Yesterday

Something's clicked in Sawyer's mind recently. It's as though he finally has enough life perspective to grasp the concept of then and now. We've been in Colorado for six months. But, in the past few weeks he's suddenly started remembering things about his old school, his old friends, his old house. We'll be driving down the road and he'll bust out with a story about how last Easter the Bunny hid eggs at the playground of his old school — "The big school." Or, we'll be reading a book about best friends and he says: "That's me and Oscar." We had talked about Oscar being his best friend .... oh ... about a year ago when we read that book. We've read it a hundred times since, and Oscar has never been mentioned. The last two weeks he's wanted to read the book every night, but he insists that I substitute the names Sawyer and Oscar wherever it says Jack and Dan. And, tonight, we had company for dinner. Scott's coworker. And Sawyer, who by-the-way is the world BIGGEST chatterbox whenever we have company around, told him that we just moved. "We got on an airplane and came to Colorado and we never went back. We don't live in the red house anymore. We live in this house." He talks about the red house a lot. It's nothing sad, I don't think. Even though I sometimes feel a little sad hearing him talk about it. I think it's just a shoulder-shrugging matter of fact for him. He understands, now. And he's letting us know.

Sawyer still struggles to express himself sometimes, but that doesn't stop him from talking. And talking. And talking. Oh man, when he gets going it's hysterical. Tonight, at dinner, he literally carried the conversation for a hour straight, only stopping when we insisted he take bites. Meanwhile, Arden sat on the other side of the table stuffing her face and making sweet faces at Scott's coworker, totally winning him over with her silent charm and flirtatious smiles. Our guest asked Sawyer what sports he likes and Sawyer said he likes skiing and jumping like the kid on t.v. (We'd just shown him a video of 10-year-old Birk Irving a little grom from Winter Park). He said that when he gets bigger he wants to play hockey and ski and jump. He talked about what he wants to be when he grows up (it's a long list starting with digger driver and ending with airplane pilot); and about how, if he ate any more his stomach would get too big and pop and that would be bad; he got off on a morbid tangent that if Duncan bit his hand off (there was a related incident with a piece of bacon shortly before) that he wouldn't be able to feel anything and that his mom would have to take him to the doctor to have a new hand put on; and, I feel quite certain there was some talk about poop and butts in there — because he's three and there's always talk about poop and butts. That big run-on sentence doesn't even begin to cover the breathless conversation he carried on with our guest. He's like this around all our friends now, especially when they come to our house. Can you say EXTROVERT? He literally sucks energy off of other people. And, all I can say is that it's exhausting.

Hike to the top

This is me at Monarch with a bunch of new friends I met over the weekend. I'm the dorky one with the hummingbird helmet — safety first! I am also wearing Scott's jacket since we were sharing a lift ticket while trading off kids in the lodge with a few other couples. So, when it was my turn to head out on the mountain, instead of just being satisfied using the lifts, we decided to hike all the way up to the tippy top of the mountain. That experience opened up parts of my lungs that hadn't been used in years. This is possibly the only photo from the entire weekend. I could just kick myself for not making better use of the camera.

Adventures

We spent the weekend at Antero Hot Springs Cabins with my friends Dara and Mike and their posse from Summit County. It was an interesting mix of the newly dating, married without children, parents of a 9 month old, second-timers with a 6-week-old and a 2-year old, and us slightly more seasoned parents. I somehow managed to not take a single photo, so I'm hoping to get some in the days to come from other folks. We got to ski for a day while everyone took turns with the kids. We soaked in the hot springs at night, played trivial pursuits (genius edition), took turns cooking meals in (non-spouse) teams, lit the fire in the morning to keep the cabin warm and found ways to entertain the children without electronics. Sawyer kept calling it "our new home," and I'm pretty sure he didn't ever want to come back. The kids were really into helping pack and unpack, and were actually somewhat useful in the process. They really seem to get the concept of having a weekend adventure, and I'm looking forward to many more to come.

Now Sawyer's biggest question is "Is the Easter Bunny going to sneak into my room tonight?" He can't wait. In the coming weeks we have a visit from Justin and a visit from Mimi and Pop Pop on the books.

State of the union

So we are back online having bit the bullet and signed up for high speed internet with *insert mass communications conglomerate here. My Canon Digital Rebel EOS camera is temporarily working again, some little piece of the mirror had come loose, although now the auto focus doesn't work. The broken coffee maker has been replaced with a french press after one interim failed attempt to find a cheap electric drip to replace it — weak, luke warm coffee is just not my thing. But, as we were wiping a brow over the end of Electronics Meltdown 2010, the washing machine stopped spinning. The fun never ends. So, since I'm not folding laundry tonight, I figure it's about time for a state of the union kid update.

Arden, at 26 months, is a chatterbox. She pretty easy to understand, speaks complete sentences, counts to 10, sings her ABCs and even recognizes some letters and colors. She's willful, independent, stubborn and fully in the throws of the terrible twos. Me! Me do it! She wants so badly to put her own shoes on (and she is totally Sarah Jessica Parker about her shoes). She insists on zipping up her own pajamas and wants to go to the potty by herself, but it takes 20 minutes of letting her struggle before she'll willingly let somebody else help her. Getting her out the door in the morning takes the patience of desert tortoise (at least those things have 300 years to live). She's almost completely potty trained and just spent her first week sleeping through the night without diapers. We bought her these hideous Gerber plastic covered training pants (boy patterns was all they had left) that come up to her neck and give her some serious junk in the trunk. So far so good, as long as we remember to wake her up once during the night. I look at her sometimes and wonder where the heck she came from. She has my copper brown eye color, but the blond hair and her facial structure must come from Scott's family. She's gotten to the point now where she enjoys going off to play with Sawyer for hours on end. Barring her proclivity for danger (she likes to climb things and last week pulled the entire wardrobe down on herself), she's a typical younger sister — always crying about something Sawyer is doing. And she's super sensitive about getting in trouble.

I was going to post a video of her refusing to eat dinner, but her stubborn streak lasted so long that even blogger declined to upload it. So, you'll have to just imagine her lippy pout as she was determined to starve and watch this instead:



Sawyer, at 3.5, has finally gotten to the little slave stage — the reason we had children after all — because we needed somebody who could open the door and let the dog out or fill up Arden's cup with water while we watch from the couch. We have finally arrived people. He's done great with the skiing this winter and can't wait to start biking this summer. He's ready for a real bike now. He counts to 10 in Spanish and French, but gets them a little confused sometimes, throwing in the occasional Chinese number along the way. (Love that little red school). Sawyer's Baby Center update last week that said this is the age where kids start paying attention to tone. And it couldn't have been more right on. That same afternoon in the car he was telling me about his day and he was all: we ate luuuunch, and we went outsiiiide, and then we took a naaaap with the same teacher-like inflection on the last syllable of each phrase. He's not much of an artist but is huge into his imagination games and dramatic play. And his teacher said he's just starting to take and interest in the crafts projects they do, primarily because all his best buddies, all the, um — *insert forced throat clearing here — girls are big into arts and crafts. But scissors are still not his favorite exercise. My poor little lefty.



All in all, Babydom is slipping away from my life. Sippy cups and pull-ups are being phased out. My kids ski and bike and have private conversations in the forts they build. I wonder, sometimes, how we got here already. I am so glad I got to experience having little tiny babies. It changed me (and my boobs) forever. But, I'm really glad to have slightly older kids now, and I can't wait to delve into the 3s and 4s.