He Just Might Be On To Something

Isaac (3 1/2 yrs.) has come a long way with his speech.   He's putting together 3-4 word sentences like a pro, and is finally using his brothers' names regularly,.  Of course, we weren't aware of it at the time, but it turns out it was kind of a cruel thing to do to give him a little brother named Sebastian.  He's never even attempted to say that one.  He's called him "Baby" all along, and I don't see him trying anything different any time soon.  Since much of my speech during the day is directed toward Isaac, I too have taken to calling Sebastian "Baby", as have most of the other people in the house.  We've commented lately on the dilemma we'll have when we have a real baby in the house again.
Oliver came up with a solution today.  Out of the blue, he said, "Why don't we just call the new baby "Sebastian", and keep calling him "Baby"?"
Makes sense to me.  It's a great name.  And if you aren't using something, it's the responsible thing to do to recycle it, right?

A Mystery

I just found Isaac crouched under the high chair, eating a candy cane.  In August.

One can only imagine where he may have found that.

Hunger

"Me eat."

Those two words formed Isaac's first sentence, in this epic journey we're on in pursuit of language.  He began using this phrase a few months ago, and as rudimentary as it is, I was tickled to death, for several reasons.  For starters, two words put together was HUGE for my struggling three-year-old.  It seemed so monumental when only months before he'd had zero words to stand alone, much less put together.  Secondly, it was so fitting that this milestone would come in reference to food.  If there's one thing Isaac appreciates in life, it's eating.

And yet, he's the scrawniest little thing you can imagine.  Mr. Smith often teases that Isaac must have a tapeworm, because that's the only thing that could explain where all the food goes.  I know it's just a supply and demand situation, something has to fuel the boy who never. stops. moving.

He's the first one up every morning, even before the baby and I usually, and I almost always wake up to those words, "Mama, mee eeat".  That boy wakes up hungry, and let me tell you, he better get fed quick or it's not going to be pretty.  After breakfast, it's not more than an hour or so that goes by before he's coming to me again, "Mee eeat!", with an urgency that contradicts the bowl of oatmeal I know is still in his tummy.  The same words that so warmed my heart in the beginning can also get on my last nerve when it's the hundredth time in the day.  Such is the nature of mothering though, it seems.

Last week at Sunday Mass, Sebastian was wanting nothing to do with sitting in a pew, and everything to do with exploring the baptismal font, so I had spent most of the time walking laps with him in the social hall, trying desperately to hear Monsignor's homily through the tiny speakers out there.  I went back into the church to receive Communion, baby still firmly attached to hip.  Mr. Smith graciously motioned to me that he would take him so that I might have a moment to kneel and pray, and I handed him over with gratitude.  I knelt down next to Isaac, who had just returned to his seat after receiving a blessing and watching his daddy receive the Eucharist. 

He looked up at me, and I could tell right away there was something on his mind.  He struggles so much to find words, I've learned to read his face when he's searching for one.  He reached up and brushed my hair aside, tucking it behind my ear.  Pulling me toward him, he touched his little lips right to my ear, and ever so softly whispered,

"Me eat."

I looked at his enormous blue eyes as I leaned back, the sweetest of all questions looming inside of them, and I knew exactly what he meant.

My sweet son hungers for more than physical sustenance.  Just like the rest of us, he hungers for Christ.

And Another!

Yet another birthday celebrated in our family today.
Isaac is the big 3.  (He still pretty much acted 2 today though ;o).)
We took him to the zoo, had pizza for dinner, cake and presents.  It was a nice family day.
I kept forgetting that it was Father's Day as well!  I guess that shows where priority falls.  A 3rd birthday trumps a grown-up thing thing any day of the week.
Mr. Smith did get to sleep in a little bit, (The man gets up at 4:30am six days a week, 8:30 is like sleeping half the day away.) but that was the extent of the recognition for him.  He got his gift earlier in the weekend...which leads me to the Big Event we had this weekend... which leads me to how. darn. exhausted. I am right now, and I'll have to save it for another post...
Happy birthday, Isaac!

Puppy, Love

We settled on Bosco for a name, and we love it.  It seems fitting for a feisty little pup like him, and is such a strong and manly name, it almost gives the illusion that Mr. Smith got the St. Bernard he always dreamed of, rather than this hypoallergenic ball of energy.

Puppies are exhausting!  I almost can't keep it straight, who I have in my arms, the toddler, the infant or the puppy!  And trust me, there's always someone in my arms.

One of the reasons (among many) that we wanted to bring a dog into our home, was for Isaac.  I know I said I'm going to write about his speech progress, and I will, but we've seen that dogs are good for him when he's been around my sister's puppies lately.  So far it's been fruitful.  He says dog, good boy, c'mon, and even attempted his name a few times.  But when it came out "Bobo" the other boys made him self-conscious by fawning over the cuteness of it.  He's sticking with "Dog" now.

