Jess' Monday Morning Report

The weekend brought some unexpected events for us. Ari came prancing out of his room Saturday morning having dressed himself completely (underwear, inside out socks, backward pants and a massive shirt). He was extremely proud of himself and James and I felt the satisfaction of watching one more step taken toward less dependent children.

On the note of child milestones, the same day I bought the toaster oven, I also made the small purchase of a potty seat for Jude. I had to chuckle when the label on one of the options for purchase said "Child's Defecation Seat". Putting it delicately I suppose, although I rarely think of Jude's deposits as delicate.  However, on that note Jude successfully defecated on the porcelain throne on Saturday morning.  It looks like Saturday was a big day for parenting milestones.  James and I are quite pleased.    

Jude has also been going without a soother for a week now (entirely due to the fact that we sort of sabotaged it, by snipping it shorter and shorter)
My only moment of consternation at their development occurred last night after pretending to eat their still baby soft bellies when putting them to bed. I suddenly realized that as boys, they will only be "cute" for a limited time. Little girls stay cute for a while, but boys seem to come out of that stage relatively fast. Even James agreed with me that it was a somewhat sad thought, but was quick to point out that other new and exciting things will replace it

The new latest thing is for them to wrestle with each other. I knew as soon as I had two boys that this would happen, but I wasn't counting on it happening so young (aka, at a time when they are still to ignorant to know about things like broken limbs and the unspoken rules of wrestling like "no eye poking"). Nonetheless they tackle each other to the ground, completely unaware of hard corners that may be around or glass tables (we did not decorate this apartment, it came furnished!)

As they wrestle, their mother prepares herself for inevitable injuries and ponders in her mind how she will react in the event that blood or bones appear (please no!). Then she realizes that if she thinks about this too long she ends up creating too horrible to imagine scenarios. It seems that all she can do in the meantime is watch carefully and try to teach them how not to wrestle (like no eye poking, no knee drops to the ribs, no wrestling when holding pens or dinosaurs with long pokey tails). She has learned that it does not work to tell them not to do it.  She reminds herself that boys have been wrestling since the dawn of time, as not-comforting as that thought is.  She also reminds herself of heavenly protection and thanks God for it daily!

Farewell from the Mainland!