Muffinator is Four!

Ugh.

This one stings. Today is John's fourth birthday. Or, Burr-day, as he pronounces it. Gone are the days of binkies and crawling and monitoring every step for a precarious toddle down the stairs. While my heart still lurches a bit looking at photos of my Sweet Baby John, as someone who is not a fan of the constant anxiety of the baby phase, I feel like we can finally take a breath.

When John was born and Annie was 2.5, I remember saying to Rick, "we just have to make it until he's two." For reference, when Annie was two she was a big talker, almost potty trained, and a pretty chill kid. This was perhaps my first lesson in the differences in gender and possibly birth order.

John hardly talked until he was 2.5 (I blame his love for his binkie), he didn't potty train until he was 3.5, he is fearless and has my coordination, which is a VERY dangerous combo. So needless to say, the cruise control I imagined hitting when John turned two never happened. But, I feel like we are there now.

John loves all things boy. He loves super heroes, space ships, Star Wars, Paw Patrol, Ninja Turtles, Transformers, Power Rangers, you get the picture. Anything that fights, shoots, bangs or speeds is his jam. While it makes shopping for gifts for him easy, it does make keeping a tidy house an issue, but as a wise person once told me, "you can have kids or you can have a clean house-not both."

John is hilarious and smart and has a memory like a trap and he's already learning letters. He can write his name and surprised us the other day when he wrote Annie's name on a box. He seems to prefer his left hand for writing, but can switch back and forth, which is pretty cool.

He is a picky eater, but is getting better. His favorite things are fish sticks, bananas, milk, and smoothies. He's not a fan of ice cream (despite what he might tell you, because he *really* wants to like ice cream) and is just coming around to pizza. He will eat peas, but that's about it. He gags when he talks about carrots, though he's never tried one to my knowledge.

He knows how to play us like a fiddle. And when I say "us", I mean anyone that comes into contact with him. His pre-school teacher told me the other day that she's working on getting him to use his words and not cry to get his way because, "that lip comes out and he gives me the eyes and I will do whatever he wants." You and everyone else, Ms. Juanita. 

And who can blame us, could you say no to this face?

Annie can't, I can tell you that much. She's the most smitten of all of us, though I believe she's starting to grow weary. The other day, after handing over something to John after he gave her the lip and the eyes, she said, "you know John, we shouldn't give you everything you want when you act like that." True, true, baby girl. We will work on it.

Happiest of birthdays to my sweet little man. Twenty years from now I want to remember how you still hold my hand when we walk together, how you say "sanks" instead of "thanks", how when you are having a great time you say, "I love this day", how much you love your 'homie', Rick, how you want to sleep in your sister's room because you don't like being alone when you wake up, your love of all things muffin/cinnamon roll, how you love to dance but don't want to take a class because "I already know how to dance, Mom!", and how you have stolen the hearts of so many. While you are now a big boy, you will always be my Sweet Baby John. We are so lucky to have you complete our family.

We love you more than we could ever say,

Mom



Life is like a pile of Mimis



A quick history in Erwin Lexicon before I start this post:

Annie had a lovey that was a bunny. She had a friend that had the same lovey, but it was a lamb and the friend called it "lamby". So Annie called her similar lovey "whammy" (how a baby pronounces Lamby). Annie called her binkies "Mimis".

Then, comes along and he calls his binkies "see-sees" and calls his lovey his "mimi".

Is anyone still reading this?

Yes? ok, I will proceed with the point.



These are John's Mimis. We had roughly 12 of them at one point. To all new parents out there, my #1 piece of advice is if your child is even remotely attached to something, buy 175 of them and have them in a constant rotation from the get-go.

Here is a solo Mimi, just so you can see the adorable cow face.

Annie and John both loved their sweet whammy/mimis hard. Annie carried hers wherever she went for a solid 4 years until she started school. Up until that point, I had visions of her sewing her whammy into the lining of her coats as she grew up, just to have it close by. But then, she started to drift from the whammy and the next thing I knew, they were all tucked away in a bin in her closet, only to be accessed by a complete psychopath to smell them every now and then.

