While I was gone J got a pretty bad cold.  On Thursday night he asked Clare to make sure to get herself dressed and ready for school in the morning.  On Friday morning he woke up a little later than usual and came out to the living room to find Clare completely dressed, Sam completely dressed (with a clean diaper), and both of them eating cereal.  Clare told J that she wanted him to sleep in so she got herself and Sam ready for school.  He told me later that he almost started crying right then and there he was so touched. 

I came home, of course, since even five-day business trips do end.  I came home to two children and a husband who were fine without me but were still happy to see me.  Oh, and a little girl with the stomach flu, which shortly turned into two kids with the flu.  OK, maybe they needed me after all.

Does this boy look like a baby to you?  Look close, maybe a little bit of chubby cheeks or wobbly posture?  No?  Yeah, I don’t see it either.  He’s 100% little boy with not an ounce of baby to him.  He’s all long limbs and talking back.  Of course it’s expected but let’s all pause a moment to mourn the loss of baby in the Mac House. 

…

OK, mourning complete.  Now we need to celebrate the little boy who has grown from that sweet, chubby little baby.  The boy runs through the house singing, he digs in the dirt, he sets up scenes with his animals and dinosaurs, he climbs to the top of jungle gym, he recites his favorite books to us, he describes his thoughts and emotions to us and thousands of other little things to show us his growth and development. 

It’s so fun to listen to his thoughts now that he has some vocabulary to share them with us.  Today in the car he looked a little sad.  When I asked him what the matter was, he said “I want to snuggle with my blanky.”  When we are out on a walk he often asks “what’s that sound?” or “what’s that I hear?”  I’ve started asking him what he thinks the sound is – on a hike he told me “it’s a dragon flying in the forest.” 

He doesn’t have his sister’s insistence on independence, but he is enjoying as he learns new skills.  He does know how to put on his coat via the good old “flip flop” method and his boots.  Sometimes he gets the details mixed up. 

We took the rail off his crib about a month ago, after witnessing some acrobatic escape moves.  He LOVES his “big boy bed.”  We don’t love it so much, since it means that bed time has become a muuuuuch more prolonged event.  We generally just leave him to his own devices following a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy to what happens behind his door at bed time (until we hear things get really out of hand).  He gets creative with pulling out every toy in his room, climbing the furniture and sometimes staying up until 10 pm.  Eventually he’ll be done with this phase – right?

 One of the sweetest cousin moments that I’ve seen was at the community center a few weeks ago.  There is a train table that the kids all swarm around.  One little boy, who was about five, was intent on playing with the trains and pushed Maddy out of the way to get to them.  Maddy came up to Grandma and told her “the big boy pushed me.”  Grandma asked Clare to go and talk to him with Maddy.  Clare put her arm around Mads protectively and marched right up to the boy.  She tried for several minutes to catch his eye, intent on telling him that he had pushed her cousin.  The poor little boy wouldn’t make eye contact with our girls and eventually left the table and went back to his mom.  At that point we called off our very polite, but very insistent little crusaders. 

 We’re eagerly anticipating the arrival of the fourth musketeer, due to join the fun in June.  Clare has nick-named the lil’ guy Darget Ahhhh!  I’ve told her that JP and Debbie will probably name him something different when he’s born, but for now they’re very patient calling him Baby Darget for her.