And on that topic, I have to record here Isaac's latest, and my favorite of all, speech accomplishment.  Yesterday morning, as I carried him around the kitchen gathering items for his breakfast, I told him I love him for the first of a thousand times in the day.  He leaned into me and said something back that sounded an awful lot like "I love you too".  With Isaac, you can't make a big deal out of it.  He's a stubborn little thing, and if he thinks you want him to do something, that's the best reason he can find not to do it.  I kept quiet about it and didn't hear it again yesterday.

Then this morning, same time, same place, same routine, I said it again and listened closely.  This is what I heard:  "Wa bo dew".  In a sweet voice, with a sweet smile, and love in his eyes.

Sometimes grace comes in very small packages.

A Timeline

1:30 -- Isaac walks in the direction of his bedroom.

1:45 -- I notice he's been quiet for way too long, "Where's Isaac?!" I say, jumping up and running for the hallway.
1:46 -- I open the bathroom door and find Isaac, dental floss in hand, looking like the cat that swallowed the canary. I briefly think to myself, "Two feet of dental floss? That's all the damage he did in that time?", and then let the thought pass and pull him out of the bathroom.

2:10 -- I step into the bathroom to throw a tissue into the garbage. I notice that there's no spare roll of toilet paper where I keep one, where I knew there had been one earlier. I look to the floor, under the sink...nothing. My eyes go to the toilet itself, the lid is closed. My 6th sense kicks in and I know exactly what I'm going to find when I look.
2:11-2:13 -- I plunge my hand into cold water over and over, pulling wads of half-disintegrated toilet paper out and dropping it into the garbage.
2:14 -- I think to myself, "At least he didn't flush."
2:15 -- I realize it requires a special state of mind to be a mom.

First Words

Dear Mr. Smith,

I was wrong.

When I took Isaac for his first speech therapy session, and came home saying it didn't go well.

When I said Miss E. looked like she was 15, that she wasn't going to be able to get through to him, and I wished we had been assigned another therapist.

I was wrong.

When I told you that we should cancel, and start pursuing other options of treatment for him. When I said that he wasn't ready for this, that it wasn't going to work, he wasn't going to make any progress with this method.

I was so wrong.

When he comes to me now, making the sign for "more", and his little lips form the word, and force his sweet, husky voice out, and he holds out his cup, and the word "more" spills out at me in a rush of joyful progress.... I can hardly stand it. And I realize how wrong I was.

Thank God for nudges from the Holy Spirit, prompts that push us past our rushes to judgement.

Thank God for progress and hope, and guidance when we are wrong.

Love,
Mrs. Smith

Puffs

...thank you God-Mama.

Look what I can do!

The boys called me into the room, frantic over what Isaac was doing. Trying not to panic, I raced in, to see this:
I think he's quite proud of himself.

Repeat Performance

Please refer to this for my morning's events.
Also, here is a visual:and that is how we feel right now.

I'm not naming any names...

...because I'm not in the business of finger-pointing, but somebody just threw up all over me. Somebody apparently doesn't know how to handle it when snot gathers in his throat and disrupts his ability to breathe and swallow properly. So this little somebody got a bewildered look on his face, coughed, gagged, and let his breakfast loose on both of us. Fortunately, his breakfast consisted of breast milk, and more breast milk (was that a giveaway?), so clean up was minimal.
That's right, we're in the depths of a little annual tradition we like to call "The pre-Christmas Cold". Three persons down, four to go.

Journey to Bethlehem

When I heard that our church was putting on a family Christmas program called Journey to Bethlehem I knew they would need a Baby Jesus. Well, I just happen to have an adorable, agreeable, appropriately heavenly baby boy, who (in my opinion) would fill that role quite well. So I did what any aspiring stage-mother (just kidding) would do- I volunteered him. Little did I know, they didn't just need a Baby Jesus...they needed an entire Holy Family. Any guesses what that meant? Yup. We were a package deal. Here's what it sounded like when I broke the news to "Joseph":

Mrs. Smith: "So...Isaac is going to play baby Jesus in the Christmas program."

Mr. Smith: "Cool."

Mrs. Smith: "And it just makes sense for me to play Mary. You know, it's not like he's going to sit with someone else all that time."

Mr. Smith: "Uh-huh."

Mrs. Smith: "And I really don't want some strange Joseph..."

Mr. Smith: (silence)

Mr. Smith: (glare)

Mr. Smith: (smirk)

Mrs. Smith: "I think it will be fun!"

Mr. Smith: (Mr. Smith is gone, he has left the room)

And when I told him we were to be in full character, costumed, with lines? Well, let's just say he was less than thrilled.

Then, the big day came and something miraculous happened.

They put us in a small, dimly lit room. They had set up a stable scene, complete with (wooden) donkey, (ceramic) sheep, (live) angel, and a rustic wooden manger with straw and soft white fleece for our little baby Jesus. It was showtime. Time for him to act like the Heaven-sent One he was representing.
That he did. He smiled, he cooed, he stuck his tongue out (ok, it was cute to us), and after one brief nursing session (during which no children were traumatized, I promise), he went to sleep. It looked a little something like this:

As we packed up our things to head home, Mr. Smith said, "That was fun."

Breaking News!

Isaac has a tongue!