As always in this house, the days fly by and before you know it, it’s been a month or more since I’ve written down any of the things I never want to forget about our crazy lives. Everyone is doing very well, minus some runny noses and minor coughs, but those are just the badges of preschoolers. The week is spent running from preschool to the Little Gym and trying to do some errands in between.

Alex and Avery at 3 1/2 have gotten really independent very quickly. Avery dresses herself every day, though not always in an outfit I’d have chosen. She dresses herself several times, actually, once you consider the changes during rest time into dress-up clothes and then a completely inappropriate summer dress that twirls out when she spins. She is so very girlie, loving all things Princess and pink, and wearing dresses or skirts with tights anytime she can. To my amazement, she’s also starting to read. She knows all the letters and sounds and a few sight words – enough to get her through simple texts and to prompt her to read a few signs in stores or parking lots. She writes her name all over the place. She amazes me every day with her memory and the things she picks up on. If only I could channel her talents in the right direction to make up for my constant Momnesia. She’s full of drama and attitude that make me want to duck and cover when the teenage years come, but she is also starting to come out of her shell and make new friends. She loves her dance class and the tutus and leotards and tap shoes she gets to wear there. Her first show last month was a major success. I think Don posted pictures.

Alex is funny and sweet and impulsive and stubborn, as always. He loves laughing, and being the typical boy he is, his favorite book for his Tag reader is called Walter the Farting Dog Goes on a Cruise. He’s really into puzzles lately and while he’ll complain that he can’t do it, I turn around a few minutes later and he has the whole thing together. He loves helping Don and was thrilled helping to put together a kitchen island with Daddy this weekend. He still loves books and is really good at memorizing them, and using pictures to help him tell a story or figure out the right word. He’s infamous for coming out of his room at quiet rest time because “I need to tell you sumpin.” He loves playing computer games and amazes me with how well he can operate on the websites. Like father, like son, right? Alex loves going to school and telling me about his days there. He’s always looking for something to bring for sharing time, like his new wallet (Don’s old one) which he keeps his “credit cards” in. Such a cutie!

Adam appears to be a reincarnation of someone from the heyday of disco. The kid never stops dancing, unless a slow song comes on, in which he comes over and grabs my face and says, “Change it. Change it!” But Taylor Swift, Imagination Movers, and everything in between has him spinning in circles and doing the best booty shake ever. He bends over a little, sticks his butt out, and then shakes his upper body, especially his bent arms / elbows. The butt never moves. Words don’t do it justice, but it cracks us up every time. He loves to read, with his current favorites being Biscuit in the Big City and Owl Babies. The things that come out of his mouth make him sound older than he is – “Hey!” or “What’s the big idea?” if someone does something not to his liking. “Two minutes. Widdle bit more,” when he’s not ready to move on to something new. It’s fun that’s he’s a little parrot these days and will repeat almost anything. Last week he walked into the twins’ classroom, picked up a paintbrush, and started painting an apple stencil at the easel like he owned the place. Thankfully they have a very understanding teacher! He loves trains and airplanes. He’s also now proficient at climbing out of his crib. Thankfully, he doesn’t seem to do it all the time like Alex did at this age, but just to be safe, we have a crib tent due to arrive tomorrow. I cannot go through the hell that is moving to a toddler bed again this soon! I’m still haunted my images of twins in hallways and rooms other than their own at all hours of the day and night! I cannot believe I am already planning Adam’s second birthday party. I wish every day that I could keep him little, my baby, a while longer. And like all kids, he’s trying to grow up as quickly as possible. The never ending battle…

Here’s Mr. Cool Alex in his Thanksgiving day clothes (click for larger image).  More can be seen here in the November album.

Here are the pictures from our trip to Disney World last month.  I’ve got hours of video footage that I will be processing and posting up when I have time too.  So for now you can enjoy these:

Day 2 (our site | picasa)

Day 3 (our site | picasa)

Day 4 (our site | picasa)

Day 5 (our site | picasa)

Day 6 (our site | picasa)

Day 7 (our site | picasa)

Yes folks, we’re still living in modern society with Internet access.  We have not moved to the mountains in tents with a mission to never rely on technology again.

We’re all doing great.  The kids got their first round of H1N1 flu shots last week, which is a relief for us.  Jen entered into a local county lottery to qualify to get the shots (we’ve been unable to get them from the kids Dr.) and was notified the day after that we won.  Maybe I should put Jen in charge of buying my lottery tickets?!?!

We did make it back from Disney World back in late October.  I vow to have pictures put up on the site by the end of this week.

