This sums it up

It happens over and over, just the same way, and I think it totally sums up the difference in personality between my two boys:

We almost always shop at Trader Joes, where they often give each kid a strip of stickers when they leave. The second the strip hits Jack's hands, he immediately starts peeling them off and putting them all over himself. (Please note in the picture that Jack is still sitting in the cart; we haven't even gotten to the car yet.)

Nate takes his strip, admires it, and then keeps it. Forever. He never uses a single one. Weeks later I find the strip and surruptitiously toss it in the trash (he never notices). It's a little sad, honestly, I wish he'd just use them and have fun with them. But then I think of my childhood sticker-books, collections of stickers all untouched and perfect and NOT peeled off, safely stored forever, and I understand his wanting to keep them fresh and perfect. Still a little sad though. (Please note in the picture that we're home, sitting outisde our house in the car.)



I wouldn't change either of them. They're totally perfect just the way they are. Mostly. :-)

Sex on the Brain

It finally happened, just when I had given up wondering when it would happen.

Nate knows that the girls have an egg, and the boys have a seed, and never once has he thought to be curious about how those jive cats get together in the first place. I was expecting it at 3, and at 4, and had finally quit expecting it when I was blindsided driving to a Chinese banquet a few Fridays ago.

I'm making a thing out of it, but in truth the question was uttered quite simply, and telling him was far less of a thing than I had expected it would be. He already knew that boys have a penis, and girls a vagina (which I've explained as an inside-out penis, a tunnel kinda-like), so I just explained the obvious points and that was that. I think I remember saying something about "rubbing against" and the seed coming out but it is kind of a blur.

He was totally non-plussed. He thought about it for a while, and then asked "So you did that?" and I said "yup!" and he said "With Daddy?" and I said "yup!" and we kept on driving. He thought again for a while, and then asked what was clearly most confusing him: "How do you know when to do it?" After resisiting saying "Oh you'll know" I explained that when you were older, mostly grown-up, and had a girlfriend or a wife or a boyfriend or a husband, you'd talk about it and decide you were both ready to do it. That it felt good and was fun, and a thing that people loved did together - sometimes to have a baby and sometimes not. He was still worried about knowing when to do it, I have this picture that he's worried he's going to be at school and all of a sudden it'll just be happening to him and how weird would that be? So I put it in a bit of context by saying that it would be around when he started driving that he'd start to think about doing it, that he didn't need to think about it until then, and that seemed to reassure him.

All in all, it went swimmingly. He hasn't asked about it since or brought it up in strange company or told his friends all about it, so that's lovely. A lovely boy, my Natey.

Bits and pieces

Little sayings I want to remember:

When I take Jack to the bathroom (he's 95% trained now) I usually ask him if he wants to stand up like Daddy (it's too cute!), and he usually emphatically tells me "No, I want to stand down!"



Jack is full of sweetness and light and always tries to find nice things to say to me. If I tell him "You are such a sweet boy" he responds with "You're such a sweet Mama!" If I tell him "I love you so much" he says "I love you so much too!" And as he gets older he's starting to initiate these love-fests, telling me "You are so cute!" and his biggest compliment: "You are so huuuge Mama!" Thanks buddy.

Yesterday, driving home from picking the boys up at G&Gs, Stewart and I were mock-fighting in the front, making Nate laugh. And out of nowhere Jack pipes up: "Both of you...settle down!" We had to have him repeat it over and over just to make sure that's what he really said. It was, and it was fabulous.

I may have blogged this already, but months and months ago Nate and I were having a little verbal spar (fun, not fighting) and he blurts out "The more you talk, the more you're wrong!" Touche.



Jack still says that blowing on things to cool them down is "blowing it up." So the other night, at dinner, he says "I'm gonna blow it up, Mama, because it's hot." Jack works "Mama" or "Mommy" into almost every sentence and I love love love it. "Thank you, Mama" and "you're welcome Mommy!" and "I love you too Mama!" and it's so amazing. He's so amazing. He's like some cliche baby with all of the hugs and kisses and sweet words and squeaky little voice and shaking his booty to the music.

At his 3-year checkup he pediatrician asked if Jack was showing empathy and I wasn't really sure. I am now, the kid is full of it. Driving Stella home from school the other day, she was telling him how she hurt her toe at school. Jack breaks out with "You hurt your toe, Stella?! That's so...HURT!" It is so hurt, babe.

