Real Superheroes

While looking at himself in the mirror in his Superman pajamas Zeke said, "Mom, you know what, Superman just raises one of his arms like this and then he can fly! How can he do that?" [brief pause] "Oh yeah, I remember, the sun."

I said, "Yeah, maybe if you were on Krypton you would be able to fly!"

Zeke laughed in a that's-just-silly tone and said, "Mom, Krypton isn't real. Remember?"

"True, even superman isn't real." I replied.

"Yeah, the only REAL superheroes are me and Ashlynn."

Four Years Old

The Zekester is FOUR!  He starts Kindergarten in a year.  Yikes.  And super exciting.  Everytime I see a newborn I am amazed at how tiny they are, and each time it is like I have completely and utterly forgotten that my own kids were ever that little.  But they were (see proof)

 

But it is crazy how hard it is to really really remember it.  So I know I will never perfectly remember Zeke at age four  because I will  be too busy loving Zeke at age 7 or 13 or 18.  But I want to remember as best as I can.

 

Zeke absolutely amazes us with how sweet he is.  He seems to be an anomoly of a kid, because he is just super nice.  Oh he is a kid alright, and he will get grumpy or take toys occasionally, or all those things kids (and adults) do.  But on the whole, he is almost outrageously considerate.  If he is getting a drink he gets one for Ashlynn. If he is reading a book he offers one for Ashlynn.  If Ashlynn is sad he runs off in search of Quack-Quack or her blankie, without even anybody asking and he loads her up on hugs.  He does the same for Trustin and I and any friends that are around.  I am struggling to put his sweetness into words, but Trustin and I are constantly impressed by this amazing kid and the way he thinks of others.

Speaking of his sweetness and his uncanny ability to melt his mom's heart: Last week Trustin and Zeke were looking at a picture of Trustin and I on our wedding day.  They talked about that day and how I was wearing a poofy dress and then Trustin said "Mommy sure looked beautiful that day, huh?" Zeke responded frankly, "Well yeah, always!"  Thanks Zeke!

Zeke's current major interest has shifted slightly from superheroes (only slightly, mind you) to RescueBots.  He loves to pretend to be the little boy Cody and have Ashlynn and I choose a character while Trustin is typically Megatron or Daddytron.  While much of the time this game entails defeating villains and running around, playing Rescuebots often means that while in character we pretend to ride bumper cars (and Zeke always says "Everybody keeps crashing into be because my car is every color they like") eat cotton candy and also make pretend chocolate chip cookies.  None of these activities are on the show, yet somehow they have become typical RescueBot activities.

Zeke and his cousin Zach really wanted to be on a soccer team together and Monday was his first game.  There is nothing quite like a bunch of 3 and 4 year olds running around in confusion kicking the ball in whichever direction they happen to be running or stopping to make silly faces with each other as the game goes on around them. 

Zeke and Zach were quite dependent on each other during the game and as the ball would move down the field and the coach would holler out for them to run Zeke would ignore his coach until he could be sure Zachy was running too, and the reverse was equally true.  For the first half Zeke wouldn't kick the ball, and would just stare at it when it landed in front of him until somebody else came to kick it.  But by the end he had kicked it several times (usually with hesitancy and confusion, but followed up by high fives).  We can't wait to see the rest of the season!

Zeke enjoys being a little prankster too.  Most of his pranks are prefaced with "Mommy, don't turn around" or "Mommy, don't look over here," accompanied by a outrageously proud grin, and finished off with me squirted or stickered or otherwise attacked.

Bedtime with Zeke has become a really special time lately.  We are making an effort not to hurry through it and get to our breather time and instead are enjoying it as the perfect time to just be one on one with the kids.  We have had a lot of special chats and silly moments that we probably would have missed out on otherwise.  Zeke of course makes no effort to hurry through bedtime either and is happy to talk about anything he can think of.  He also milks me for every bedtime song he can get out of me.  A favorite tradition at bedtime is that after books, Zeke and whoever's night it was to read to him hide and then call out for the other parent to come and find them.  My personal favorite hiding spot is when Zeke sits on his bookshelf where his lamp belongs underneath a blanket and with the lampshade on his head.  Quite the disguise. 

I've done terrible about writing down the silly things he says or the funny games he comes up with, but I am so glad I get to be a part of them and have that sweet silly guy lighting up my life everyday.  Between him and Ashlynn and my marriage to the world's most incredible, and perfect-for-me man, I am one lucky lady. 

The Little Lady Who Isn't So Little Anymore

Warning: long windedness about an incredibly cute little girl to follow:

Warning number two: We have discovered the truth behind the addage "what you don't use, you lose." This year has been characterized by a lack of picture taking, which was quickly followed up by the disappearance of our camera.  Subsequently, you don't get to see many pictures of Miss Ashlynn, which is really a shame.

