Sunday, December 25, 2011

the MAGIC of it all!

sorry i haven't posted lately. been dealing with some heavy birth family stuff and was waiting for the silver lining to appear. maybe i'll post later.

BUT today is christmas and that means SANTA....and jesus. it's true. we're christians and that's the #1 reason but when you've waited and waited to have little people to celebrate with it's SO exciting to smother them in gifts. all season long when karyssa would ask for something i would tell her we'd have to tell santa. and when it was finally time to go see santa to tell him her greatest desire was a cinderella castle she said "i'm gonna ask santa for TWO cinderella castle's!!!" i quickly nipped that in the bud and said "we don't want santa to think we're being greedy, so we need to just ask him for one." last night we gave them their pajamas and when she opened her hello kitty pajamas i said "how did santa know? you told him you wanted a cinderella castle but you never said anything about hello kitty!?!" and she said with christmas magic oozing from every pore "he just KNOWS these things." oh my gawd she is so funny!! tonight at dinner she said "let's go to bed again so santa will come again!" again...nipped it in the bud and told her she was going to have to wait 365 days for him to come again.

asher got a paint pad from uncle brock and aunt liz and today when karyssa went to touch it he started screaming "MINE! MINE! MINE!" he also ran laps around the house with his new wheel-barrel full of stocking stuffer toys. after dinner he took off his pajamas and said "potty!" and ran into the bathroom and went a full potty on the potty and then ran out of the bathroom to tell grandma and grandpa who were on the phone. he was SO proud of himself he leaned into the speaker phone and shouted "POTTY!" ugh! i love that little boy and his achievements. he then ran around the house like a naked banchee and i've got to say he really does have the cutest cheeks ever. i think it's the way the front of his thighs stick out so far you can see them from behind. and then get distracted by the sweet cheeks. mmmmm....have i mentioned how much i love these kids?

both kids got strider bikes and wow karyssa is good on it. she can already pull her feet up and glide. asher will sit on it and push himself along so i'm sure it's just a matter of time before he's cruising on it. good thing because i lay awake at night excited about them riding their strider bikes along the trails as i run along with them. UGH! can't wait to get running regularly again. ps-it's my turn to run a marathon next year and i can't WAIT!

aaaaaaaaanyhow...that's all i can remember for today. so glad to finally have little people to smother with christmas magic.

Thursday, December 15, 2011

she makes me GIGGLE!!!!

on sunday the kids and i went to petsmart to get dog food and a couple toys for tatum for christmas. on the way in the door karyssa said she wanted to walk. this is her new thing. walking in the stores instead of sitting in the cart. so the deal is, if she stays with me she can walk. if i have to tell her not to touch or to keep up or keep with me, in the cart she goes. and i'm usually pretty good at just getting what we went in for. but. i do love fish. so when she got the idea that she'd like a fish i had a hard time saying no. we got the cheapest set up we could get. a simple bowl, and one fish. i let her pick it out. she picked a blue beta and i said "so why did you pick that one?" and she said "because he's blue!" good reason. we went to check out and i said "so what are you gonna name him?" "fishy raditastic" (for privacy reasons i don't post our real last name.) it was the first time i realized she knew her last name. i call her by it all the time. but i never realized she was recording that. i was so excited. i love hearing her say her last name because we gave that to her, like a stamp on her heritage. i love that!

tonight we had a sitter for a couple hours and when we came home paul went in and i took her home. then when i got back paul told me they had convinced her that they could sleep in the same room, in the same bed! he had gone up there and when he opened her door they sat up shoulder to shoulder in the bed. we ate dinner, opened mail, then i started making a pie for dinner with our casa tomorrow night and that's when we heard karyssa calling for me from upstairs. What the?? i went into her room and we got to giggling...pretty quickly...and i said "you sure schnookered paige into quite a few things tonight didn't you?" and she giggled and said "yep!"

oooooh she makes me LAUGH!!!

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

proof she "doesn't remember"

the other day i was talking to a therapy group on the phone and they asked me a little about karyssa's history. so i explained "she was 13 months when she came to us through foster care and before that she was highly neglected." she was watching a movie so i got up and walked to the other room so i wouldn't bother her. lately when i go through a drive-thru window or talk to someone on the phone she'll ask "what did you say to that lady?" a little while after the phone call she asked "why did you say that to that lady?" not "what" but "why". i said "do you mean why did i say you were neglected?...do you know what that word means?" and she said "when i was a baby." *tears* yes...exactly like when you were a baby! i didn't know what to say or how to approach it. we want to be honest but i don't want to paint a bad picture of her birth parents for her. if she comes to that conclusion on her own than so be it, truth be told, they deserve it. but i don't want to be the artist of that. so i said "they didn't know how to take good care of you, that's why you got to come and live with mommy and daddy. and i'll make sure you're never neglected again. i'll take very good care of you." not sure if that's a good or bad way to approach it but...i was a little surprised. i mean, she's 3. but now that she can talk all kinds of new information is coming out.