Side Note: Motherhood makes you totally crazy.

With John, he had so many that my strategy of having multiples sort of backfired and he was a mimi junkie. One was never enough. He had to sleep with 2-3 at a time, which is why he ended up with so many. Not to mention the geniuses over at Angel Dear (the manufacturers of these little gems) came up with this brilliant marketing tool where they sell them in packs of three (a pair and a spare). So our mimi habit was basically enabled by these people selling 3-packs of baby crack.

But somewhere along the line, since we have been in the new house, I have noticed the requests for Mimis have diminished. He wants his Red Power Ranger or his Avengers blanket at night. I hadn't really thought much about it until I walked by the pile of mimis pictured above. They had been washed and then....not asked for again.

My heart kind of sunk. I figured that was it for the mimis. It had been at least two weeks without them at bedtime and I think that's the official timespan one needs to break a serious habit. Or something official sounding like that. I kind of mulled around them yesterday, smelled them (so freaking crazy) and then got distracted before I had the chance to tuck them away with Annie's whammys.

But then...last night, right before bed, like a true "One week before Thanksgiving Miracle", John saw the pile of loveys and proclaimed, "Wook! It's all my Mimis!!!!" And I calmly responded, "I wasn't sure you still wanted them any more." He replied, "No Mom, I still wuv dem!"

Oh thank God. (I actually said that out loud)

So the pile of Mimis was carted up to John's bed, where they will snuggle until he is distracted again. Hopefully it's not any time soon.

Until then, I will be researching how to sew a lovey into the lining of my jackets, because while the kids may be able to let them go, I am not sure I can.



Where are they now....

Good gravy....where to start? It's been over a year since I have posted on here. A recent reading of a journal my Mom kept when Parker and Chloe were young reminded me how valuable these memories are, so I am going to try to do better. Even if it is just posting some pics and funny stories here and there (let's be honest, that's all I was really doing before).

Here are the highlights:

We now have a dog, Abby. She's a Great Pyrenees and is wonderful with the kids. Her favorite things include barking, shedding, eating everything off the counters and in any cabinet we happen to leave open (horrible, horrible things happen when a dog eats a tube of zinc oxide, in the event you were wondering). When she's not barking, she's sleeping. But we love her and the kids are no longer afraid of dogs, so mission accomplished. Plus, it's really nice to have a dog in the house again.

John is a almost FOUR. He's such a little buster now and thinks he is "all grown up". He loves all things boy: Power Rangers, super heroes, Paw Patrol, Ninja Turtles, etc. He plays rough and loves hard. He will still give me kisses and gentle pats on the cheek and loves his Dad (his homie) fiercely. He has the most wonderful head of dark brown hair and beautiful hazel eyes like Rick. He still has chubby baby hands (don't tell him I said that) and I hope those stay around a bit longer. He can't pronounce the "L" sound well, which melts my heart. I never tire of hearing, "I wuv you." 

Believe it or not, this is Annie who dressed as the Evil Queen for Halloween. She's in first grade now and is the standard six going on 16, but she still wants the closet light on when she sleeps and lets me lay down with her at bedtime, so we aren't too big just yet. She started Webster Waves swim team this summer and seems to love it. We have continued swimming lessons over the fall/winter and she gets better each session. She has made some great friends at school and we love watching her learn. She's still as funny as ever and clearly has a flair for the dramatic. She's actually attending a play on a school field trip tomorrow so I fully expect her to beg to be in one after seeing the performance. She has lost her two front bottom teeth and expect a few more are coming out here soon.

We also moved into a new house in December 2016. We had officially outgrown the 2 bedroom, 1 bath Dawson Court house. I knew it was time to leave when I found myself not wanting to potty train John because I didn't want another person using the bathroom. We sold the home we brought both our babies home to in about 14 minutes and found the new house just under the wire. It was a whirlwind holiday season last year and I just now feel like we are catching our breath.

So that's it in a nutshell: new home, new dog, 1st grade, preschool, two lost teeth, and everyone is doing well. More to come (hopefully).