update on kids

Time for an update

Ali:
Ali is 9 going on 12. She’s changing so much right now. She is about 4 foot 10 and weighs about 75 pounds. I buy her size 12 pants for the length but they slide right off her so we have to cinch them up. She’s into stylish popular clothing, and is very careful not to look too “babyish” when she selects her clothing. She’s hit that stage where I have insisted she wear undershirts all the time.
She loves talking talking talking. About anything, and everything. She can talk without nary a breath all the way home from school, and all evening long. She loves school, and I suspect it’s the socializing more than anything that drives her, although she is doing very well in school as usual, and loves her teacher. She’s always telling me about recess and who did what, and who said this or that. She seems to be right in the middle of things, and although she isn’t in the “popular” crowd as she tells me, she seems to have plenty of friends, (although a few I wonder about ) .I’m happy she seems well adjusted.

Ali loves to write. She writes stories, she makes things up, and she likes to role-play with her friends. This weekend she had yet another sleep over (this time with Alora for two nights in a row) and when they weren’t hanging out in their “band room” downstairs, they pretended that they were sisters away at boarding school filling notebooks full of fake reports, and drawings, as homework.
She loves gymnastics and spends much of her spare time out on the tramp doing tricks. She still bounces around all over the place. Can’t ever seem to sit still. She loves TV way way more than I’d like her too. Which I predict will only get worse over the winter when she can’t be out on the trampoline. I try to steer her away from the shows that are more focused towards teens but of course those are the ones that intrigue her. She does love to read and I hope to encourage more of this in the cold months.
She is constantly annoying, or being annoyed by Megan and the two of them fight all the time. I hope they’ll grow out of that one, but somehow I doubt they will.
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For the past few weeks she’s had a really hard time sleeping. She’d cry and ask me constantly if I’d be in my room (across the hall from them) when they went to bed. If I still had to do things around the house she’d hover in her doorway with her blanket waiting for me to come upstairs. She was also sneaking into our bed frequently and we’d wake up to find her curled in a ball at the foot of our bed, or stuffed in between us. Then she refused to go with her Dad for the weekend saying that she had a stomachache, and finally on Sunday morning (knowing apparently that she’d be home that evening) she happily called him to come get her. Finally we sat her down and asked her what was going on.
She explained that at the end of the school year last year she had checked out a book from her school library and it had been very scary. She said that she had nightmares for a few weeks after she read it, but of course she hadn’t told me about it because I had warned her about all the scary books, and things that she’d been reading then. So in the book the girl’s sister talks in her sleep and eventually is revealed that she is talking to ghosts. So when Megan started talking in her sleep a few weeks ago it freaked Ali out. I am still not entirely convinced that Megan is fully asleep when this is going on, as Megan loves to antagonize and torture her sister (it goes both ways trust me) but it makes sense now that Ali’s repeatedly cried “but What if Megan falls asleep before I do?” for the past few weeks. She’s still struggling but we’re working on getting her comfortable again.
She’s Always always been a very anxious girl, and sometimes we just don’t know what to not feed into. It was good (if that’s how you look at it) to find out that she is just as anxious and funny about things at her dad’s house as she is with us. I had wondered about that when Ex told me that all the way to the Hot springs a few weeks ago she sat in the backseat repeatedly asking him anxiously what it was going to be like, how far would they have to walk, was it going to be deep, was he going to stay right there????? He agreed that she is always freaking out, or high strung about everything.
It wouldn’t be Ali if she didn’t obsess about everything and worry her little gut into a frenzy. Hopefully she will learn to chill out some but I doubt it because in all honesty she comes by it honestly.
She’s such a bubbly, hyper, social girl. I just love her so much.





