Andrew's 4 Years Old!

"You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely." -Ogden Nash

Andrew had his 4-year wellness appointment yesterday. He looks healthy and happy, but still pretty big for his age. His BMI is still in the 95th percentile for his age group, but the doctor didn't seem overly concerned. We just need to limit screen time a bit and get him exercising a little more.

As for his height and weight, he is now 42 inches tall and 45 lbs. At last year's appointment, he was 39 3/4 inches tall and 41 lbs, so he's grown and gained probably a normal amount. He just started out big... Almost 30 lbs at a year old.......

Here are a few things about Andrew I want to remember at this point in his life:

• He's too smart for me already. And I don't know where he's learned what he has!
• He loves making funny faces with me. And having me chase him. And being tickled. Being tickled is one of his favorites.
• He LOVES cars. We recently acquired from friends two things Andrew plays with all the time: one thing he calls a "car mountain", a plastic mountain that has several tracks where cars can make their way down. The other is a rug with little roads and a town and train tracks on it. Between the two, he'd probably be happy for several hours.
• He's recently figured out how to work the Wii, and sometimes starts playing Super Mario Brothers without my knowledge. He also knows how to get to the Netflix, so he often starts watching TV without my noticing either. Yikes.
• He says the funniest things. When he wants to have a turn doing something, he says, "Let me have a go!" He still says "to-deh-grr" or even "to-deh-gler" instead of "together", but if he says it slowly, he can say it correctly. He always announces when he toots, and wants everyone in the apartment (or wherever he is currently) to know when he's peed or pooped in the toilet. A couple weeks ago, they spotlighted him in Primary, and for the questionnaire, one question was, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" And he had said, "I want to be a good guy!" I guess he's been watching some super-hero shows!
• He plays well with David, mostly. They love running up and down the hallway together, playing in forts, and attacking Jason. It's really fun to watch.

As I think of more, I'll post them. :) I need to write down the funny things the boys do more often.

Andrew will always be my guinea pig, for which I will always feel guilty. He is my first child, and every new stage for him is a new stage for me where I don't know what I'm doing. Does anyone else feel that way? The good thing is, the good always outweighs the bad, and he still loves me. It's amazing. I'm his mommy, I will be forever, and for that, I'm grateful.

My handsome dude before getting checked out yesterday.

Secret: I definitely like sweet things better than salty. And I have trouble with the sweet + salty combinations. Like those people who like dipping their french fries into their frosties from Wendy's. Don't get that at all. The one concession I WILL make is for pretzels dipped in chocolate. I will NEVER turn those down.

Happy New Year!

"Cheers to a New Year and another chance for us to get it right." -Oprah Winfrey

Yes, thank goodness for second (and third... and fourth...) chances! Happy 2013, everyone!

It's been a while since I've updated. I'm not going to make this a huge long update to cover everything, because trying to keep up is what gets my blog backed up to begin with. Here's a bit of what we've been doing:

• Went to a benefit concert at my old high school, raising money to help pay for a civics and arts center in my hometown. It was great!

  

  Picture from dinner before the concert. It's been a while since we've taken a picture together!                                       

• Had Thanksgiving with my family. Totally relaxing.
• Did my first Black Friday shopping in my hometown - and I did it by myself! I only got a couple things, but there was one bigger-ticket item I wanted that I was able to get: a KitchenAid stand mixer! I've used it several times since buying it, and I love it.

  

  The wait outside of Kohl's before midnight

                                  
                                            
• We switched David over from sleeping in a crib to sleeping in a toddler bed. Really, we just took one of the sides off the crib, and that works perfectly. He does really well in the bed, and we haven't had much trouble since the switch. :)
• I threw a Christmas gingerbread house-making and movie-watching party! It was fun! We watched the Christmas classic White Christmas.
                                                
• Went to California for Christmas with Jason's family. It was wonderful! And colder than I was expecting for California. And rainier. Yuck. But I loved it all the same! We also rented our first rental car while we were there so we could drive the 8-ish hours from Jason's aunt's house to his Dad's house, where he lives about an hour outside of LA. It was fun visiting him, and driving a 2012 car... if I ever own a car made in 2012, it'll be in 2020, just because we're never going to have a new car... *sigh*

  

  This is the beautiful car we drove. It was even red! Oh, I miss that car... Haha!

• I got sick during our trip to California. I had the nastiest sore throat. It was awful. Thankfully, we were able to relax a TON during the break, so that helped a lot.
• We came home to Ohio and there was SNOW on the ground! It's snowed a few times since then, and I love how beautiful everything is. I love the snow. As long as it doesn't come before December and it doesn't last after March. :)
• We celebrated Andrew's 4th birthday! He turned 4 on Sunday. I can't believe he's 4 years old. The time just passes so quickly... Anyway, he has his 4-year wellness appointment in about 45 minutes, so when I get back, I might do another update just about him and how he's grown.
• We celebrated New Year's with my parents! We spent the night at their house, and everything was really laid back. I read a book, we all watched tv, and the boys slept right through everything. Happy 2013!

And now we're back to the regular daily doings that are known as Life. It's always hard for me, going back to normal after the hustle and bustle and fun of the holidays. It's almost depressing, but I'm trying to keep my head up and have a good attitude and keep life fun. Maybe I'll make some cookies later today. ;)

Secret: I think my brain has a hard time multi-tasking. Or letting me do things outside of my normal patterns.  With my boys, I'm constantly frustrated or flustered because there's constant upheaval or chaos. My brain doesn't know how to process it all or how to begin to get things back to how they should be. I think this is part of the disorder I have (Auditory Processing Disorder, or something like that). The problem is, I don't know where to start to fix it. *sigh*