Tiny Humans

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Things I Don't Want to Forget

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Right now when G is trying to tell you something, he’ll often add on his version of “also” to continue the train of though. Except he pronounces it “aw-soh-lee” and it’s the cutest thing I’ve ever heard. And I never want to forget him when he’s this little and pronouncing this word like this.

I don’t want to forget E calling to me from the back of the car randomly that “Mama, some day when I’m older I’m going to tell you I want to do gymnastics. I’ll let you know.” I clarified that he didn’t want to do them now, he didn’t talk to anyone at school about them that day either, so I’m not sure why it was on his mind, but not to worry - he’ll let me know when he’s ready.

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A Curious Birthday

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Usually it’s great having a child who likes everything. He’s almost always excited, and it’s very easy to make him happy. The downside, though, is it’s hard to figure out what he likes. Obviously the answer is everything, but when you’re trying to buy him a present, or pick a birthday theme, “everything” isn’t the most helpful answer. Add in the complication of trying to make sure it’s something that he likes, and not something he’s just copying from his brother, and we were coming up pretty empty.

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Christmas 2021

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Christmas morning started with a bang - well a few of them actually. I was so busy I hadn’t looked out the window to notice all the ice that had accumulated overnight. We live on a pretty steep hill, so when my attention was finally pulled outside, there were two cars off in front of our house and a few more at the bottom of the hill.

Our neighbors were already out trying to help, but they couldn’t even stay on their feet on the road. I sent Tom out with some salt to see if it would help. For the next hour, the kids and I got to watch everything from people skating down the hill to the backhoe pulling cars out of the ditch - really if you’re going to get in an accident, this isn’t the worst place to do it! On that vein, it also helps that our neighbor’s son works for the next town over and was out salting the roads. Since our town wasn’t doing much, my neighbor got her son to do a quick detour and get our street salted.

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Four Months

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More than once this month I’ve said that I think we’ve found our loudest child. You have found your voice and you love to sing and make everyone know that you have opinions. You are making sure that you will not be a forgotten third child. I’m not sure how you could be, you’re everyone’s favorite. Even the cats like to come check on you multiple times a day. Your siblings are still your favorite - after a particularly fussy day, the first time you seemed truly happy was at the end of the day when I set you up watching G.

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Merry Christmas

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Wishing you all a fairly peaceful day full of coffee, yummy food and lots of colorful packages. We’ll be doing our best to control the discarded wrappings and will try to play with every new toy at once and somehow still make sure the littlest Spearson gets a nap or two. We usually eat cinnamon buns for breakfast and order Chinese food for lunch. And otherwise try to stay home in our PJs all day. Maybe we’ll listen to some Christmas music, or watch Trash Truck’s Christmas special for the 8th time this week.

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Three Years

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The other morning I woke you up and told that you while you were two years old that morning, you’d soon be three! And you said “No! I’m your baby always!” and then you had me scoop you up and rock you in my arms. It was just what my soul needed as I mourn all of my children growing way too fast. But then again, you always seem to know what other people need lately. I’ve dubbed you a caregiver more than once lately. You often tell me that if I’m scared it’s okay, because you’re here for me. And we all call you our Italian grandmother, since you love feeding people. It brings you so much joy, and you won’t take no for an answer. No one can come into our house without getting some of your meal fed to them. You also will seek out my water from across the house and bring it to me to make sure I’m drinking enough water.

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What Have We Missed?

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On a totally out of order post, I realized I never talked about Thanksgiving! It’s not completely surprising because on my constant to do list of things I would like to be doing, somehow typing ends up at the bottom. Having two hands is a privilege I don’t often have. I’m getting more sleep lately, which is great, but it means I have less time for other things. Trade off.

But I did want to quickly mention some things to cement the memories which will certainly disappear.

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Life Now

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So how is life going these days, anyway?

It honestly changes minute by minute. So quickly I feel like I constantly have whiplash and don’t have time to breathe. I know we’re in survival mode and it won’t always be like this. We’ll get to a point where I’ll have time to respond to emails again, make those doctors appointments I’ve had on my list forever, and not feel constantly tired. And then I’ll look back and wonder where these days went.

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Three Months

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What a determined little baby you are. You’re not content with being a newborn anymore. You’re learning to roll and are working hard at sitting up too, when all we want is to enjoy you as a baby for as long as possible. You see your older siblings doing things, and you just want to be where they are. You love them so much, if you hear them you’ll crane your neck and move your body to try and see them. Of course they love you just as much, some nights you get a hug when Mama and Dad don’t.

