Letter to Micah

Dear Micah,

You are my golden boy!  We couldn't imagine our lives without our silly, curious, mischievous, energetic, loving, and wonderful little Tyke!  Micah, your giggle is contagious.  You are so full of pure joy that you transmit it with your smile.  When you smile at me I can't help but smile back, even when I know I shouldn't.  No one but you, Micah, could get me to smile while I'm looking at a puddle of juice on the floor.  

Micah, you have completely expanded my picture of motherhood and my understanding of love.  I have countless images of you locked into my mind and heart.  Some shots are frazzled and blurred.  Most are not edited.  But all of them are so real.  So beautiful.  And so precious.  I have a mental scrapbook of feelings as well as images.  When I think of you, Micah, I think of your little tushy wiggling into my lap for a story.  I picture your grin that means, "I have something I'm not supposed to have!  What are you going to do about it?"  I feel the weight of your head on my shoulder as I try to comfort you from your endless string of fevers.  I feel the fuzzy smoothness of your blue BeeBee smooshed between you and I.  I feel your little finger jamming itself into my eye.  I hear myself saying, "Yes, Micah, that's Mama's eye.  That's right."  I see you chasing Luke, dancing around the room.  I feel the joy that comes from seeing a priceless connection between brothers.  I feel the certainty that we, all of us, needed you.

Micah, I want you to know that you have gifts.  Precious gifts.  You have a gift of happiness.  You find delight in little things.  Keep that quality, Micah.  Be grateful for the little things.  Find wonder in the world around you.  Micah, you are loyal.  You follow your brother and love him.  Even when it's hard, you share.  You are one who forgives.  I am often the humble recipient of your forgiveness.  Thank you for forgiving me and loving me even when I fall short.  You are a teacher.  I don't even think you realize how you help and teach your older brother, your Dada, and me.  You are independent.  You figure things out, and you are excited to be a big boy.  I'm proud that you want to take on this world, but don't grow up too fast!

I love you, my little Tyke! 

I have loved our journey with you....

The day you came home from the hospital

 Blessing Day

 Making Mama laugh

 Every day!

 Learning to crawl

 Humoring your mother

 Turning 1!

 Loving Nature!

 Learning to walk

 Falling in love with BeeBee

 Haircuts took away my baby

 And gave me a big boy

 Getting to know John Deere

 Learning to feed yourself

 and to drive!

 The smile that means joy!

 The smile that means trouble!

 Big trouble!

 Love between brothers

 HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Birthday presents--

lawn mower and tractor

 Sharing with Luke

 Chuck E. Cheese Celebration

 That smile!

 Putting the money in ALL BY YOURSELF!

We look forward to an eternal journey!

Love,

Mama

Family Time

On Saturday we had a great family day.  Saturday morning we went downtown to watch the kick-off parade for the Tri-State fair and rodeo.  We brought along our trusty friend ipad to keep Micah happy.

There was a radio station there playing music while we waited for the parade to start.  Luke did some dancing (in my sweater.)

And then the parade started!

First came the policemen on motorcycles.

Then a whole bunch of girl scout troops.

Some buses, trolleys, and old fashioned cars

A farmer or riding club?

There were a few floats and campaign cars, marching bands, etc.  Then the Veterans marched by and shot off some air rifles.  The noise really scared Luke.  He covered his ears and froze up a bit, hunching down.  Even after the Veterans had marched past, Luke wouldn't put his guard down after that.  He asked to leave because he said that it was too noisy.  I was so proud of how he handled it.  He didn't scream or anything.  He just stayed calm and said that it was time to go.  So we did.

And we spent the rest of the day just hanging out, mostly in the backyard.

This is Micah pretending that the jogging stroller is a lawn mower.

And this is Luke trying to convince Micah that the ball popper is a better lawn mower so that he could use the stroller.  It didn't work.

Jared showed off his tricks.

Luke caught a bug.

More jumping...

Rough housing with D

I'm so glad that we are a happy family!

Sight Words

Awhile ago I noticed that Luke didn't understand print very well at all.  He recognized letters, but he didn't recognize words.  At least he couldn't tell where one word ended and another word began.  After we found out that Luke needed glasses I thought maybe the problem had been that he couldn't see the spaces between words, but even after he got his glasses he couldn't point out words.  

