Category: Updates about Andrew

My boy’s friends are turning four!  Wyatt’s birthday was May 12, and we had a fun day at the zoo celebrating (photos in the gallery).  On Monday this week, Eli turned four, and we had a fun time playing at a park in Monona.  There were four boys in capes zipping around, climbing, throwing things in the lake, eating ice cream, jumping, and generally having a great time.  Photos are in the gallery.

It’s amazing to look at the big, beautiful, amazing boys that they are and to remember how sweet and little and babyish they used to be.  See here or here for examples!

Continue reading “Eli’s birthday”

Sometimes when I’m speaking to my children, I pause and listen to the words that just came out of my mouth and sort of shake my head.  Like yesterday morning, we were all enjoying some doughnuts for breakfast.  Bryan brought home left-overs from work on Friday, so Saturday morning saw us all enjoying the yummy treats.  Andrew likes to eat doughnuts (and cupcakes and anything else with frosting) by licking or nibbling the frosting off, leaving a nearly untouched bakedgood underneath.  After pulling this trick and diving in for more, we said, “Andrew, you’ll have to finish all of your doughnut before you can have another one.”  And then we looked at each other with wonder, questioning, “Did I just say that?”

Have a carrot!

It’s another amazing-looking May morning.  Bryan is taking Sylvie over to Donna’s for the morning, and Andrew is getting dressed for his last day of preschool.  He’s decided to ride his bike (named Brisinger) to school today.

I don’t have a gift for his teachers.  Must still think of something on that front…

Last week, I had a parent-teacher conference with Sue and Emily.  They really love him, and Andrew’s temperment is a great fit for school.  They put together a really touching book outlining the ways Andrew has grown over the year.  He helped me scan it in to the computer, and I have it posted here for your reading pleasure.  It’s about 10MB to download…

Hope your day is a delightful one!

Andrew is just wonderful.  The two of us played “bears” for a half hour tonight.  And nearly every word that came out of him made me wish that I was taping him…he’s just so beautifully cute.

Our game stated as he got out of the tub.  He pulled his green froggy robe around himself, looked up at me, and said, “Mommy, let’s go snuggle and do toaster on the bed and talk about the ways I love you.”  Toaster is when we warm him up by hugging him in our winter coats or under the covers.

While we “did toaster,” we shared observations about how much we love each other.  For a literary comparison, it’s kind of like Quick as a Cricket meets Guess How Much I Love You.  For example, Andrew said,

“I love you as many stripes as a zebra has. I love you as high as a giraffe can reach.  I love you as hot as Africa.  I love you big as a hippo can open his mouth.  I love you as many wildebeests that there are on the savanna.  I love you as much as a lion’s mane.”

I replied in kind, and we shared our “I love yous” until we’d exhausted (at least temporarily) our creativity.

Later Andrew requested that we play bears.  I’d be the mommy bear and he’d be the little baby bear.  I’d still need to protect him from predators, but he could hunt for himself.  First he went hunting for a moose.  He had to be very careful of the sharp antlers and hooves.  He was so delighted that he was able to take down a great big moose all by himself.  We devoured it together, spitting out antlers, bones, and fur.  For the next half hour, Andrew-bear successfully hunted a manatee, a lion, an octopus (we liked slurping down the tentacles but had to spit out the ink), a (!) blue whale (we called all the other bears to join in), a daddy humpback whale, and an antelope.  We also found lots of delicious berries, but we had to watch out for skunks on our berry-forays.

After each meal, we’d crawl back to our den where winter would be coming on and we’d hibernate under the covers together until the smell of berries or the flutter of butterfly wings would wake us up.  Baby bear would giggle and kiss Mommy bear’s nose to rouse her from her slumber.  Then we’d groom each other, pulling the burs out of our thick fur.   Andrew-bear decided that he was almost grown, but he wanted to stay with his mommy bear for protection and warmth in the winter.  We were very cozy bears during those short winter hibernations.

I feel so lucky to have this sweet boy in my life.

April 17: Andrew’s already extensive imagination has bloomed in a new area…animals are living in our house. The other day, Andrew walked into his room, stopped and whispered, “Look! A trunk!” Sure enough. There was an elephant in the closet. His trunk had been sticking out. And he helped Andrew pick out his clothes for the day.
Another time, again in his room, Andrew looked at his bed and his eyes grew round. “A horn!” he exclaimed in reverent wonder. There on his bed was a sleeping deer with a beautiful glowing horn. Andrew and Bryan approached the dreaming creature and carefully pet it while it slumbered.
Soon after, Andrew was walking down the hall when he stopped short, pointed ahead, and cried, “Look, it’s a HUMP!” Turns out that a camel was hanging out.
Just now, Bryan told me that upon walking into the sunroom Andrew said, “Uh oh, this is a really scary one. Tiger.” Bryan said he was afraid of it, so Andrew kicked it up to the moon.
Oh, and the other morning Andrew informed us that there was a T-Rex, a dragon, and an elephant in his room. “That must be pretty crowded!” I said. “Well, Mommy,” Andrew replied, “The T-Rex is alseep on my bed, and the elephant’s in the closet.” Apparently they’ve all got it figured out. What a kid!

