It's not an act...

This boy is tough. I have to say though that I feel like we are living and not just survivng anymore. The Children's Center www.tccslc.org, is awesome and I thank them. Somedays I forget I have a special or different kid....but then things happen. Things like extra explosive anger. Things like hurting himself when he is mad, having potty accidents, crying for a long long time, if he falls, wakes up too fast, etc. But, lately, he also tells me his toy is frustrating him, before he throws it across the room, and screams. He tells me he is upset, angry, or sad. He plays with other kids. He shares with his little brother. He is getting to be sort of reasonable....sometimes....and it's true....we are living. :)

Aquarium....

We love to go to the aquarium in Sandy....here's some cute pics of the boys, and the colors on the coral near the shark are from the camera flash. Who would've known???

Okay we've been busy.....

I have begun crocheting again....this is the hat I made Will, and the one I made myself. All the others have been gifts and are gone now....currently working on a really good one. Rowen doesn't have one yet.

Rowen translation time....again....

"My-oh Wih-wa, pi-chow."

"Bup eh cheese"

"I muss muss jeff-eh-fuh"

I think we may have....

a sky diver on our hands....

A couple of weeks ago, my mom was watching the boys at night, and was putting them to bed. They were not going to sleep, playing, talking, whining, (who, my kids? never!). And William was horsing around and fell out of the top bunk bed. He threw a huge crying fit of course, and I heard all about it when I got home.

But even better, the next day William told me about the fall.

"Mom, I fell out of my bed last night. It hurt. But the only part that hurt was when I hit the floor. The falling part felt awesome."

Seriously. Now I know why we have called this kid Evil Knievel. Watch out everyone!!!

Choosing your battles...

I have been given grief, sometimes minor grief sometimes major grief, for the choices I have made and am making with my kids. This isn't about that grief or the rightness or wrongness of it, but more about not listening to it. As mothers we listen....we listen to our kids, listen to them whine, listen to them demand, listen to them laugh, listen to them cry, and occasionally when we are lucky, we listen to them sleep. We listen to our friends, we listen to our acquaintances, we listen to our parents, their friends, their friends' parents. We listen to everyone's advice, sometimes we ignore everyone's advice (which we should probably do more) but we always hear it anyway. We listen to TV, magazines, books. Books by professionals, books by parents, books by professional parents. Books by people who must know more than we do about our kids. Must know more than we do about parenting. We feel so overwhelmed by the massive task of raising little people, that we forget, completely forget to listen to ourselves. Please try to stop listening to everyone but yourself, your child, and the instinct that God gave you to not only survive, but thrive through this task of parenthood. I am trying and I will never stop trying. But it is a constant battle, a constant struggle, and proves its worth once in a while. Like this:

William is an extreme little boy. Everything is extreme, Extreme happiness, extreme sadness, extreme anger. Extreme like and dislike. Once he was extremely into snakes for about a month, we read about snakes and watched snake movies...I did not try to talk him out of his interest in snakes, or broaden his horizons to other reptiles, or anything....I sat back and indulged his extreme like, and guess what, he eventually moved on to volcanoes. Now we are excited about avalanches. William also had and still does have an extreme fascination with weapons, sometimes guns, sometimes swords....I haven't told him it's not okay to play with these things, rather that it's okay to play nicely with these things, not to hurt anyone, and not to break anything. I have thrown out every broken toy weapon we have, and have struggled constantly with the rules of these types of toys. But, eventually this extreme fascination gave way to knights with swords, dragons and princesses, castles and wizards. Fantasy....which is something I wanted my kids to be into since they were born. But I could no more force that interest than I could force their eye color. Fantasy has led into fairy tales, and princesses. Yes, I have a four year old boy with a soft side. He loves Snow White, Cinderella, Jasmine and her friends...we just came home from the library, with Tinkerbell, Power Rangers, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and he wanted to watch Tinkerbell first. I won't tell him he can't watch these movies, or read these stories, or (gasp!) can't dress up like one if he wants. Because every time I say he can dress up like a princess or fairy if he wants, he decides he better dress up like a boy fairy or a prince. I usually say he can dress up like one if he wants to, but usually the girls do that and the boys are knights and kings and dragons, or even a boy fairy. He is satisfied. He is a little boy who wants to be a princess. It is no different from letting your daughter play with a monster truck. I hope you would. I would.

Rowen translating time...

Can you guess what this is? William can, he is a better translator than me!!

In the car, "muh duh wisssen muh-gick"

On the way to the car, "not a out me!"

When watching a movie or reading a book...."I don wock hum, dawey"

I will post translations in a couple days, feel free to comment and guess what he is saying.