Liam turns 3

Dear Liam,

Three years of joy.
Three years of smiles from those beautiful full lips.
Three years of getting just enough sleep to not qualify as torture.
Three years of desperately trying to keep up with his older brother.
Three years of life with a boy that goes through it at breakneck speed.
Three years of watching brothers learning what it means to love and share and play.
Three years of separation anxiety.
Three years of watching a boy who always wants to do everything "with myself", but loves to be cuddled and carried and, if given a choice, would fall asleep every night holding someone's hand.
Three years of songs sung so repeatedly that we would have given anything for a larger repertoire, yet sung so beautifully that it broke our hearts with joy to hear them.
Three years of stubbornness.
Three years of looking into those green eyes and trying to figure out what was going on in that gorgeous blond head of yours.
Three years of more love than we could ever have imagined.

Here's what you need to know about Liam now that he's three.

• He's been looking forward to this day for months, literally, so that he could have "happy birthday" sung to him and get presents and, I think, feel the unique love that only comes on birthdays.
• His current favorite color is pink, and everything important needs to be pink - the icing on his birthday cupcakes, his underwear,the garbage truck he's hoping he gets for his birthday. (He's getting it, but it's not pink.  Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a pink garbage truck?)
• He doesn't like to sleep.  Never has, and I'm starting to think that he never will.  At least, that is, until he reaches high school when I suspect he will lapse to normalcy and I won't be able to bribe him out of dreamland.
• He gives kisses whenever you ask, always happy to show how much he loves you.
• He wants to do everything that his older brother does, no matter what his older brother is doing. 
• He LOVES to sing.  Loves it.  He can make everything and anything into a song.  Apparently the singing I used to do with him when he was a baby has sunk in.
• The rhythm got him.  At just three, he can clap to the beat of any song.
• He has real flashes of intelligence and aptitude; he can already (almost) write his name and he can definitely spell it for you.  When he was having sleep issues that we thought were digestive issues as an infant, his final diagnosis was "high maintenance.  These kids grow up to be doctors or President of the United States."  Direct quote from the pediatrician.  Whatever he wants to be is fine with us.  But we wouldn't mind a doctor or a POTUS in the family. :)
• He can literally go from wide awake to fast asleep in 10 seconds.  It's remarkable.
• He will talk your ear off about whatever you want to talk about, and he could not be more sure of himself and what he's telling you about.  Trust him, he's right.

 

Julia Roberts once said that she always knew she would love her kids, but she didn't realize how much she would like them, and how cool she would think they were. I don't think Tim and I could agree more.  Well, not about her kids, but about ours.  And since this post is about Liam, we will say it about Liam.

We love Liam.  What's more, we like Liam.  Interestingly, when Liam says, "I love you", he actually always says, "I like you and I love you."  We feel the same.  He is awesome.  He is spunky.  He is such an incredible joy to have in our lives.  He is our chattery, bubbly, handsome, confident, spitfire of a boy, and we can't wait to keep watching as he keeps becoming who God is continuously creating him to be.

If you don't laugh, you cry - or Happy Mother's Day

The boys sang again in children's choir in church this morning.  The song was "Rise and Shine", which is a long song for kids to remember all the words to, so she had them focus on the chorus and encouraged them to sing loudly on that part.  Between that, some sugary treat given in Sunday School that was kicking in, and me bribing my boys with a special treat later if they sang the song, it was the perfect storm.
It started with a set of bongos (ironically set up for Tim to accompany the choir later in the service) that was set way too close to the area where the kids were supposed to sing, which led to Micah giving an impromptu bongo performance prior to the kids singing.  I was mortified, but the congregation thought it was hysterical, which only encouraged Micah, as you'll see in the video.

Spurred on by the laughter from the congregation, Micah was so excited that he had trouble keeping his hands to himself, so I took him out of the singing for a couple of verses before letting him get back up and sing again.  When I let him back up, he took the instructions to "sing loudly" to heart and started yelling the last chorus.  I was going to pull him out, but other kids were yelling at that point and some of the congregation members sitting near me told me to just let him sing.  So I did, and started laughing so hard tears were falling down my cheeks.  If you don't laugh, you cry, right?  What can you do?

During the children's message, the person leading it gave Micah a shout-out for his exuberance and joy that started the worship service.  Many other people I talked to after the service just laughed at how happy he was and told me how wonderful it was to hear both him and Liam singing.
Here's what I learned about being a mom today, on Mother's Day.
I learned that it's important to give our kids opportunities to express themselves freely.
I learned that it's important for me to get past my need to have my children behave exactly the way I want them to in every situation.
I learned that it's important that I accept and embrace the fact that they are four and almost-three years old, and they will act like four and almost-three-year olds and that's often a really beautiful thing, especially when they're praising Jesus.
I learned that a congregation full of people can teach me how miraculous my children are.
I learned that I will look back on today with joy in my heart and overflowing love for two little boys who sang
their hearts out this morning, encouraging members of the congregation to "rise and shine and give God your glory".
I learned that I am one blessed mom.
Happy Mother's Day.

