My Three-Year Old

My baby is now three years old.

I refuse to believe that.  He is still my baby and that will never change.

Oh wait-is this how it starts?  Is this how the youngest child develops "youngest child syndrome?"  In that case, let me start rejoicing that Noah is growing up.

This baby-excuse me-child of mine is one crazy boy.  He is full of energy (all. the. time.) and loves attention.  I have heard that most comedians are the youngest sibling so it looks like he is well on his way to that career choice.  He will do anything for a laugh.

Noah has a lot of toys (he should, he is the third kid), yet he never seems to play with them.  He will do puzzles all day long and try and sneak the kindle when I am not looking, but other than that, he just likes to make messes.

How does a kid who does not play with toys make messes?  Well, he leaves puzzles everywhere, builds blocks and makes them fall and leaves them everywhere and opens up markers, leaves the caps off and walks away.  Oh, and he does get out the occasional toy, but only to stack it on top of something and then walk away.

When Abby was little, I made sure she always put her toys away when she was done playing.  We cleaned up before nap time and before bed.  When Caleb was little, we never made it to cleaning up before nap time, but we cleaned up before bed.

With Noah, I am lucky if the house is somewhat clean by the weekend.

My little tornado is quite something, though.  He never ceases to surprise me with the things that he says or does.  Here comes my bragging moment-the kid is smart.  Really smart.  He does not miss a beat, puts together huge puzzles, kicks my butt at Memory and has amazing language skills.

To keep it humble, he still has not figured out that he can unzip his coat instead of trying to take it off over his head and getting it stuck.

Noah loves his friends and I was so happy at his party this year that he had his own guests and not just his older sibling's friends.  He talks about Lucian and Grant and Rosie and Austin all the time and I am so thankful that he gets to go to preschool with most of them next year.

Noah-you came into this world in a flash on 10/10/10 and you have not stopped surprising me.  I love you so much and look forward to seeing who you grow up to be.

You Did WHAT In The Loft?

Well, life is a little interesting with a dog.

Molly is awesome-so sweet, great with the kids, house broken.

Um, mostly house broken.

The first night that we had her, she must have been nervous because her farts were out of control.  I mean, yes, I live with three male species so I am used to a plethora of odors, but these were ridiculous.  We gave her plenty of opportunity to use the facilities of our backyard, but she never went.

As I went to bed that night, exhausted from a day of throwing a birthday party and adopting a dog, I heard Nick say from the hallway, "Um, Tammy, I think we have a problem."

Miss Molly had pooped in the loft.  And not just one poop-multiple poops in many places.  And they we were NOT solid.  Oh, and did I mention that the kids had not cleaned up their toys before bed that night?  Yep, Molly was not choosy about where her poop landed.

As I scooped it all up and Nick followed behind with the carpet cleaner and paper towels, I questioned whether we were cut out for this whole pet thing.  I heard Nick behind me, gagging and saying, "What on earth did we get ourselves into?"

Poor Molly saw us cleaning up her mess and she was so embarrassed.  She kept hiding and putting her tail between her legs.  At least the girl felt shame.

Thankfully, she has become more relaxed and that has not happened again.

(Actually, she has pooped in the loft a couple of times since, but she was kind enough to keep them solid and it always happened when we left her for too long.  Lesson learned for this week-take the dog on a walk before leaving the house for hours.)

Life is messy, I suppose-I just hope it does not always stay quite THIS messy.

Our New Family Member

So, this happened to our family...

Yep.  I figured it was too calm and clean in our house and we needed another creature to clean up after.

I am very wise.

It all started two days before the kid's birthday party when Nick said to me, "What about a dog for their birthday?"  Um, okay.  We have talked about it for years so why not look into it?  Maybe not go buy a dog that second, but at least consider the idea.

So, I did what everyone else does in this day and age-I consulted facebook land.

I asked my local friends where the best place to get a dog would be and was blessed with many answers.  I learned more than I ever thought I needed to know by posting that question.  Then, the answer that brought about the face you see above.  A mom friend from school saw that a friend of a friend had found a lost dog and she needed a home.  No tags, took her to the vet and no ID-just a loving dog who needed a family.  And they found her about 12 minutes from our house.

We always planned on getting a puppy that would grow up with the kids, but seeing this dog (and hearing that she was already house trained-hello!) changed our hearts.  I went to meet her the night before their party and knew pretty quickly that she belonged with our family.

So, after the kid's birthday party, we piled into the car and told them that we were going to get one last present that was for all three of them.  We pulled up to the house and imagine their confusion when we were standing in a stranger's front yard, looking at a strange dog.  It took Abby about a second to exclaim, "We're getting a dog?!"

The family who had found her and had kept her for a week were so kind.  They gave us a card that their daughter had written in, that told us all about what the dog liked.  I could tell that they would have loved to keep her, if not for allergies.