Ashlynn turned two last week.  She varies between insisting that she is a big girl and insisting that she is still a baby, and can be quite upset if you call her the wrong one at a given moment.  I can understand; I'm struggling with the transition to her being a big girl too.  She is a cuddly little thing when she wants to be and sometimes will let me cuddle her up in her blankie or towel and just snuggle her and it feels like heaven, holding my little baby.  A few weeks ago she was sick and as I held rocked her in my arms in the middle of the night I wondered if I was sick too because I wasn't pining away for my own bed like my normal middle of the night self would do.  I was loving holding her and easing away her tears at what to her was unexplainable "feel icky."  So I get to snuggle her, and I love that.  But in so many ways, she is definitely growing, and not just out of her clothes, though she is doing that too (anybody else find that all 2T dresses must be designed for girls in the 0 percentile for height?).

Ashlynn's newly acquired nickname is "Little Laffy Taffy."  She is the laughingest kid I've ever seen.  She will sit in her chair or wherever she is and suddenly start laughing, half fake, but then growing real and she will just laugh and laugh and laugh, trying to get Zeke, Trustin or I to join in, (which we can't help doing).  When I push her on the swing (which is possibly her favorite pastime) she will just laugh and laugh like it is the funniest thing in the world, and when I add sound effects, it gets even more hilarious.  I taught the kids about underdogs and now we do a whole variety of under-swings, such as "under-Hulk," "Under-Black Panther," "Under-Dragon" (any guesses who requests these three?) and "Under-monkey" "Under-Cookie" and "Under-sheep.  When I push Ashlynn on our own swingset underdogs aren't really an option so Ashlynn requests sound-effect pushes such as "piggy" "lady-bug" (I know, I wasn't too sure how to do that sound effect either) and "princess push."

Ashlynn, despite the superhero focus of her upbringing, is quite certainly, our little princess.  She has never seen a princess movie besides snippets of Tangled and yet she loves princesses, from princess diapers, to princess shoes,  and princess jammies.  She doesn't play make-believe princess games at all, but she in quite simple terms knows that "Ashin a princess."

She also loves her baby doll and all her accoutrements.  She recently named her baby doll "Quack-quack" and spends much of her day pushing her in the stroller, or carting her around to do whatever she is doing.

Ashlynn loves colors and uses the terms all the time, though rarely correctly.  She insists that she wants a yellow bowl or a red spoon while pointing at a blue or green one, but she is quite adamant that she needs a specific color.  Sadly, she actually seems to be getting the colors right more often than not lately, while I found the previous stubborn but wrong color designations to be adorable.  He favorite color to request is definitely yellow, but she doesn't seem to favor any color in actual fact.

One sweet thing about Ashlynn is that she is a believer in the power of kisses.  It used to be that she would come to us with an injury and ask us to kiss it better.  Recently she discovered that it is far more efficient to just kiss in herself.  And she liberally bestows her kisses on anybody else who has an "owwie." I got blisters on my ankles last week and pretty much every time she see them she bends over and kisses them. 

Perhaps I should have mentioned this first, as it is rather a dominating trait in my little Ash-n-Dash these days: She is INDEPENDENT, really.  Zeke went through a little phase of wanting to do things himself, but with Ashlynn, whoa.  She long ago insisted on choosing her own clothes every day, and now she put her foot down and will not allow anyone else to put them on her either.  This means that her pants are frequently on backwards, jammies are often inside out, and the coordination of her attire is simply eye-catching.  I can sometimes convince her to correct some things but more often than not, it just isn't worth the battle.  Besides, with a mom's eyes, my mismatched, inside out, head trying to pop out a sleeve lady is positively the cutest little thing.

Her independence doesn't stop at clothing. She must open her own doors, carry her own snacks, climb into high places and a hundred other tasks by herself.  Even when she deems to ask for help, she usually rescinds the request as soon as we actually start helping her. She has to put on her own seatbelt every single time we get in the car.  And she can.  It takes a few more minutes than I often wish to wait, but she buckles that pesky little buckle every time like a pro, and I just pull the strap to tighten it.  (But I must never let my hand come near the car seat too soon, or there will be words).  She remains my little fireball and with her independence has come an increase of the unattractive scream "ASHIN DO IT" which at a prompting from me quickly is revised into a lovely simpering "Ashin do it, please."  We are working on that initial response...

Final last tid-bit, for the sake of remembering when I do a birthday page in our family album, Ashlynn requested very little for her birthday this year.  Her requests were "Snacks, a big cookie, and ban-bans (band-aids)" 

PS---Post about Zeke to follow, hopefully tomorrow.  If it doesn't, get on my case.