April 6: Dawn is coming earlier these days.  Spring is creeping its way up toward Madison.
These mornings when the clock shows 6:30, my mind unwraps from its cocoon of woolly sleep to hear the pitter-pat footsteps of one young Andrew as he makes his way from his room over to our bed.  If I’m lying close to the edge of the bed, I’ll wake to a kiss on my nose as he lifts up the blankets and climbs into my sleepy nest.  I’ll doze as he wiggles and pats and snuggles, jiggling more insistently as the minutes tick by.
Before too long, Sylvie rises, and I hear her call, “Mmmmmaaaa MA!  Mmmmmaaaa MA!” She isn’t calling for me per se.  It’s more the one phrase she uses to indicate that she wants something.  In this case I translate it as, “Hey everyone!  I’m awake!  Someone come get me so the party can begin!”  I’ll throw back the covers and go to get her, with Andrew running ahead calling, “HI SYLVIE!  Good morning, sweetie girl!!”  Then he climbs on the side of her crib and attempts to kiss her.  She in turn attempts to dodge his kisses and instead tries to levitate into my arms.  She sometimes reminds me of the way that Toad would jump in Mario II; kicking off and fluttering her feet after liftoff.
I bring both kids back to bed.  Sylvie climbs over me to peer at her dad, tilting her head to the side to examine him.  Andrew lies between us contemplating breakfast (raisin muffin or eggs and toast today?)  Sylvie might have a little nurse in the bed, but she’s often too excited to explore.  Both kids pull back our black-out curtains…full of anticipation about what the day will hold.

March 26:  I’ve been thinking about moving Andrew to a booster seat.  He’d enjoy being able to unbuckle himself, and the five-point harness is a bit of a pain to buckle.  Before I headed to the store, though, I looked online, and it sounds like I’m going to need to wait a while to move him to a booster.

“You can safely switch your child to a booster seat if he’s at least 4 years old and he weighs 40 pounds or more (Andrew is 35). Whatever you do, don’t move your child to a booster seat simply because she’s had her fourth birthday. Car seats are the safest option, so keep using yours as long as it fits.”

The boosters I’d been looking at say that they are good for a 30 lb child, but I guess we’ll be waiting a while to purchase one!

March 23: This morning, Andrew, Sylvia, and I headed through the rain, across town to check out a bike.  I’d been checking craigslist for 16″ bikes, and last night I found a good one.  I spoke with the seller this morning, and within a couple hours, Andrew was giving the red bike a spin around the seller’s garage.  Andrew was pretty reserved and didn’t want to try it again after the seat was adjusted for him, but he quietly told me that he liked it and wanted it.  So currency was exchanged, and the bike is now in the trunk of my van, waiting for young Andrew to experiment with it.

A few weeks back when we were talking about bikes, I told him he’d have to decide if he wanted it as an early birthday present or if he wanted to wait until his birthday.  “It would be nice to use it in April, May, and early June,” I told him, “but then he would have to be prepared to not get any big presents from us for his birthday.”

To my surprise, he’s decided he wants to wait until his birthday to “get” the bike.  This in turn is making me realize that I wanted him to have it now so he’d have more time to ride it this spring/summer!  hmmmm  That Andrew is quite the fellow.  I’ve never met anyone quite like him.

He smiles and laughs so much these days.  It’s a joy to behold.

Feb. 21: Andrew turned to me today, and said, “I miss Texas.”  “You do?” I said, “What do you miss most?”  Wistfully, Andrew replied, “The Bounce.”
He’s referring to a place we went twice where kids can play on inflatable bouncing houses, big slides, obstacle courses, etc.  He loved it.  Photos are here.
Here in Wisconsin, we’ve had five or so inches of snow falling today.  Makes me think back fondly on car washing, barefoot tree climbing, and crawling-with-no-snowsuit.
Andrew had a good time playing with Grandad’s toy animals.  In fact, some amazing things happened with them.  Apparently, at Grandad’s house, when you leave the animals outdoors overnight, they get big and play while you sleep.  Andrew discovered this when he came out the next morning and found that the animals had magically moved around.  Andrew was in complete awe of this situation.  His eyes get all big and his whispers about how the animals get big overnight at Grandad’s.  They sometimes climb up into the trees or put their heads in the dirt!

The kids had a great time playing with the miniature kitchen cabinet that LuAnn’s dad made for her when she was little.  Sylvia loved pulling out the little dishes so they would make great crashing noises as they fell on the floor.

Andrew really enjoyed playing songs on Granny’s beautiful piano.  One game that he particularly enjoyed was to take decorative vegetables out of a display basket and “play their song.”  So there was radish songs, carrot songs, and here’s a picture of Andrew playing a “cabbage song.”

Andrew’s little heart has been oozing love these past weeks and months.  Not to diminish the sincerity of his expressions of love to to any individual, but he gushes on a near-hourly basis statements like, “I love you more than you can even imagine.” or “I love you up to Jupiter.” or “I love you so much I can’t even tell you.”  One of my favorites though, was when he told Granny, “I love you as far as from where macaroni comes from.”  That’s far, my little guy.  That’s very, very far.