Luke knows all of his letters and sounds, so I thought maybe the way to teach him words was to have him make his own sentences.  Plus this way he would be learning sight words that would help him learn to read.  

I looked up the first 100 fry words and created some "flash cards."  The fry words are made up of the most common words, however, so there are a lot of articles (the, a, and, an, etc.) and not too many meaningful verbs and nouns.  So I added quite a few words of my own based on what we do during the day and what interests Luke.  Then, because there were quite a few words now, I filed them so that I'd be able to find the words I wanted.  

For the past week we have been doing sentences everyday.  We started with I, want, my, and a few of Luke's favorite things (stereo, air conditioner, fan, laminator), and Luke would make a sentence.  If he read it the correct way, pointing to the right word as he said it, he got to do what he wanted.  

And of course Micah gets to play too.

After the first day I added more words to the pile that would make Luke have to concentrate to find the word he needed.  So instead of just having want I also added were so that he would have to look past just the first letter.  I also added may as well as my.  And now before Luke makes a sentence we use the cards like flash cards to practice reading the word in isolation so that he has to pay close attention.  He is doing great!

Luke asks to do the sentences several times a day because he gets to do things that are typically forbidden (like play with a fan).  So the next step is to make him do other sentences like "I see a _____" before he can do an "I want my _______" sentence.  That's what we are going to start today.  And I'm also going to make color cards so that Luke will have to be more specific.  He will have to make a sentence that says, "I want my black fan," or whatever.  Hopefully he will still stick with the sentences even as the game gets harder.  I think he will because he will do an awful lot to see an air conditioner or fan.  You see what kind of mom I am?  I use his interests against him.  

BrooHaHaHa (That's my evil laugh)

THANK YOU: Debbi, thank you so much for my birthday money with which I bought a little laminator that I use ALL THE TIME!  It has been so wonderful!

Stylin'

Luke picked his outfit this morning.

HAHAHAHA!

Our Second Big Storm

After our first big storm we had learned something about wind.  So we have since anchored our trampoline by tying it to the house and fence and staking it to the ground with tent stakes.  

After our second big storm we learned about west Texas hail.  Scary!  Once again strong winds.  This time the trampoline stayed on the ground, but the wind blew part of the enclosure right over.  We're not sure how to prevent that.  But the craziest part was the mini-marshmallow-sized ice pellets beating against the roof, doors, and windows.  It was LOUD.  And Luke was SCARED.  He froze up, put his hands to his face, and screamed bloody murder.  I haven't seen him that afraid since the alarm went off in Georgia.  I was honestly scared too.  Water was spraying into the house from above the front door, and it really sounded like our windows were going to crack.  I couldn't act scared, though.  Instead I took the boys into my closet with the ipad and Luke's ear plugs, and we watched Netflix until things calmed down. 

Afterwards we assessed the damage:

It doesn't really show in these pictures, but the trampoline was sagging down about 6 inches from the weight of the ice.

It was pretty warm outside before and after the storm.  I don't know much about weather, and I don't know why there was ice falling.  Anyway, it all melted within a few hours but there was quite a lot of ice for a storm in September.

I hope our trampoline survives the year!

Labor Day

On Labor Day Jared had the day (mostly) off.  We went to the zoo in the morning because Luke wanted to "show D the Lemurs."  We also saw the lions, bears, tigers, bobcats, wallabies, and reptiles.  This is Jared and the boys in the reptile house.

Jared found out there is a Cinnabon in Amarillo, and he wanted a treat.  So after the zoo we went.  Luke had a few bites, and later he had a yucky tummy ache.  That darn wheat!  Luke liked Cinnabon because there were lots of ceiling fans.  I could not, for the life of me, get him to look at the camera when there was a ceiling fan right over his head. 

And those are the highlights from Labor day.