Once we got home, the discussion began on what to name our new family member.  The family who had taken care of her had called her "Princess" and "Shadow," but we decided on "Molly."

Gotta say, "Shadow," is a more appropriate name as she loves to follow us all around the house.  But, she is definitely a "Molly" and is just a barrel of fun.

There will be more stories to come of our Molly girl, but I must go now-she is chewing on a squeaky toy and begging for me to play with her.

And it begins...

9 Years Old

My little Abby turned 9 years old today.  What?  Yep, I know.

I swear I was just driving home from work in 2004, suddenly feeling contractions three minutes apart as I dealt with ridiculous traffic on 275.  Yet, here we are and she is nine.  The last age of single digits.

Crap, I need a tissue.

My not-so-little Abby is just an amazing girl.  She is so smart-usually smarter than me, sadly.  I try to help her with her math homework and have to pull out my calculator.  I never dreamed a child of mine would be in accelerated math.  I was the girl in the high reading class and low math class (man, the things they do to us in school) so the fact that Abby does both so well is just plain awesome.

Speaking of reading-she still loves it.  I feel like I am cheating when I write down the minutes that she reads every night, but it is all true.  Yes, we have to ban the Harry Potter books from time to time because she loves to reread them, but hey-she has good taste in literature.

I may complain about being a soccer mom, but I truly love watching her play.  I love cheering her on and watching her get excited over a great play.  She works hard at everything and is very determined.

Abby's heart is so sweet.  She loves her friends and treats them well.  Even better, she is kind to those who are not always the easiest to be kind to.  Okay, so maybe she could be kinder to Caleb, but let's focus on the positive things in this post.

It is starting to make me nervous to see how quickly she is growing up.  Our parents always said how quickly it goes by, but that is so easy to shrug off during the baby years, when life is just trying to survive from day to day.  But, I swear it is true-I blinked and she is suddenly nine.

I love you so much, Abigail Grace, and love seeing who you are growing up to be.

Happy Birthday 7 Year Old

So, this happened.

Caleb turned 7 today.  7!  Yes, I know-shocking.

I just love this kid so much.  He is never boring and I am so proud of who he is growing up to be.

Caleb loves sports.  All sports.  He runs around at soccer practice for 90 minutes, then the moment his coach says they are done, he grabs a football and starts throwing with his teammates.  He goes to Reds and Bengals games with his dad and is much better company than I could ever be.  You know-because he actually gets the games and knows every detail where as I enjoy people watching and cheering at big moments of the games.

He is also a pretty smart kid.  He loves reading, which I am so thankful for.  Every night, when I check on my boys before going to sleep, he is sprawled out in bed, surrounded by books.  (And surrounded by stuffed animals...and football/baseball/soccer guys...)  I actually had another mom from school tell me that her son keeps working hard at reading because he wants to catch up to Caleb.  What an amazing thing to be told.

Something that I love about Caleb is how kind he is to his friends.  Sure, he can totally be a typical boy and wrestle them to the ground (even if it's at church and the friend has no idea it is coming), but he loves his friends and talks about them a lot.

He is also super patient with Noah.  Probably more patient than I am, honestly.  I know that patience comes from this little trick-the moment Caleb gets home from school, he goes directly to his room to change his clothes and he locks himself in his room for awhile.  He takes some time to just play by himself, uninterrupted by his little brother.  As long as he has that time, he is great for the rest of the evening.  If he does not get that time, Lord help us all.

It is actually a good lesson-we all need some quiet time to make it through the day.

Happy Birthday to my amazing and "growing up too quickly" Caleb Paul.  I love you more than you can ever imagine.

Caleb's Prayers

I was tucking in the boys the other night and doing so in a rushed kind of way.  It was a soccer practice night, which meant a late night to bed, on a school night.

As I started to leave their room, I remembered and asked, "Did you pray, yet?"  Caleb answered, "I already prayed in the shower."

Now, as one who does the same thing (hey, it is the only time where I will not be interrupted) I was impressed. I asked him what he prayed about.

This is where I am so glad that I took the time to ask him this question.

Caleb started telling me, "Well, you know, I thanked him for saving me and I prayed for other people to be okay.  You know, He really saved us, Mom.  And He didn't come to do that because we are perfect, but because we are sinful.  I kind of get shy about saying all this in front of people, but I just thanked Him for saving me."

As my eyes were filling with tears, I asked him, "So, you asked Jesus in your heart?" to which he said, "Yeah," as if there was any question.

When I asked if he prayed for anything else, he said, "Well, I was going to, but that's when you walked in and told me the Reds score and interrupted me."

Whoops.

I then asked him where he learned all of this, thinking it was obviously his parents.  After all, I have a degree in ministry and teach the kid's class in church.  He replied, "School."

Awesome.

I have to add that this kid is the same kid who woke up grumpy the next morning and snapped at all of us.  But, hey, he did tell me that we are all sinful so it happens, right?