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A Dark Car Ride Home

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There are times, and today is one of them, where I look around and I’m so thankful and over the moon happy for this family that I have. Pinch my arm because I’m not sure how I got this lucky, happy. Not all days are like this, of course, and if I’m being honest the whole day didn’t even feel like this. But it ended well, and so as I’m sitting in the dark with a baby that’s almost asleep, I’m holding on to that feeling.

Most days I’m just spinning in circles trying to do damage control and make sure at least the majority of the children are fed and not crying. My mental to do list is constant and never ending, and when I collapse in bed at the end of the day (or the start of the next day? Trust me it’s late) I don’t have a lot of time to think about where we are in life.

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Expectations

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As a parent, it’s easy to get an idea in your head about how things might go, or how you’d like them to go. I see it a lot this time of year when everyone is booking family photos and thinking of upcoming holiday cards. For example I might think that if I buy matching pjs and book photos with a Santa early in November, we could have a cute photo for our card. I might even think I’m being flexible when I consider the possibility that the baby would be crying, because that might make a funny card.

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Trick or Treat

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This year everything about Halloween seemed up in the air. The pandemic is still raging on, the weather looked questionable at best, and our normal Halloween plans were no longer an option. All that added up to a big question mark about how we were going to spend the holiday. Nothing new there, I guess. Every holiday for the past almost two years now has been a mix of disappointment and change, so I shouldn’t be surprised.

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Two Months

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About halfway through the month, I looked at you and realized you were no longer a newborn. It was shocking and sad. I wasn’t sure how the change had happened so quickly, and was immediately mourning the fact that you’d left the sleepy and squishy phase. It is, of course, an accomplishment for you. You’re growing! You’re one step closer to showing us who you are as an independent person. And pretty quickly I learned to love this new phase too. You love eye contact, and when I coo at you, I can make you smile.

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Passing Time

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E and I have been discussing time lately. Specifically how it can sometimes go quickly, while other times it seems to take forever. It started during nap time. E is getting to an age where he hasn’t given up naps yet, but he doesn’t take one every day either. We tell him that he can nap if he wants to, and if not he can have quiet time in his room. He usually does a combination of resting in his bed, maybe with a book, or playing with his dollhouse.

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Echoes

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Baby F is less newborn infant, and more baby lately. It means she’s awake for longer stretches of time, and starting to pay attention to us. She loves when we talk to her and gets all excited and tries to copy us. Her mouth moves like crazy and her eyes get wide and when she finally gets a noise out, you can tell she’s absolutely thrilled with herself. So lately I spend a lot of time staring into her eyes and saying “Alpo” over and over to her as she watches intently and tries speak. I understand that sounds odd, but stay with me for a minute.

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Halloween Halloween!!

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I’m actually shocked that Halloween is still so far away. We’ve been leaning heavy into all the fall/Halloween activities for a while now, so I’m having a hard time believing we’ve still got over a week to go. The kids are loving it, though, and we still have a lot of fun things coming up. Now that we have three kids, I’m afraid I’ve found my weakness in matching PJs. I’ll admit it’s a bit too early to pull out the Christmas PJs, so I’m going all in with Halloween ones.

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Making Magic

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You’d think that sleeping less would mean you’d have more hours in the day to, well.. do more? And maybe it’s true, but all those things you want to do, you need to figure out a way to do them without your hands. Occasionally it works - I read an entire book the other day. But most of the time I’m struggling to accomplish one thing that needs to get done that day.

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Smile With the Rising Sun

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Everyone knows that having a newborn means you’re not getting a ton of sleep, but you do spend a lot of time watching someone who is. I guess I could get jealous of all that quality sleep the baby is getting, but instead my mind wandered to another spot - how amazing it is to be a baby that gets to feel so secure and safe at all times. Due to both of us being home on leave right now, this baby spends almost 24 hours a day in direct contact with one of us. Assuming you believe that a newborn can smell their parents, what an awesome gift we’re able to give to let her know we’re always there.

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Minute by Minute

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So how is life with three kids?

Honestly it depends when you ask me. Every day we’ll have the sweetest, calmest moments where everything seems great. We’ll be making pancakes, sitting around the table together, and all happy. The baby will start to cry and one of the older kids will run over and cheer her up. There will be cuddles and sharing of toys and cooperative cleaning of the house. And we’ll think, yeah we’ve got this. This is amazing.

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How Do You Like Them Apples?

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Because we’re apparently experts now, we managaed our second outing as a family of five (I’m not tired of saying that yet) in our first month. It’s officially fall here, so we went apple picking!

Apple picking isn’t something I did growing up, and to be honest isn’t my first choice in activity now. If I want apples, I’m fine getting them from the grocery store. However, it’s not all about the apples.