in cute news: asher's been trying to climb stairs like he's just walking up them instead of doing it one foot at a time on each step. it's so cute. and bonus: he finally slept through the night last night. the night before he got up at 4:15 and i went in there and put him back in bed and he screamed bloody murder and paul went in and told him to stop that and get back in bed. and with that we didn't hear another peep from him until after 7:00. little booger. not sure why he listens to daddy and not mommy. i love him. and the other day i was looking at a christmas card a friend had sent me. it had pictures of her 3 girls on the front and i was examining how much they'd changed since their card last year. he was sitting in his chair next to me and saying "i wanna see!" which sounds more like "ionasee!" except that he doesn't just say it once so it was more like "ionasee!ionasee!ionasee!ionasee!ionasee!ionasee!ionasee!ionasee!ionasee!ionasee!ionasee!" and when i finally caught on and turned the card so he could see the girls he stopped, examined, and said "aaaaawwweeee." it was SO cute! he is such a little character. last night after dinner we were decorating cookies for desert and i went to take pictures and said "say cheese!" and he said "cheese!' and i got my first on-cue picture of him-SMILING! so excited about that development. and lately i've noticed when i say "give mommy a kiss" he hums as he's coming in for the kill. teehee...yes, yes i do that.

*sigh* i love these kids.

Friday, December 2, 2011

more for me than you

asher has been babbling in paragraphs for a while now but not a single word. sure, he could say momma and daddy...well technically he could say "monny" and "daddy" but then on thanksgiving he started saying "hot!" it was more like "hoh", not really the "t" on the end. well today he said full sentences numerous times. he said "i wanna see" and "see christmas lights". don't get me wrong - i fully do not expect any of you to make out these sentences but when you question him if he really said what he said he says "mmmhm." i'm a little bit floored tonight.

two weeks ago today i caught him up on the end of his crib, riding it like a horse, leaning forward and giving his window raspberries. needless to say we moved him to the big boy bed that weekend. last thing i need is for him to fall from 5 feet in the air onto hard floors. he did not like the move. he had a few nights of straight sleep and then went back to crying during the night. for 2 1/2 hour blocks of time. exhausted we set up the toddler bed in the nook in his bedroom and that seems to be helping. i hate the feng shui in that room now. but i'll figure that out after a few more nights of uninterrupted sleep.

he's been flirting lately. OH it is so cute. he squints both of his eyes and then tries to look at you through all the eye lashes. then he blinks a little bit. adorable. and then he morphed into this shoulder thing where he shrugs just the left side 3 times...he does it when he's teasing or being mischievous. oh my it's adorable.

he loves airplanes the way karyssa loves trains but then the other night in the middle of one of his sleep boycots a train went by (we live in a town where no matter where you live you are within earshot of a train) and at 4:00am, with daddy taking that shift, clear as a bell, i hear from my bedroom *thuck* "choo-choo!" *suck*suck*suck*. he had pulled his passie out to say choo-choo and then stuck it back in maggie simpson style. so it was surprising to me that he had noticed a train when normally he's an airplane man.

i can not kiss his cheeks enough.

he is ALL boy. tonight i set up the train set and made a figure 8 for each of them to play with. on karyssa's side there's silent playing except for the occasional command to not touch her set or to give her yet another coveted train car. and from asher's side i hear a low grumble of "mmmmmmmm-mmmmmmmm-mmmmmm" like a car noise would make. only in his head it was completely appropriate for a train. is that a natural boy thing to make such a noise when playing with something wheeled?

he wants so bad to potty train but he loses interest after half a day. the other day he sat up on the potty and pushed and pushed and when we looked in again there were 3 little turds. karyssa got excited and squealed "he pooped on the potty!!!" only to squeal her gum, freshly earned from her own poop on the potty, right between the 3 turds. bless her little heart. thank god i had more gum.

he FINALLY likes playing in the snow. which is a good thing considering we live in the great state of colorado and there is currently plenty of snow to play in. i think they go outside twice each morning and twice each afternoon, even if it's dusk he'd rather bundle up and play outside than stay inside with me making dinner or tidying the house.

*whew* all this to say i LOOOOOOVE my little boy. he is the most handsome thing i've ever laid eyes on and looking at him makes my eyes dance. i tell him so all the time. i love the way he sits still if i whisper how much i love him in his ear.