In a nutshell, the trip was great.  The kids had a blast and we really enjoyed seeing them have so much fun.  We got to spend a few days visiting with some family that we don’t get to see too often which was awesome too.  By the end of the week we definitely all were tired and ready to come back.  I think things will be much easier when we decide to go back in 4+ years or so.

The kids are all doing well.  Preschool has been great and the kids learn fun new things every week.  Alex is loving his sports class at Little Gym and seems to be really into it.  He’s always trying hard to follow Mr. Dave’s instructions exactly so that he can accomplish the task at hand and seems to be focused the whole time.  He’s much more into this than the karate classes he tried.

Avery is also doing great at her dance/ballet class which is also at Little Gym.  She initially had some issues where she would cry and didn’t want to get started with each class (shyness or separation anxiety maybe), but she’s gotten over those things now.  It amazes me and Jen each week with the fancy dance steps she’s learning and how well she can do them.  Avery’s instructor even said that there were a few moves that she was the only one that could do them initially.  Go Avery!  I also mentioned to Jen last night that she seems more graceful and less clumsy when running and playing around the house.  We also just learned this week that they will be having a little recital/performance at the end of this session in January.  You can bet that the camcorder will be rolling so that we can share that with you all too.

Adam is doing great too.  He’s signed up for a Little Gym class starting up in January too (are you seeing a theme here? My paychecks just get deposited into THEIR bank account every month).  He loves to read and talks up a storm.  He’s stringing tons of words together too and has no problems letting you know what he wants or tattling on Ah or Ee (Alex or Avery) when they do something bad to him (or even when they don’t).  Alex has even taken to reading some books that he enjoyed a few years ago to Adam in the mornings — very cute!

We’re all gearing up for the holidays now as you can imagine.  We’ll hopefully get our tree this weekend and start to get down the decorations.  I’m looking forward to some yummy food and time with family this week.

The week will end with my birthday on Sunday and me getting to go to the Ravens vs. Steelers Sunday Night Football game at M&T Bank Stadium.  The tickets were a surprised from Jen for my birthday.  She even contacted my boss and arranged for me to be off work on Monday.  How awesome is she?

I’d like to end this post to truly give thanks to my wonderful and loving family and to say how truly blessed I feel.  I’m thankful for being employed, for having happy, healthy and such smart kids, and for having such a wonderful and strong wife.  I feel very lucky in so many ways — thanks!

The littlest Kitchen is growing up so quickly! We had his 18 month appointment yesterday and he’s 27 pounds and mostly in 24 month / 2T clothing. I look at how active and crazy he is and think, “Wow, I cannot believe I was 6 months pregnant with him when the twins were this age. How the heck did I keep up with them???” But truth be told, I think he is wilder and crazier than the twins ever were. He just loves to be on the move, climbing, running, and doing what his big brother and sister are doing. I think he thinks he was born a triplet to them, not 21 months younger.

One of his favorite things to do these days is dance. He smiles and spins in circles and flaps his arms til he falls over. He’s also mastered Jennifer Beals’ running dance from Flashdance, which is hilarious. He goes over to the iPod dock or brings me the iPod itself, saying “Song? Song?” and gets super excited when I put anything on. We have regular dance parties to Bob Marley’s Legend, Taylor Swift’s 2 records, and somehow he and Alex learned about Foo Fighters so sometimes he requests them: “Foo? Foo?” He also is in love with the Hokey Pokey Elmo we got last Christmas from Aunt Hailey and Aunt Lauren. He puts it on and expects everyone to stop what they are doing and Hokey Pokey with them. He’s not a fan of slow songs, though, saying, “No, no, no!” whenever one comes on.

He’s becoming quite the drama queen as well, tattling on Avery and Alex if they so much as touch him sometimes. A typical incident goes like this:

A twin takes a toy from him, shoves him, or accidentally bumps into him.
Adam grabs the “injured” body part and says, “Ow! Ow!” over and over again.
Me: What happened?
Adam: “Ah” (which is not helpful at all since he calls both twins Ah most of the time.)
Me: What did he/she do?
Adam: uses hand motions and words like “hit” or “poosh” to tell on them, complete with sad face and eyes welling with tears
And then I have to ask the witness and perpetrator to tell me what happened, which they always declare is nothing at all, and I feel like I am trying a crime with no evidence. Half the time he will have hit one of them first… He likes to tell on the cats for scratching him too, and I tell him to go tell them No No, and he goes over and shakes his finger at them and tells them no. The scratches aren’t undeserved – he chases those poor kittens, carries them around, and yesterday I found him kneeling with his full weight on Charlotte. Never a dull moment.

