FAMILY!!!!

Macey :

Here are a few words that come to mind when I think of our little Macey:

Sweet – While painting the other day she started painting as if she was writing and wrote/said, “I love Sydney…. look mommy I wrote it”, and “I love Dylan too”.  She loves her brother and sister very much.  She is a sweetheart.

Aware- There are many times when I give Macey something to eat and she runs and tells Sydney, “I don’t think you can have this, it’s not good for your tummy, Right mommy, right?” She usually is right.

Tender- While watching a singer on American Idol one night, Macey turns to me, grabs my face and says, “Mommy, she is beautiful just like you”.   Heart melted.

Bossy- “Sydney, go to your room!” Enough said.

Baby- She still likes to be called a baby, but only when she is being cuddled and held.  She still is my best cuddler ever.  She is nearly 3 and she still loves to snuggle up with me and on top of me (like a baby).  I love it.  She still also sucks on her two fingers! 

Stink-  I just call Macey Stink and I am not sure why.  She likes it too since she thinks it’s funny. She is my little stink, or my binky dinky donker.  Don’t ask where these names came from, but she loves em. Funny thing, my mom called me this when I was a baby.  So odd, but not surprising since Macey is my baby twin.

Smarty Pants- She is so SHARP!  She will remember stories, and answer questions that I ask Sydney before Syd even has a chance to think about it.  She speaks way more than my other two did at age 3, and has a really large vocabulary and understanding. 

Silly- “Whatever”.  She says this a lot when trying to get a laugh.

Instigator- She will start little fights with Syd when she is in a mood, and she just pushes and pushes until Syd ends up crying. What are sisters for?

Fibber- At 2 she has learned to point the finger at her brother when something goes wrong.  “I don’t know, I think Dylan did it”.

Jokester- when reading books or telling stories she likes to make faces to make us all laugh.  She also does this thing where she says, “hes like …….” (and she moves her eyes to show you what the person in the book looks like). She will do this over and over again with each page of a book.  Just yesterday she saw a hat over a dogs eye and she says, “ heehheee mommy hes like…” and slams a hand over one eye while the other eye moved back and forth.  She is hilarious.

Sensitive- If Macey’s feelings have been hurt, she puts her fingers into her mouth and slowly walks away and/or hides her head while silent tears stream down her face. It is quite pathetic.

Immodest- she still refuses to wear clothing when inside the house.  In the mornings I have to take her naked (in her panties) to drop off the kids,  I come home, get her dressed to go to the gym, and the second she walks back into the house, you better believe her clothes are off before even walking up the stairs.  I have to wake her from nap time to get the kids, and often times I have to actually bring clothes in the car to change her into if we have errands to run.  UGH! She likes naked time.

Protector-  Macey really protects her sister Syd.  When their cousin was here recently and pushed Sydney, Macey came running in yelling, “Don’t hit Sydney”.  I was so proud! 

Pleaser- when she makes a mess or does something that she knows might upset me, (like spills her milk all over the couch this morning when she knows it is not supposed to be on the couch), she brings me the cup and says, “I’m sorry mommy”.  How can I be mad at that!?  She is going to be trouble!

Firecracker-  when I or the kids raise our voices at her, she sometimes has been known to yell back, “don’t well (yell) at me!”.  It’s pretty cute.  “Stop welling at me Sydney!” Attitude!

Sydney:

She is in LOVE with her sister.  When I pick Sydney up at school, the first thing that she does is climb in and give Macey a hug and say, “Macey, I missed you!” She always notices when Macey is away and it bothers her, A LOT.  I believe that Macey has been an integral part of Sydney’s learning and development.  Those two are two peas in a pod, and they kind of take care of each other and look out for one another.   

Cute story: We have been going to Speech therapy at UWG for a while now and we have a little system where the girls have sticks (in the back of my car) and we all have to hold on to the sticks when we walk through the parking lot and across the street (It seriously is like 2 blocks of dangerous walking terrain).  I found that this was the only way to keep us all together and safe (since holding hands always ended up with three kids crying and complaining).  Anyway, Sydney is always making sure that Macey is holding onto that stick before we even move.  It is so adorable.  And while we walk we all say over and over again (while laughing since I am hilarious), lets “stick” together.  Lol.  It’s funny, and sweet, and reminds me how great my kids are J, and how hilarious I am.  LOL.