Our First Big Storm

Two weeks ago we witnessed our first big Amarillo windstorm and learned a valuable lesson in the process.  We were watching the storm from our living room window, looking out the front of our house.  The lightning was flashing non-stop.  The wind was coming down in sheets so fast we could hardly see anything outside our window, and the wind was blowing so hard that the little saplings in our neighborhood were almost touching the ground.  We were watching in awe.  In Luke's words "Cinders and ashes!"  (Luke has been watching Thomas the Tank Engine.)  And right about that time we heard a thump from the backyard.  Jared ran to the backdoor and looked outside to find that our trampoline (just over 2 weeks old) was GONE!  He ran outside to investigate and found it on our roof.  The lightning was so extreme that Jared couldn't do much, but he climbed up onto the roof and knocked it back down into our yard enough that he could tie it to our house with a rope, thus keeping it from blowing off the roof into our neighbor's yard or doing more damage to the house.  When the storm was over, Jared took a few photos:

We rolled it off the house and found it completely mangled like this:

Rim bent, enclosure smashed, and the bounce mat shredded from where the roof cut right through the middle.  My first reaction was a sickening disappointment.  We chose to live in a house specifically so we could have a backyard, specifically so we could have a trampoline.  We didn't have the money to replace it.  And after 2 weeks it was destroyed.  But Jared put things back into perspective for me.  After the storm died and we went to investigate the damage, we saw that the roof was fine.  In fact all that happened was one crack in the fence:

The trampoline could have broken out a window or worse.  So we were very lucky.

And we got more lucky.  The next day, after work, Jared pulled out a hammer and dinged around.  He was able to fix the frame and the enclosure.  And then we got a check in the mail reimbursing us for insurance paid in VA which meant we had enough money to replace the jumping mat.  

So we're back in business!

First Day of Preschool (for the 3rd time!)

After almost a month of mostly staying at home, I was ready to explore this past week.  I looked up the zoo online to see how much admission was and found out that the zoo is free every Monday.  The preschool is split between an AM and a PM class, and Luke is in the PM class.  So I thought "What the heck!  Let's make his first day extra special and start it off with a trip to the zoo!"  It was a great idea.

Both the boys loved the monkeys!

The monkeys are central right at the entrance to the zoo, so we looked at them first.  Then we turned to left and went to the reptile house.  One of the zookeepers was feeding some of the animals, and she had parked this tractor outside the window.  While Luke walked around checking out the snakes, Micah spent the whole time starting at the tractor and yelling, "Green!  Green!  Green tractor!"

This was a super freaky legless lizard that looked like Voldemort.  It was Luke's favorite because it was very active moving and darting around.  Luke never would believe me that it wasn't a snake.  Whatever.

The Amarillo zoo is very small as zoos go, and a lot of the animals aren't totally exotic.  But the boys liked all the animals anyway.  Here they are watching the bison graze.

I think this was my favorite exhibit.  We could get really close to the lions.  I'm not even zooming much.  Not sure why it is so blurry.  Right after I took this picture the male lion came by, lifted his leg, and let out a spray.  We were so close that he got within a few inches of the stroller.  Glad I hadn't parked it any closer.

Right before we had to leave I saw a relatively big group of women (probably 6 or so) all of whom looked pretty young and had 1 or 2 kids with them (or 1 and a pregnant belly).  I was pretty suspicious of their religious denomination, so I went up to one girl and asked if she was Mormon.  When she said yes, I practically did a little dance.  I got her number, so hopefully I will make some new friends soon.  I couldn't stay and tour the zoo with the group because I had to get Luke home, but hopefully I can crash a play date soon.

The boys and I didn't get to stay too long at the zoo because we had to be home about 11 to eat and to change before school starts at noon.  Luke has to wear a uniform each day-- a red, black, or white polo shirt and khaki pants or shorts.  He chose a red shirt for his first day.  He doesn't look it in these pictures, but he was VERY excited to go to school.

I was a little worried about he'd do in his new classroom because there are TWO ceiling fans as well as an ipod.  There had been a stereo too, but I warned the teacher ahead of time, and that was hidden before he came in.  It's a different environment-- a little bit smaller room with a little bit larger class than he had in Williamsburg, but I think he will do well here.  He says he likes it so far.  I hope I can work something out with baby-sitting so that I'll be able to start volunteering soon.  I won't feel completely relaxed about Luke until I see how he acts in person.  

I hope this is a good year for him!