Mother's Day at School

Today both of the boys had Mother's Day Teas in their classes.  I went to Micah's from 9:00 - 9:30 and Liam's from 11:30-noon.
Micah and me, enjoying our snacks and beverages.

Mothers were given several really nice gifts - a Memory Box, a picture of your child dressed in the graduation gown, a "World's Best Mom" newspaper, and a plaque of them with the graduation picture. Some of the things he noted on the newspaper include: (the underlined parts are what he came up with)
"My mom rocks! She is silly! When she gives me VERY big hugs, it makes me so happy.  I love doing things with her, especially play with my new orange truck. She is so good at running in the morning. She is really the best!" 
Next up was the bumblebee song, which Micah was into at first and then not really at all.

Here's the video to prove it.

I took this picture when he actually was into it.

Then it was on to Liam's party, where we kept being told how similar we look.  

Liam took this picture of the lovely paper flowers he made after they were combined with the real ones.

Saying cheese while eating a pineapple.

I love my boys, and I love how I got to celebrate with them today.  I couldn't be more grateful and thankful to be given the gift of being their mother.

Preschool Spring Concert

We love the spring concert at First Pres Preschool!  It's so beautiful to see all the children screaming singing their hearts out, bribed cheered on by their parents to sing loudly.  Our boys were no different than most of the other kids there.  They had a great time showing off their songs.
Brotherly love before the concert.

Liam still has a lot of separation anxiety, so he stayed with his teacher Ms. Pam. Until after his class performed, and then he had to sit with me for a little bit again.

 

Across the sanctuary, Micah waited patiently to see his brother perform.

 

This is Liam's M-W-F class, along with the T-Th class.

 

It's a little blurry but here's my favorite two-year-old, who for some reason could not keep his finger out of his mouth tonight.  He even sang with it in.

 

A video of "Fly, Fly, Fly" to the tune of "Three Blind Mice."  For some reason, Google will only allow one video upload per post so you'll see a few more videos in my next posts. They also sang one more song, but I can't remember the name and the bulletin ended up with yellow icing all over it so I don't have a reference.

Micah's class and the other VPK class started out with "Who let the A's out?", which required them all to hold up letters at certain points in the song.

 

Micah was "X", but I didn't get a good picture of him holding it.  As he told Ms. Kathy, the preshool director, "It's a long wait to get to X."

 

Singing his heart out.

The grand finale.  Liam still had his finger in his mouth.

Micah was clapping and was even on rhythm.

The whole school sings together.

And of course, we had to have cookies after the show was over.  Liam's was pink, naturally.

 

Micah chose the cupcake with the yellow icing - which should help to explain the yellow icing all over my bulletin that I mentioned earlier!

 

Have I mentioned how much we love our school?  Have I mentioned how much we love our teachers?  Have I mentioned how much they have done for our children?  Because they are so wonderful, and so dedicated, and so caring, and so nurturing for the boys, and it breaks our hearts that this is Micah's last concert there. We have loved every minute of Micah's experience, and we know that he has too.  Thank you, First Presbyterian Preschool!

Fun with Liam and Micah

Want to know what a week of fun looks like in our house?
It involves a little cross-dressing, with the shoes on the wrong feet, of course.

We've got to play with trains.  It's not a week if there are no trains.  They look like two little old men from one of the train shows we've been to, sitting on their stools and running their trains.

There was a little parade action at Micah's school.  It had something to do with it being America's birthday.  I think that they were celebrating the fourth of July early.

Happy birthday, America - in two months! :)

And no week of fun is complete without a little Disney.  I got out of work a little early on Friday so we headed over.  A very serious Liam on the train...

...and a very excited Liam (and Micah and Mommy) because the castle was pink, his current favorite color.

Pretending with Pillows

Before church on Sunday, the boys were playing pretend with their pillows.  First the pillows were umbrellas protecting them from the rain.  Then they were seats on a roller coaster - and not just any coaster, but "Goofy's Barnstormer" at the Magic Kingdom,

where they know it's cool to scream while you ride.

Because most of their play/pretend time involves trucks and cars, I'm always thrilled when they use their imaginations - and pillows - in different ways.  Even if they have to hold the cars and trucks while they're pretending about something else.