3, 2, 1 Blast-Off

This one’s for the grandparents;)  The kids are all at such precious ages right now.  Jack is now closer to 4 than he is to 3; he turns 4 end of June.  Shane turns 3 a week later, on the 1st of July.  And Finley just turned 22 months.  We only have 2 months left of 3, 2, 1.  My gosh, it’s flying by.  Here are some updates about our little characters.

JACK:

Jack has become our social butterfly.  I haven’t had the chance to write about his development lately, but OH MY GOSH.  I have written about how crazy unique his brilliant little mind is, and I’ve also written about our reasons for delaying his start in school.  We chose to hold him back so that he’ll be the oldest in his class, which gives him some extra wiggle room to mature emotionally and socially.  Something we think will be important for him both in these early years, as well as his teenage years.  But one thing that has happened over the past 4 months is an incredible amount of social growth.  Jack used to have a hard time socially; mostly because he was totally awkward around other kids, and they would then ostracize him or say things that were really hurtful to him.  He is a VERY sensitive kid, and he would relive those interactions a million times because he’d feel so bad about himself afterwards.  We took a step back from those situations and just decided to keep him close to home, rather than in any part time school-type program.  We have focused heavily on his relationship with Shane and Fin, and just let the rest work itself out.  He has become an awesome “big” brother, as is evident by how much Shane and Fin idolize him.  But during this time, he has also become a very outgoing little guy who now walks with relative ease in social settings.  Thank gosh.  It’s not that I care if he’s the most popular kid in the world, or if he is the dorkiest kid on the planet.  But I don’t ever want any of my kids to be uncomfortable around people or have difficulty relating to others around them.  I just want them to have confidence and be able to navigate social environments with comfort.  And it seems I can check that one off the worry column for my Jackie Pants.  I think my bigger worry should be containing all the cuteness that pours out of this boy because it could make him quite the challenging teenager;) 

Tonight I wasn’t feeling well after dinner and I told Travis that my stomach hurt.  Jack butted in with “mom, you MUST see a doctor!”  So I said “Jack, did you know that mommy is a doctor?”  He looked at me like I was a lunatic, shook his head, and said “uh, no.”  I get no respect;)

This is what Jack gave me today when I asked him to strike a pose…good thing we don’t live in harlem; I’m pretty sure you can get shot for throwing signs like these:

Aunt Heather would be proud; I’m pretty sure Jack’s doing the sprinkler here:

The dynamic between the kids is so cute these days.  Jack and Fin have a very unique relationship, and Travis and I love watching them interact.  He gets just as much amusement out of her as she does from him.  They joke around, and he giggles lovingly when she mispronounces things like “panastics,” instead of “gymnastics.”  Jack and Shane have a very different relationship that is also very cute to watch.  Now that Shane is talking more, we are noticing that he plays with his siblings much more.  Check this out though – we busted out Mario Kart on our Wii and let the kids go nuts with it.  Leave it to Fin to turn her controller into a microphone, but the boys were pretty into it.

SHANE:

Shane is doing awesome.  Really and truly.  He’s made such huge strides in language development lately and is now speaking in phrases with some full sentences.  He’ll communicate his needs by saying “my hungry,” or “my thirsty.”  He still says “no fanks” anytime he doesn’t like what’s going on, which is hysterical.  He calls Jack and Finley by name, or his versions of their names, and has the deepest voice ever.  It’s really cute.  While I was traveling, he often asked Travis “where’s mama,” and would point to pictures of airplanes and say “mama.”  Shane is really into singing and humming.  He sings “Pinkle Pinkle Leetle Taaar,” the ABC’s, and Old MacDonald.  He can identify almost all his letters and all numbers 1-10.  He is really inconsistent with knowing his colors; sometimes he’s flawless, and other times it’s like he has no idea.  His ACT team evaluation a few weeks ago went really well!!  He tested within the realm of normal for everything, and even slightly above for motor skills!  Yay Shane!  The developmental pediatrician is coming this week, so we are really excited about that visit.  Hopefully we can close this chapter and just focus on his progress since he is making forward progress.

Shane has been sleeping on the floor a lot lately.  No idea why, but he’ll get in and out of bed a bunch of times after we tuck the boys in (Shane doing this doesn’t seem to bother or distract Jack from falling asleep).  We always peek in on the kids before Travis and I get in bed, and we’ve been finding him passed out on the floor fairly often recently.  We just scoop him up and lay him down in his bed, and that’s that! 

Shane is a SNUGGLE BUG.  I LOVE this.  He comes in our room in the morning and hops in bed on my side.  He likes when I stroke the palms of his hands and he’ll just let me snuggle him forever.  His favorite game right now is “Bear’s Comin’.”  He sometimes plays the bear, and other times Travis is the bear and Shane, Jack, and Fin are hiding from the bear.  They get so wild and worked up when they play this game.

FIN:

Fin’s favorite book right now is Fancy Nancy.  She loves to say the fancy words, like “merci,” and she insisted Travis drink his coffee with his pinky up the other day.  Fancy Nancy really cracks us up around here.  This is our favorite page:

She also likes the book The Bear Snores On, and will pull out one particular line from that book ALL THE TIME.  She’ll say “too damp, too dank, too dark,” and then crack up at herself.  This kid has a personality that continues to grow 10x faster than her actual body.  She’s trouble, this one.  It is insane to me how much she talks.  She really NEVER. EVER. quiets down.  She has tons to say about anything and everything, and if I had a nickel for every time she’s said “whatcha talking about mom/dad?” I’d be a very rich woman.  She’s still obsessed with fruit snacks (the gummy crap that is like toddler speed), and will do just about anything for them, including her famous “teapot dance.”  She loves to say “check this out baby” right before she busts a move she thinks is cool.  The other day I was cutting Shane’s crack nails (I swear, they grow like weeds) and Finley stepped in and wanted hers cut too.  I realized I hadn’t cut her nails in, ooohhhh, forever.  So I told her to step on up.  Then I saw this: nubs.

Dear God, she’s not even 2 and she’s already got her mama’s nail gnawing habit.  It’s terrible.  Another thing that is so funny is Finley’s belly dance routine.  I can make my tummy do this wave thing where my stomach literally makes a wave from the top that travels down to the lowest part.  Finley is totally obsessed.  She has been practicing this art religiously; she’s constantly sucking in and pushing out her little gut.  It’s a riot.  Someday I’ll get a video of her doing it!

Finley also started having pseudo nighttime anxiety, telling us “I’m scared of the dark.  Leave my door open just a crack.”  I think Jack probably started some of that for her, but we played along and acknowledged her fears.  Finally, we got her a nightlight.  Now she’s so excited to go to bed each night because she gets to see her monkey light.  She’s also become quite the hypochondriac.  She’ll say in a really pathetic voice only a child pretending to be sick would use: “mommy, I don’t feel good.”  I’ll say, “oh, that’s too bad Fin.  What hurts baby?”  She’ll then make up something bogus that probably sounds brilliant in her own little mind, like “my finger!”  Every time I go to the bathroom, I hear Finley outside yelling to me: “hey mom, you got diarrhea?”  What a hysterical little nuisance.

She also has this really funny patch of hair on the back of her head that’s persistently tangled.  No More Tangles is no match for this mess, trust me.  That would be because her other nervous habit is twirling the hair back there.  We call it her “gnarly patch.”