I am in love with both of these boys. Can't get over them.

A new family member!

No, not another baby, no matter how hard we try. Hopefully that will be news for another day.



But we did add a girl to the family finally, a guinea-pig girl (or as Jack calls them, a "piggy bank"). Her name was Whitetail, but has been re-named Squeaky. Oddly enough she rarely squeaks, but we're going with it.

We adopted her from a family whose daughter goes to school with Nate, so she came with all the gear we could need. She's already six, so I'm not sure how long we'll have her, but I'm so glad we did it.



I'm very anti-pet, and didn't really need another hassle in my life. But the care she takes is totally reasonably and pretty minimal, the kids adore her but aren't obsessed with her, and it's been a very easy transition. Every day, each boy gets to hold her and give her a plate of spinach and strawberry tops, then she runs around in her little "run". Then back in the cage for the night!



As fas as I can tell, she has absolutely no personality whatsoever, but despite it we're all glad she's here.

Uh oh

2 Small tidbits:

Anytime we're watching TV, or a movie (and there's been FAR too much of that around here recently), and the music gets dark / slow / ominous Jack says:

"Something bad's gonna happen!" And sometimes adds "A monster is coming!"

Sometimes I haven't even noticed the change in tone, but Jack senses it immediately, enough to verbilize it. Very intuitive.



And when my boy needs to leave his food to go to the potty, he says some variation on this:

"I have to go pee pee. Don't touch my banana!" This morning he said "I have to go pee pee. Nobody don't touch my cereal!"

He's definitely a Wagner.

Nate-a-bean

A little update on my little Nate:



Last weekend, he learned how to read.

Yup, learned how in a weekend. What happened, you ask? No idea. One day he balked at sounding out "bus" and the next day he read a whole book to Jack. A new book from the library, so I'm sure it wasn't memorized. He still hesitates sounding out new words* but he's definitely off and reading.

This is the first word he ever tried to sound and write out by himself (it's supposed to be "puzzle", but an A+ for effort):



*Why does he hesitate to sound out new words? Because my son, pride of our hearts, is a very prideful boy. He does not like to be wrong, at all, ever. He covers his butt every time it looks like he might possible be a little wrong about anything. "I really meant..." and "I didn't say that..." and "I'm still right because..." roll right off the tongue. It's funny, but mostly it worries me: if he doesn't try new things, if he doesn't risk failing, then life will be very stilted and boring. I want him to climb Everest. I want him to travel to a country without a guidebook. I want him to fall and pick himself up again, and so far he's absolutely not that boy.

I choose to believe that this is a stage, that this part of his personality isn't set in stone. We'll keep encouraging him, not demanding, but pushing him to take chances and try new things. Hopefully over time it pays off for him.

In Aruba, I offered to take him parasailing but he dug his heels in. We watched some videos of other kids doing it and he wavered, but in the end stood firm in his refusal. So Debs and I offered to take him jet-skiing, and after some hesitation he climbed right on and had a great time. And on our snorkel / boat ride, he put on all the snorkel gear and actually climbed down the ladder out into the ocean with me. I was shocked. He went back and forth between me and the ladder several times, and when I thought he had truly given up I swam away from the boat a bit and all of a sudden he was right beside me, pretty far from the boat. He never put his face down into the water to see the fish, but I think he did a truly brave thing, swiming away from that boat into the very cold, wavey water. All hope is not lost.

Jackity Jack

Little changes in Jack:

He tells stories with his toys now, narrating what's happening. Usually what's happening is that someone is FIGHTING someone else, but they do it very earnestly and sincerely so it's charming instead of violent.

While the three boys were at the beach this past weekend, I picked up a small toy for each in the dollar bin at Target. Jack got a pack of stretchy bugs, right up his alley. He knelt on the floor in front of the brown couch, and laid out each bug and gave it a name ("this is a HORN bug"). While I was laying on the floor doing a puzzle with Nate, Jack picked up all of the bugs, clutched them to his chest, came over to me, and said "can you play with the bugs for a second?" He loves "for a second."

Yes, I could play with the bugs for a second. He now knows the word "beetle."

More soon.