Berlin Update

I just read Berlin's update that I wrote around her birthday last year and it's funny because somethings have changed so much but other things are exactly the same!

One major change is that Berlin has gone from the kid who could barely sit down for 5 minutes to color a picture to a very studious child if she is really into whatever she is working on. Over the summer Berlin started coloring with a purpose. I took some pictures that I meant to put on my blog but now I am feeling pretty sure that I never did. Who knows, it's been a crazy year. Anyway, one day she just decided that she wanted to color the whole picture instead of just scribble on one spot, so she did. The funniest thing though is that she would very carefully, staying in all the lines, color the whole picture one color. Then she started doing "projects" which consist of any little art thing and she loves projects. Give the child some glue or tape, some paper, and something else (beads, jewels, string, puff balls, etc.) and she will be busy forever. She can use a whole roll of tape in one sitting. I have to hide it if I need my own tape for anything, otherwise it will disappear in projects.

Cooking is still a favorite thing for Berli. She loves to help out in the kitchen and has gotten much braver about making decisions for herself on how things should go. I have to watch her very carefully to make sure the correct amount of things get into the bowl if we are baking.

Berlin also wrote her own name all by herself for the first time the other day. One of the cutest things I have seen in a long time. She also learned how to zipper her own coat by herself the same week that Tryn learned. :)

She still loves Diego and baby Jaguar. Berlin also is newly really into small plastic animals. One of the things that I got her for her birthday is this big container of little bugs and crawly things. We were in Target several weeks ago and she saw this container sitting on an end cap (good job Target for marketing well) and got so excited about it she wouldn't put it down. She begged and begged for it and, being the terrible mom I am, I told her no. She carried it around the store with her the entire time we were there...which also speaks of how much determination she has developed over the past several months. :) Anyway, she got a similar slimy little frog from Sunday school a few weeks ago that she got to pick out of the prize box. Unfortunately, it started to fall apart right away. When I asked her last week what she wanted for her birthday she said she wanted a new little frog because the other ones head was falling off.

Berlin still loves to wear dresses every day. Now that she gets herself dressed every day I think that about 95% of the days this past winter she has been running around in a summery dresses - no pants, leggings, tights or socks to be found on this child. She can also wear clothes out like no one else. I am glad that I didn't have another girl after her because there would not have been much unstained clothes to pass on to the next one.

One way that I've noticed that Berlin is a lot like me is that she is really indecisive. If faced with a choice, say which sticker to pick out at the dr.'s office, it can be an almost painful decision for her. It takes so long. But I totally get it.

Oh, and Berlin is really good at the Memory Game. We play it almost every morning while Tryn is at school and I haven't won in a long time. The other day she beat me 11-5. Granted I was up 6 or 7 times that night and significantly lacking in sleep, but she is really good at it regardless. She remembers where cards are when I have no idea and she will even not get matches on purpose sometimes because she wants me to get them. She has a harder time playing it when there are more people, she gets distracted easily and then forgets where cards are, but she is really good. She has also started getting really interested in putting puzzles together lately and is also really good at that.

This picture is a great example of Berlin right now too. The other day Berlin got super excited because she thought it was time for Tryn to be coming home from school. I told her it wasn't, we still had two more hours. "No, Mom!," Berlin tells me, "Look at the clock! It's time for Tryn to come home."

"No, sweetie, it isn't." After arguing back and forth for a minute I show her on the clock where the hands have to be when Tryn gets off the bus.

Berlin pushes a chair over the wall and says, "Okay, I am going to watch the time until Trynie gets home then." She didn't last long though, because it really was going to be two more hours. :)

Sickies

There has been a lot of sickness in our household the past month. Yes, I said month. Somewhere around the 23/24 of January the kiddos and I started coming down with a cold. It was a typical weekish type cold and we then started to feel a little better. It looked like things were clearing up for about a week and then...more. Just more.

I am not sure if all of our colds just took a downward spiral at that point or if we contracted another different cold, but there was a lot more sickness. Tryn got off easy with just a cough and slight sore throat. Berlin had a fever for 4 days, at one point it was up around 105.3 and she still has a fairly icky sounding cough. Kye got a fever too, although not quite as high. And then he had pink eye in both his eyes and his poor eyes were huge pools of draining crustiness for about 4 days. Then he stopped nursing and I had to start pumping and he would only drink a few ounces from a bottle and not eat his solids. And then he started getting up every hour at night. He is also still coughing.

It has been a really, really long month. Kye ended up having a double ear infection and although he has been on antibiotics for 5 days now he is still getting up 5 or 6 times a night, just crying about things. And he is still not eating well.

We had to cancel lots of things this month. It is especially times like these that I feel that it is such a blessing to be able to stay at home with my kids right now. I can't imagine how many days I would have had to take off this month if I had been working somewhere. It is nice to be able to be there for my kids when all they really want more than anything in the world is to sit on my lap. Although, now I feel like me and my lap need some days off from this "job". :)

And then today Steve got a fever and started getting a cold, and the poor man can't take the day off from work - not on a weekend. Not sure why he waited around so long to get his, now that we are almost over this thing.

