Written in October:
Strider often calls Rayna “fweet girl”
now… I guess he hears me calling her
sweet girl a lot. He also tells her to
“relax.”
I wish we could take a camera to church and
take Strider’s picture while we’re singing!
But since the appropriateness of that action is highly questionable, I
will try to give a verbal picture here instead.
Yesterday this was the scene: He
was wearing his new sweater vest outfit, complete with tie (which he repeatedly
tugged at all day, like a true man-in-training), and khaki shorts -- for the
right balance of preppy and cool. While
we sang our opening praise songs for the service, he was standing next to us on
the pew, one hand holding the bulletin in front of him as he seriously studied
the song words on it, and the other hand straight up in the air – like a lot of
the people around him were doing. Then,
after awhile, he started to join in on the singing, always a phrase behind of
course, so his little voice could be heard in our pauses. He was quite intent and enjoying it
immensely. When I took him outside to go
to the nursery, all he kept saying was “go back to church!”
We didn’t follow the traditional advice given when you
have a new baby that you should give the older sibling a doll so they can mimic
what the parents are doing with the baby.
Strider still has no dolls.
However, I did come upon him playing “baby” recently – feeding, putting
to bed talking sweetly to…. his talking action figure toy, Cyclops!
Whenever Strider is asked about if he wants
to watch TV, he always asks for his 3 favorite shows: Sesame Street, Oprah and Rachael Ray (cooking
show).
This morning Rayna woke up earlier than usual
and I didn’t know why… until I went to pick her up. I had put a hat on her for the night because
it was supposed to get a little chilly, and somehow she had worked it down over
her eyes and even down past her nose!
Poor girl probably thought she had gone blind!
A few days ago I was sitting on the floor and
Strider came up and sat down on my lap.
He laid his head on my shoulder and gave me a good long hug. Then he said, completely unprompted, “I love
you Mommy.” He must have sensed how this
was affecting my state of mind, because after a short pause, he added, “I’d
like a cracker please” (He knows that
normally the answer to that is No!)
Such a picture of human nature… Strider often approaches us now saying, “I want to have some ‘something else.’” We have no idea what the “something else” is -- and neither does he – but it always sounds good!
I love how imaginative Strider is
getting. This week I’ve seen the
following, and heard him say:
--- while rubbing a plastic knife against the
back of a spoon: “making (peeling) carrots!”
--- while “riding” his etch-a-sketch on the
wood floor: “like a skateboard!”
--- while using the pointy end of a beater
against a hole in a piece of furniture:
“like a screwdriver and battery”
--- while sitting on the floor underneath my
head while I am bending over trying to touch my toes, doing a yoga pose: “like a tunnel”
--- while rubbing a Fisher-Price little
person under his arm: “like deodorant,
like Mommy!”
Rayna has the most delicate little sneezes
I’ve ever seen! Ever since the day she
was born, whenever she sneezes, she has to do a few practice ones first! They’re not full-fledged sneezes, just
sort-of fake-out ones. Then after she
does finally sneeze, she always gives this weak little sigh, as if to say, “My,
that was so exhausting.”
Today Strider was repeating himself (as
usual) saying “More juice; more juice;
more juice..” and then suddenly it turned into “Rejoice! Rejoice!”
(the song—the next line is “Christ is in you, the hope of glory in our
hearts”) And he loves to sing these
days, so he started out with this song, but then ended up blending a whole
bunch of them like this: “Holy, holy,
holy, I want to see you… high and lifted up… in your glory…. shout to the
Lord…sing…hallelujah…praise Lord… I can do all things…” etc, etc
November:
On the way
home from Ohio a couple weeks ago, Strider asked for some juice in the
car. We didn’t have any with us, so I
told him we would stop soon and give him “something to drink.” He got very excited at this prospect,
apparently thinking it must be something outside of his normal repertoire of
juice, milk and water, because soon he was saying “I want something to
drink. I want some coffee. I want some beer!”
For a while
now Rayna has been sucking her “virtual thumb.”
She puts her hand up to her mouth and sucks where her thumb would be –
if it wasn’t tucked into her fist. But
in the last couple weeks, she has finally figured out the thumb thing – what a
great invention that is!
Rayna has
been developing at exactly the same rate Strider did- - so weird! She started standing on our laps at the same
age (in weeks) Strider did. And now she
figured out how to bat at her toys at the same age (1 week before her 3 month
birthday) that Strider did. Funny how
they’re programmed so exactly…
I love how
whenever Rayna hears Strider come near her, she smiles!
I asked
Strider what his name was. He smiled and
said “Rayna.” Then I asked him again,
and he said “I’m me!” Hmmm… hard to argue with that one.
My friend Jen
came over the other day, and within about 10 seconds of her walking in the
door, Strider was tugging on me repeatedly saying “Need a band, Mommy!” I had no idea what he was talking about…
until he pulled me upstairs and into our bathroom and pointed at the medicine
cabinet, still asking for a band. Then I
realized he meant a band-aid, and gave it to him, still not sure why he wanted
it…. Until something dawned on me. I
yelled down to Jen and asked her if she had a band-aid on her finger by any
chance – and of course she did. My
little parrot wanted to be just like her!
Today I was mixing up a protein shake and Strider was standing next to me pretending to do the same thing. When I started stirring with a spoon, he pretended he was stirring with a spoon. Then I splashed a little on my shirt and he said, “Need a bib.”
I was waiting
on hold on the phone for quite a while tonight while I was eating dinner with
Strider. We had been talking about other
things and I had basically forgotten I was even on hold, until Strider looked
at the phone and scrunched up his nose.
I said, “What is going on here?
I’ve been waiting so long!” And
then he said, “Ridiculous!!”
For the last
month or so, every time Pete comes home from work, Strider immediately runs to
the door to greet him and then reports all of his discipline from the day (“had
to sit in chair,” “had to go to room,” etc)!
For some reason he thinks this is the most important thing to tell
him. Once in awhile we have a day when
he wasn’t disciplined at all, and then he goes running to the door with
something else to tell Pete (like what Mr. Rogers did that day or something) –
it’s like he has already worked it out in his head what the highlights for the
day were. And now yesterday, when Pete
was leaving to go to work in the morning, while Strider was saying goodbye to
him, he said “Be good for Mommy” before Pete said it. I guess he’s catching on!
It cracks me
up how Rayna always smiles audibly. She
very rarely smiles without going “Ahhhh” at the same time. And the best is when she smiles with her
whole body – with arms and legs all flailing at once.
