I sit here and am in disbelief that the last family "update" I made for our blog was our Traverse City vacation in 2018. While oftentimes I feel like it's "Same ole story, just a different day", the kids are growing and I want to document these moments so we can talk about them one day when they are older.
I listen to Christ-centered parenting podcasts through Focus on the Family and I remember one of the speakers talking about perception of our life through our own lens. It's really so very true. A memory that I have, or how I perceived a moment, will not be the same as your Dad, you, or your brother or sister perceived it. For instance, I may perceive a moment in guilt for something I said or how I reacted, but because you weren't on the receiving end of my reaction or words, you had a happy experience. Your brother or sister, on the other hand, may perceive that memory unhappily from their own lens; especially if they were on the receiving end of something unpleasant. Does that make sense? And that's where my mind often brings me at the end of the day as I am overthinking all the things I said or did wrong (instead of focusing on the positives; which is what I would advise you to do...unfortunately, "mom guilt" is real and raw and gets me overthinking 😐) I'm left wondering if your perception is the same as mine? Maybe it is sometimes, and hopefully other times, your lens of view is so different than mine. My prayers and hopes are that, overall, your lens of perception is positive and a happy one of your childhood and you feel as loved as we love you.
I'll end this topic by saying that parenting is the biggest reward for an unpredictably challenging endeavor. Raising three very strong willed, determined, opinionated individuals who often clash and clamor at the exact same time over totally different things is a challenge, let me tell you. Wondering if we are doing the right thing, saying the right thing, and giving that person the correct discipline is a whole other challenge. So, my point is, we are making mistakes. We know we are are, but we are also trying to better ourselves through our mistakes. Ultimately, though, everything we do or say is out of love and because we want you all to be the best possible individuals you can possibly be and there are days and moments that we are starting to really see the fruition of our love and devotion upon your lives.
And, after all that serious writing, now this is for a good laugh...
Winter 2019 Highlights
So, let's move onto the growth details between all of you and this time I will begin in backwards birth order.
Micah: You are two weeks out from your 3rd birthday and you are only wearing pull ups to bed and asking for a pull up to poop. You still refuse to poop in the toilet, but at least you are telling us that you have to poop, you go into bathroom, put on a pull up, and you do it that way. 😷 I just asked you today, "Why do you still poop in a pull up?" Without skipping a beat your answer was, "Because I love you." 😅🤔 You've been doing this now for almost 2 months; which is better than when you were pooping your underwear multiple times a day so I guess it's progress because instead of hiding, you are telling us what you need to do and going into the bathroom and doing it...just not in the toilet.🙄 You are finally able to both pull down your pants and pull them up to use the bathroom so that's another bit of progress over the past two months. And just this very week you started pumping soap by yourself while washing your hands and that little milestone has been a huge help to me. The fact that I can say to you, "Go wash your hands" and I don't have to follow behind you to help you do it is huge. You speak in full length sentences. You express your thoughts, feelings, and opinions often. You are incredibly loving, affectionate, complimentary, dramatic, and sensitive. There isn't a day that you don't say, "I love you" multiple times and will not go to sleep at night without a hug and a kiss from all of us, sometimes 2-3 times. And because of your sister Gianna's influence, you are equally loud with shrieking and crying when you don't get your way, you get hurt, or want to get one of your sisters into trouble.
You are not showing any desire to transition into a regular bed and you love being all cramped into the corner of your crib and it doesn't bother me one bit that you don't want to move out of it. We still wrap you up in a blanket at night like a burrito and you stay wrapped up all night in your little cocoon. You are showing interest in books, cutting paper with scissors, completing puzzles, putting on your own clothes, building block towers, dancing (and let me add, you are a fabulous dancer!), rough housing/wrestling with Daddy, and your personal anatomy (and mine--you like to touch my chest exclaiming, "BOOBIES!" and I recently had a friend over and you asked if you could pull up my shirt and look at them 😳). You love to color (let be real, it's scribbling 😉) when your sisters are coloring and you love to tag along with most anything they do. You are showing much more maturity and confidence with water at 2 than your sisters ever did so I think you are going to be a natural swimmer. Plus, you just love bath time. You'll just tell me your feet stink just so you can take a bath, even though they don't stink at all.