Blah.

Come on Spring, I know you are just around the corner. Stop teasing us and come out and chase away all of this sickness please!!

Saddest looking sick baby ever! :(

Trynie and Me

Tryn's homework for the past week has been to write out Valentine's Day cards for all her classmates. We have been working on them, a few everyday. We got Princess cards for the girls and Cars cards for the boys and last night Tryn was working on the boys cards after dinner.

She got to the name Felong and told Steve, "This boy is cute." Uh oh.

Steve didn't really know what to do, so he told me. And he said, "She can't mean that kind of cute, she's only five!"

So I asked her, "Tryn, do you think he is cute like Kye is cute? Or do you think he is cute like handsome cute?"

Her answer, said with the shyest of smiles, "I think he's handsome cute."

I thought Steve was going to just fall right over then and there.

I think it's funny. Unfortunately, this is an area in which I just cannot identify with Tryn. I was such a different little girl. I was thoroughly convinced that boys were plain old lame until I was about 14 years old. Although there weren't a lot of boys around as options, I don't think I would have cared if there was. I just didn't care.

Add that to the fact that I watched Tryn get dressed herself the other day and it was yet another eye opener for me. She put on a pair of pants and then picked out a skirt - pants with a skirt are her signature thing, stemming from the days where we used to fight about the fact that you actually can't walk around with bare legs when it's less than 70 degrees outside...which is a majority of the year here in Minnesota. Anyway, she picked out a skirt and then added a shirt. Then looked in the mirror for awhile, took off the skirt, and got a different one. Then looked in the mirror for awhile again, then took off her shirt and put on a different one.

I don't think I ever put that much thought into clothes when I was five. Again, something that I didn't care about until I was 12 or 13 years old. Seriously, one of my favorite shirts when I was 9 years old was a shirt that I found at Fleet Farm and wanted for my birthday. Looking back now I realize that it was one of those shirts that people over 70 usually wear. It was a regular sweatshirt with a big horse head on the front and, marking feature, it had a white lace-ish type collar around the neck. I loved it because it had a horse on it and I had no idea what style was. Tryn talks a lot about wanting to look pretty or cute. I was hoping we wouldn't have to deal with things like that for a few more years.

Finally, the other night we had already put #2 and #3 to bed as they were sick with fevers and Tryn was the only one still up. Steve asked her who she wanted to bring her up to bed, mommy or daddy. After going back and forth for a few minutes, she had to "eenie, meenie, minie, mo" the decision and ended up with daddy. She came to give me a hug and said, "Don't worry Mom, next time I will pick you," like she was worried that she had hurt my feelings!

She is so in tune with things that I am sure I didn't think of when I was her age, and sometimes still don't. I love these things about her, they make her a fascinating kid and a ton of fun to talk to...but sometimes I just feel so lost when I realize the things that are going through her mind.

Jesus, please help me be a good mother to this girl that I often don't understand.

There are a few things that Trynie and I do have in common. We both love quality time with the people that we love. We both can get lost for hours working on creative or artistic projects. We both love books and neither of us are/were the type of kids who could play outside for hours on end, although we both love the beach. We both love fruit, ice cream, and desserts in general.

Jesus, please help me to be a good mother to this sweet, sweet girl. Help me to be the kind of mother that she needs, even when I don't know what or who that looks like.

Bright Eyed...

...and bushy tailed? Wait. What? No. Haha!!

I do love these bright eyes though! And I might be slightly jealous of the length of my son's eye lashes. What the heck? He definitely didn't get those from me. Unfair.



This picture was taken at the same time and it just cracks me up. My caption is, "Oh man, they got me!" Haha!



And, yes, you would be right in thinking that it looks like Berlin is wearing a sleeveless summer dress in February. She has lived most of the winter like this. In fact, I think she has worn socks for maybe 6 days this whole winter - and even those days she won't leave them on all day. She just wears boots with no socks, but at least she wears boots. She has also tried to walk outside in a dress or little gymnastics outfits with just her coat and boots on and nothing on her legs. I can't believe how many times I have said, "Berlin, you need to have something on your legs if you are going to go outside." Crazy kid :)

Kye's Bedding

Back before I even knew what Kyeson looked like I picked out some material and had bedding made for him. A friend of mine graciously waited through all my material choosing indecisiveness and this is what we came up with in the end.



I love it.



Unfortunately, since Tryn was using Kye's crib in the toddler bed set up option until Christmas, I just recently got to set this up. Steve made the girls some amazing bunk beds for Christmas, hopefully I will get pics up of their room soon, and so Kye finally got his bed!



Not only is it so nice to finally have him in his own bed, but it doesn't hurt that it's so darn cute!

Sisters

I love this picture. Sisterhood. Sometimes they love each other, and sometimes they hate each other...but they both feel lost without the other one around.



I love them so much it hurts.