We also just had yet another IEP meeting.  The second one in 4 months!  This one was great because I was able to talk about what Syds speech therapist,  Mrs Carolina,  works on with Syd at the College.  We were able to add a couple of goals and take off a couple as well, which was great.  She no longer needs to work on saying yes and no or her proper greetings with others, she doesn’t need daily assistance in the classroom, and she doesn’t need any academic goals (though we added one just for kicks).   It also was fun to hear how everyone thinks she is doing.  Again, they all said, she is exceeding most of the other students academically.  Wow.  And when I talked about reading next year, they offered nothing but great optimism.  They said she knows her letters probably better than anyone in the classroom; we just need to get her to talk more and tell us what she needs, voluntarily.  (She still will send her friends up to the teacher to tell her when she needs to go to the bathroom. SO FUNNY! But I think it really is just shyness). The most important goals right now are answering WH questions, and having longer length sentences (Mean Length of Utterance or MLU).  Here is for the best part of the meeting:  When we left, her teacher pulled me aside and told me (though she said she probably shouldn’t) that she along with the speech therapist both believes that Syd will catch up, and that this is just a matter of time.  I myself have believed that for the last 6 months, but it was great to hear that a professional feels the same way.  Woot woot!

Dylan: 

Recently Dylan has begun to really enjoy reading.  When I say enjoy, I mean he takes it to a whole new level for a first grader.  It is INSANE!  He now cries at night if we don’t let him go to bed with a book.  You would think we took his Skylanders away! It’s nuts!  He also is getting in the habit of reading a chapter book a day.  When I say chapter book, these are like Boxcar Children or the Magic Tree House series 120+ pages.  He is obsessed.  We go to the library once a week now and he gets 4 books to read that week, along with those, he has his school book (that he has a week to finish), and he is also reading the first Harry Potter book.  Intense huh?  It was only a year ago that he was reading site words! It blows my mind how fast this kid learns.  It is incredible!  And you wonder why my expectations are so high for Syd.  The teachers always have to remind me to not compare because Dylan is so advanced…but I don’t know where she is supposed to be, so I just look at where Dylan was at her age and she seems so far behind.  (And in truth she is still ahead of her class! )

Anyway, I never thought that the day would come where I had to yell at Dylan to stop reading, but wow, it has.  There are days when I have to literally grab his face so that he will hear me, look at him and ask him to put down his book and go outside, or go clean his room. He doesn’t hear anything when he is in the reading zone.  Is that crazy or what?  We went to his Grandmas house to see her (after they came back from a trip) and I had to argue with Dylan to go spend time with her and the family.  It is hilarious.  I am so proud of Dylan for keeping up with it, and enjoying it.  Just yesterday he was reading  I Survived the Titanic (which BTW, the I survived series is the greatest way to get a non-reader interested), and mid way through I asked him about it and he was nearly in tears.  His eyes were watering and he told me what was happening,  “mommy, there was only one life boat left and the boys family was all in it, but he had to be taken off of it because there wasn’t enough room”.  It was so sad, yet so great that he was so invested in it.  It made me so excited for him and so grateful for authors who write specifically for these young ages.  I honestly do not remember any books, aside from Roald Dahl that ever grabbed my attention.   

Dylan also has lost two teeth in the last month.  So now he is missing 3 on the top (since the other two were knocked out) and one on the bottom.  He looks hilarious, but so cute!  His reading teacher Mr. Bradley pulled out his second tooth and though I know that would have never happened in CA, I was so thankful for him.  I love the south! Cameron and I want NO part in the teeth pulling process, and if he wants to do it, then by all means, GO FOR IT!

Mommy and Daddy: 

We are so full of joy these days.  We have such amazing kids.  I think that every parent says this, but I really actually believe that we have the best kids on the planet.  We are so blessed with these sweet spirits, and we are humbled daily for the fact that we were entrusted with them.  Each of our kids brings something so unique into our lives, and I couldn't imagine a life without any/either of them in it.  Sometimes I try to think of life before them, and I can't.  I can't remember what life was like without that joy that children bring.  My brother Tim and his wife Angela just yesterday 3/10/2013 brought into the world, a perfect little baby boy;  Luke William West. Tim wrote on Facebook about how the only 5 times where he has felt such a sense of joy was with each birth of his children and the time when he asked his wife to marry him.  I fully agree and have experienced this, but I also often will cry in my car as I ponder about the joy that I have in my life.  I feel it all of the time, I am ALWAYS aware of it, and when I think about losing it, I actually feel pain.  I don;t want to ever be without this feeling.  Its a hard thing to describe, but I never truly knew what joy was until I had my children  and my family, and I pray that I never take that Joy for granted.  I am the luckist lady alive, and I want my family to know that.  I want my kids to know that my absolute favorite part of my day is at the end of every night when we say our family prayer and we throw our hands into a pile (all the while Macey and Sydney saying, "tips, tips" for fingertips) and raise out hands up saying "family".  We then end with a family hug, (more like a dog pile), and we all make sure to squeeze everyone.  I love it, there is NOTHING better than that! I get sad to think that someday we won't have that after our kids age and go off to college, but until then, I want to cherish every night when we do come together as family and celebrate that joy and goodness that we have together.  Family