Two days ago, both of your sisters stayed the night at Papa and Nonna's house so you got to have your very own night with me and Daddy and you didn't mind one single bit. We ate at the Galaxy and you had a great time, asking us for french fries and chicken to eat. You love most meats; specifically requesting beef jerky, chicken, or pepperoni on any given day. You love your cookies and cake. Your enthusiasm and eagerness for my Valentines Day cupcake breakfast was absolutely adorable and I always want to remember how Daddy asked you if you were hungry to eat and you said "NO!" and then he said, "But Mommy made you special cupcakes." and you squealed in excitement all while running to the table to eat.
**an addendum added to this post on April 3**
You were really sick the last week of March with the flu or a viral pneumonia. Unfortunately, it turned into walking pneumonia! Since you were having such a tough time with constant coughing, Daddy got you to fall asleep on the big bed with your head on a pillow and you slept like that all night. The next night, April 1st, he tried it again and you did it again. So, the following night, despite me and him both hacking up a lung and as weak as kittens from your sickness, we put your room together. After almost 8 years of always having the crib somewhere in our house, it is officially taken down and your room is now a forever "big boy room" with a queen sized bed. I can hardly believe my baby is growing up.
    |
| Yes, I rode your tricycle up and down the driveway because you asked to ride on it with me😁. |
You cry about everything still. For instance, today your shoes were on the wrong feet and I simply told you, "Gianna, your shoes are on the wrong feet and you need to change them so you don't trip over your feet and fall." That set you off into minutes of tears and telling me that putting them on correctly felt weird and you just cried and cried. I just don't get it and I don't know how to help you through this anymore. It's been so many years of this whining and crying issue and nothing works. About a month ago, after about coming to my brink of insanity from your incessant whining and crying, I told you that crying Gianna graduated into Giggly Gianna. It really seemed to work for a few days as you were easily redirected, but little by little, it stopped working and you actually asked me to rename you to something else. You didn't like being held accountable to giggly Gianna. I'm not going to lie, it was disheartening. You shriek and shrill over most anything and everything. It cuts right through the bones in my body. We hardly know anymore if you are actually hurt or you are just angry that Micah touched or took away a toy. He's 2 and you are 4, but oftentimes, he acts more mature than you when it comes to sharing toys and handling frustrations. ❓⁇❓
On a positive note, you are eager to learn. You really want to write letters and words, like you see Briella do, and you ask us to help you write notes. We are learning the books of the Bible for our 2019 family goal and you are really taking well to memorizing it and you are up to 1 & 2 Chronicles as of March 2019. You will engage in play dough and painting for hours, if left alone to do just that. You also love puzzles and building towers. You enjoy reading books and dancing. You recently went on field trip to a gymnastics studio and you smiled the whole time you were there. Even your teacher commented that you had a smile on your face the whole time. You have a gorgeous smile! You are taking more interest in wanting your hair put into hairdos for school; specifically, in a pony tail style out of your face. That is your requested style so I am trying to spice it up with braids and twists. You probably should get your haircut, but the last time you had your haircut in the summer, you were terribly behaved for the hair stylist. You were crying, moving your head, and telling her to stop touching you. It was not a great experience whatsoever and, quite honestly, I haven't wanted to try that again so we haven't gone back.
You are starting to develop a small amount of interest in responsibility around the house. There have been mornings that you wake up first and I will ask you to go downstairs to unload the dishwasher, and sure enough, you do it whereas a year ago, you wouldn't have touched the dishwasher and would've cried and cried and cried. You are also making your bed and putting away your clothes, but usually you have to be asked, You haven't completed full self-initiation on that just yet, but I see it slowly happening. When I ask for the play room to be cleaned up, you are doing a much better job of doing it instead of crying about it so that's progress! 🙌👍
You adore Briella and want to do what she's doing, even learning a simple crochet stitch so you can crochet with her. You want to mother Micah, but he doesn't want to be mothered by you so I think that's why there's friction between you two sometimes. You both tattle tale on each other like it's a paying job, but 1 minute later, and you are playing and acting like it never happened. You both make my head spin in circles with your varying oil and water and peanut butter and jelly relationship.
