So much to say

There's just so much I want to say about these boys of mine, and time keeps marching on and there are more and more things to say about them and try to remember, and I'm totally failing at it. Even when I try, even when I write a good entry, I still fail. Because I can't capture their voices, the nuances of our lives. I can't capture the joy and frustration the way I want to, and I know that's what's keeping me from coming back and writing: knowing that I'm going to fail no matter how hard I try.

But I'm going to try anyway, because something has got to be better than nothing. So here's what I say to say:

When I get frustrated with Jack or discipline him at all, he throws himself at me and says in an anguished tone: "But I love you!" Today when I was holding him and telling him not to throw toys he calmly said "But I want to kiss you!" and delivered a chaste kiss on my lips.

There are no words to describe how I feel about Jack. He is my heart, forward and back and all the way around.



Nate and I are friends, finally. He wants me to put him to bed at night. He holds my hands when we walk places, and tries to carry bags for me. I push all of my frustrations down and try to relax and play and laugh and pull out my very best fart jokes.

Tonight he called me down to the basement and showed me how he'd cleaned everything up, put it away in the right bins. It honestly looked great. I mentally patted myself on the back. Then he got really frustrated because Jack actually took out and played with some toys, thereby messing up the beautiful room, and scowled when I explained that we'd play for 10 minutes and then we could clean up again. So I un-patted myself and rebuked myself for all those times he was little and I snapped at him for messing something up or spilling something or not being orderly. Ugh.

Either way, great or horrible Mom, Nate is a great (and only rarely horrible) kid. Sometimes he runs out and plays in the rain with me, and sometimes he doesn't want to get his clothes wet. He's a bit of a worrier. He's a little anal. He either came by it naturally or I was too hard on him. Whatever it is, he is who he is now. He's smart, kind, sensitive, and actually sometimes sweet. He praises Jack for behavior now, in a high-pitched Mom voice: "Jack, you did a really good job on the puzzle!" It's darling.



Maybe I'll try to post at least one sentence every day. We'll see.