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Megan
Megan my 6 year old.. She is about 46.5 inches tall, and weighs about 53 pounds. She looks just about average for her age. She looks adorable with her missing front teeth. She lost 3 teeth in the last two months and subsequently has a huge gap in the front of her mouth. Her nose crinkles when she talks and with the gaps in her teeth you just want to eat her up. She is the most persistent, self assured, curious, infectious little girl I know.. She can tell a story with the most perfected poker face I’ve ever seen. I don’t even know when to believe her sometimes!. We don’t even know where she comes up with things sometimes.
Ali has informed me that she is one of the “popular” girls in her grade, (she knows this because they share the same lunch/resess period together). I am not surprised. She is a born leader that girl of mine. She will do about anything her mind is set on and no one will stand in her way. She doesn’t talk about being popular, I don’t think it even occurs to her.. she just IS, and if that’s what she is, so be it.
She loves playing games that she can control. Even if it’s just her dolls she’s lined up to play a specific role. When we have Emmee and Michie over she is usually directing their play. Sometimes when she is playing in back alone I’ll sit and watch her from the kitchen window.. You can see that she is deep in her imagination talking to her imaginary friends in the imaginary world she is in at the moment. I love to watch her head tilt as her mouth moves in believingly two sided conversation.
She’s demanding, and inpatient, and gets jealous extremely easily if she isn’t the one getting attention (although so does Ali, and Mathew… maybe its just a normal kid thing). She knows exactly how to push buttons and knows it too. It’s hard sometimes to decide between punishing her and wrapping your arms around her cute little body sometimes. Especially if she gives you her “puppy dog” pout.
Meg still changes her clothes on average 3-4 times a day, and each time the articles she was wearing is left in a heap on her bedroom floor. She does not like ponytails or pigtails, and will let me know exactly how she wants her hair done for the day. (Usually just the sides swept up in the back). She still checks it in the mirror as soon as I’m done (something Ali never bothered to do) and will smooth it down and complains if it isn’t just right.
She does not like to eat breakfast, and thinks that school lunch is the greatest. Although she has been known to request and make her own “home lunch” on a moments notice.
She enjoys school well enough, but recess is her favorite subject. She does well with reading, and likes her teacher. She’s good at memorizing things, especially songs, and numbers. (she still calls grandma all the time) .
The other night I was lying in bed talking to her after we had read and she wanted me to ask her questions. She loves to play a game where I give her clues and she has to guess what it is. She asks to play it all the time. After a few of those, I asked her a few personal questions like what her favorite color, food, etc.. She informed me that her favorite color(s)is pink, purple, red, yellow, and “all the other pretty colors”. Her favorite food is still spaghetti-o’s and meatballs. And then she wanted to play the game again.
Little Megan.. She still looks like a little girl, and seeing how fast Ali has transitioned into a Tween, I feel like I need to hold onto her a little bit longer. I sit and watch her chubby face, and listen to her little voice and hope that she grows up slowly.






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Mathew
My Baby.
He is about 35 inches tall, and about 29 pounds. (Although we haven’t weighed him for a while, that’s my guess). He’s thinning out, getting taller, and officially looks like a “big boy”, and not so much a toddler. He loves to be outdoors, and as it has been raining the past few days, has had quite a hard time adjusting to being inside more. He would wander and play in the backyard for hours alone if we let him.
He loves the trampoline and has learned to climb up the chair the girls use to get on it. We have to watch him very carefully though because for some reason he will just walk right off the tramp if the net is unzipped. Luckily for him, Anthony and I have always been nearby. I love having the enclosure around the trampoline, because he can jump around safely and we don’t have to worry about him tumbling off. He also loves his sandbox, and will play in the play kitchen next to it quite a bit too. He wanders around finding treasures or torturing/chasing the dogs.
Although our Garden didn’t do as well as we had hoped this year, it has served Mattie well with its abundant supply of Cherry tomatoes. After he helps me pick them he will then greedily eat every one of them.
Mattie loves watching movies, when he is inside, on his very own recliner. If anyone else (including one of the dogs) is sitting on it, he will point and protest angrily “My chair!” until the offender has removed themselves from his spot. He likes Car’s, Shrek, Toy Story, and Bugs life. He still plays with cars more than anything else, and will almost always have one nearby. He loves to climb up on the couch and drive the cars along the curves of the couch. He’s perfected his car noise too which I love to hear. I love having a boy. Yesterday I was ‘wrestling’ him and lifting him up as he sat on my feet. He’d squeal and beg “do aggin Mom, do aggin!” as tired as I was I had to keep doing it just so that I could hear him say it again.
The night before last he came up the hallway obviously trying to whistle. He was blowing air through his lips as he puckered, and to him it much have sounded perfect because he was trotting along as if dancing to his little tune.
He carries his blanket around with him wherever he goes, and is still very addicted to his Pacifier. We haven’t even started weaning him from it. I have to admit it’s very nice to have when he’s tired and grumpy. We’ll work on that one I suppose.
He still sleeps very well in his big boy bed and although he thought for while that he couldn’t get down from it, he has learned recently how to get down, and will stand at the gate in his doorway with his blankie talking until we come for him (sometimes even before he’s gone to sleep). When I put him to bed the first thing he says is “Mama, you right here” as he pats the pillow beside him.. It’s almost impossible not to lie down next to him but when you do, he giggles, squirms, and talks so much that sleep is not possible.
The other day I was babysitting and as I held the tiny baby he walked over to the baby swing, pointed into the chair and said “Mama., baby right here” obviously jealous. Funny boy.
He is a candy junky thanks to his daddy and will eat all kinds of junk food, snacks and candy. And is quite funny about the other things he will eat.. for instance, he will sit and eat an entire plate full of soy beans in their pods, but will not touch chicken nuggets. (Isn’t that a toddler staple?).
He talks all the time, and speaks very well, of just about anything surrounding him. If he is comfortable with the people around him he’ll ham it up and put on a great show. But if he isn’t then He’s hides, and clings to our legs, crying until that person(s) have left. He did that on his birthday and I felt bad because half of Anthoy’s family really has no idea who our little boy really is.. oh well. We do… and we think he’s just perfect.