we drained the bath and they took a good shower.)  When they both vehemently denied any wrongdoing we decided not to worry about who was responsible.   That wasn't good enough for the boys.  They talked it over and decided that, since neither of them was the culprit Baby Lucy must have pooped in the tub.  (Who, as it happened had been in her room the entire time...)

She's also becoming a bit of an escape artist.  She has gotten out of her bumbo seat a few times and so now I have to buckle her.  Atticus's legs were too fat to ever sit in the chair and Hinckley was content to just sit... so this is a new experience for us.

You can't see the movement in this photo above but she was making her first sign for "more."  She's still spotty with it but I think next month she'll become more consistent.  

Man, she loves eating so, so much.  Nursing during the day is such a burden.  She outright refuses some of the time until she's about to go down for a nap.  I can tell she's holding out for the "good stuff."  And she's getting adult food.  I've descended so far in my parenting practices that I just chew up my own food and give it to her.  Heck, I'm sure that's how cavemen did it.  I figure she's getting great nutrition and I don't have any extra dishes/blenders to wash.  

This has been another big month for our little beauty.  

She started babbling early in the month.  When she isn't growling she's babbling, "Bah, bah, blah blah blah."  It's like music to our ears.  She has this cute way of babbling by sticking her tongue out like a baby bird.

 

She went from being able to scoot backward and rotate 360 degrees on her tummy at the beginning of the month to scooting forward!  (This first occurred on May 3.)

She can go from sitting to hands and knees and she is starting to sit with one leg forward and one backward so that she can go back and forth. 

I try not to talk to much about us, as parents but I wanted to write about one final experience that I had while coaching Atticus's team.

Remember that game I described earlier?  The one where we lost 6-0?  It was not just traumatic due to Atticus.  The coach on the other team treated me with complete scorn and disdain and I let it shake me.

My players made a mistake that I wanted to correct.  He reluctantly let me restart the play and when that mistake was made again he had his players attack the ball and score a goal.  When I attempted to talk to him about the situation he yelled at me, "You should have taught them!"  Adding, "Go!" to his players.  I tried to remind him that the kids were 5 and 6 years old and he just ignored me.  I was shocked and humiliated.  It honestly took me days to recover.  I don't take confrontation well and I started to doubt myself as a coach and just as a person.  It was a darker week for me, I'm sorry to say.

Thanks to time (which heals all!), my sweet husband, loving family members, friends and the sweet whisperings of the Spirit, I am back to feeling good about my decision to coach.  No, I'm not perfect (far, far from it!) and that's okay.  I like my coaching philosophy and methods.  I like that my players love to come to practice and that they feel loved by their coach.  And I feel sorry for that coach, his team and anyone who takes sports that seriously- especially at such a young age.  

It's funny how it takes a shocking experience like that for you to really assess who you are and your own feelings of self-worth.  While I really felt worthless for a couple days there, I have since felt even more loved by my Father in Heaven.  He is proud of us and rooting for us, even in our smallest, most meager efforts to serve and lift others.