You say the absolutest, cutest, most darn-dest things ever! Seriously, we could write a book of "Gianna-isms" because they're that adorable. It's so hard to get out my computer and write them all down in the "Musings with Mini Molnars" blog post, but you call your probiotic a 'probiaugust', 'baycation' instead of vacation, "brudda" for brother, "Parmez" for parmesan cheese, "chicken containers" for chicken fingers and so many words/phrases like that. You've been enjoying watching your GiGi DVD and GiGi says, "I insist" so now you are saying it, and in the correct context, and it's the cutest thing ever. You are starting to sing like a little angel, you request grown up Christian songs, (even saying, "This is a pretty song.") and I love when you are playing independently singing and talking to yourself. I don't even like to disturb you because it's so sweet to listen to you doing it.
You only want to wear dresses, even if it's winter and the dresses are summer dresses. You'd rather your arms be cold than to put a sweater over top to cover up the dress. If the dress is plain, you will say, "That's not beautiful enough" and you won't wear it. A week ago you had your first alone time at Papa and Nonna's house. Papa came to pick you up around 11:30 on a Friday and you stayed at their house until 8pm. You were supposed to spend the night, but you didn't want to stay over because you missed all of us.
You love to have Vanilla Tea at your tea parties, you would eat candy and sweets all day if I let you do it, you can out-eat me when it comes to pizza, pepperoni, cereal, salad, cookies, and french fries. Just yesterday you learned how to chew gum at Papa and Nonna's house. I make you a car lunch every day for the drive home from school and you inhale it like a vacuum cleaner, but if I were to serve you that same lunch at home at the table, you'd take an eternity to eat it.
You still struggle with how you handle disappointment, but compared to last year, I am seeing growth in that area...except with the epic meltdown you had on my birthday over not being able to go to Papa and Nonna's house that day. 😵😮😱😰 Thankfully, though, you are becoming more teachable and learning your lessons through your mistakes. You are reading signs, food boxes, TV captions, and can tell time. I think it's neat that we can send you for a consequence to your room for __ amount of minutes and you can come downstairs when your time is completed. You crave staying up late and get so excited when it can happen. Most days the first question you ask me when you get into the car when picked up from school is, "Did Micah take a nap?" because if he didn't take a nap, that means an early bedtime for him; which means, alone time for you.
98% of the time you wake up sincerely happy and excited to start your day and the other 2% is usually due to the fact that you are sluggish from dehydration (you constantly need reminded to drink water or else you get bad headaches/stomachaches/sluggishness from it). You were the school wide recipient for "Awesome Attitude" award at NCA for February during chapel and it brought tears to my eyes listening to Miss McCauley saying all the wonderfully true things about your attitude. You have a heart for people and great love to give and it shows. You and I have served at Haven of Rest twice in the past few months and you are a natural at it.
You love spaghetti squash, zucchini, spaghetti with red sauce, salad, cereal, rice and beans, flavored chips, vegetables and dip, and chocolate. You are eager to become flexible so you can do the splits and the spreads like a real gymnast. You have some very unique dance moves, but feel music in your soul, much like me, and you love to sing and watch Christian music videos. It's really sweet to watch you absorb meanings of songs and try to relate them to your own life or our lives. You can still show resistance to acknowledging what's right to do when you are doing wrong, but 9.5 times out of 10, when we give you time to think it through, you come to us with a sincerely apologetic heart and wish you would've done it differently and better. You are recognizing when people/friends say phrases that don't sound nice or that are offensive to God (omg) and those things bother you. I love that your conscience is emerging and you are shining your light for Jesus.
 |
| You made this "Blanket Dress" today while watching The Little Mermaid 3.24.2019  |
No comments:
Post a Comment