He’s picking up more and more words, but not stringing them together yet. He’s learned the names of some of the Playhouse Disney crew: Mickey is “Mouse,” Manny is “Manny,” and Oso sounds dangerously close to “Asshole.” Lovely. He also likes to demand a “nack” (snack), and loves to ask for “mo”(more) of everything – food, drinks, planes flying overhead, and thunder – while doing the sign for more. He’s not pleased when something he requests more of is out of our control, as with the planes and thunder.

Adam is starting to really enjoy books, too. His vocabulary has taken off and there’s not much he can’t name. He likes to tell me what everything is in Goodnight Moon and move the flaps in Karen Katz books. He’s doing puzzles and shape sorters all the time. And he also really likes helping Avery take care of her baby dolls, especially Baby Alive, whom he gags with her spoon daily.

He’s still nursing, usually 2-3 times a day. Part of me is very ready to be done, but it’s easy for us and makes putting him to bed and naps super easy, so I haven’t pushed it too hard. He loves his blue puppy dog and playing with Baby Tad in his crib. He’s super friendly and waves hi to anyone and everyone, not shy at all. He’s very much a happy-go-lucky kid with a great sense of humor, and I hope that continues instead of getting to the terrible 2s for him!

So do little boys who push stools around the garage, enjoying the ear-splitting, obnoxious sound they make. Alex found that out the hard way. Tuesday night as I was making dinner, the kids were playing in the garage. I stepped inside to stir something for 30 seconds, and heard the unmistakable sound of an injury. Running out, I saw Alex sobbing with blood pouring from his mouth. I think there’s nothing that prepares you for that as a parent – the fear that they’ve really hurt themselves or knocked teeth out. I grabbed him up and plunked him down on the kitchen counter and held pressure by his mouth with a towel to try and stop the flow. When I took a peek to see the damage, it was clear that he had bitten himself by the two perfect little toothmarks below his bottom lip. The blood coming from inside his mouth told me he’d gone all the way through. A cool piercing when you are 18, but not so much when you’re three.

Alex was really brave, though. He had stopped crying within five minutes or so and in fact was kind of pissed when Avery and Adam were eating tacos and he wasn’t as we waited for the doctor to call back and advise us about his need for stitches. In the end, he ate a taco, I put Adam to bed, and then he and I made a 4 hour trip to the emergency room. Well, the drive was only 35 minutes but the wait…Ugh. We got there at 7:30, and he had been up since 7 am with no nap. He was such a trooper, sitting in my lap and not complaining that I wouldn’t let him touch anything but my phone as we waited and waited and waited some more to be triaged. I didn’t want us bringing home swine flu or anything else we didn’t arrive with. He happily played driving games and others as we sat. We finally got back to the nurse around 9:15, and it was decided that he needed LET gel, which is lidocaine and two other things to numb the skin. After it was on, the nurse informed me it would take about 45 minutes to work, so it was back to the waiting room for us. Yay. Just before 11, we were finally called back into the patient care area. I sat him on the bed. As a lady came in and began to handle registration and insurance information, I noticed Alex’s eyes closing and his head wobbling. He really looked like he was about to fall over from exhaustion. I laid him down and within 30 seconds, he was asleep. Over the course of the next 30 minutes, the doctor came in to take a look at the wound and I asked if he’d be able to stitch him while he slept. He said he hoped so and would try. Sure enough, Alex flinched as the bandage holding the gel on was removed, but then slept right through the big moment. Two stitches that should dissolve in a week or so were sewn in, and we were done. The poor guy stayed completely knocked out through that, me carrying him to the van, strapping him in, driving home, carrying him into his room, and laying him in bed. Thank goodness I had thought to put him in his pajamas before we left for the hospital. It was midnight by the time we got home.

In the end, I’m glad we got our first stitches out of the way. I’m sure they won’t be the only ones, especially for the boys, but hopefully this sets a precedent for smooth sailing through any future ones!

Yes everybody, this is what my 3 year old son has been obsessing over for the past few months.  For whatever reason when we got a Halloween costume catalog a few months ago THIS is what he decided he wanted to be.  A Garden Gnome.  For a second we were relived that the biggest it came in from the catalog was a 2T.  Then this week while shopping at Walmart Jen saw it in bigger sizes.

So, Alex got his “Gnome Guard” and he will be a happy boy this Halloween.  Crazy kid!