"Spring" and life

It's technically spring here in Michigan, but it sure doesn't feel like it or look like it.  A lot of the snow has finally melted and now we're left with bare trees, muddy grass, grey skies and a colorless everything else.  This is the time of year in Michigan that I will NOT miss.  We are trying to be creative in keeping the kids and ourselves happy and busy, but I think everyone simply wants and needs warmer weather.  I am longing for the day the kids can just ran out the back door, barefoot and with no jacket.  It still seems so far away!

I'm growing a bit more uncomfortable with each day but am SO grateful to be feeling well right now in this pregnancy.  The first trimester was rough until week 14 or 15.  I never threw up, but I was completely exhausted and felt really sick at night.  Every night.  And now with just over 2 months to go, I'm getting very excited to meet this little person inside of me.  And we're all getting excited to find out whether it's a little brother or a little sister.  Dan has jumped sides and now wants a baby sister.  The other day I overheard him in his room telling John and Joe, "It seems like we have too many boys in our family!" Haha.  John is still holding out for a baby girl, and Joe is neutral.  He doesn't seem to have too much of an opinion on it.  I'm still pretty neutral.  I see the 4 boys playing together, wrestling, riding bikes, building forts, running around outside and watching basketball with their dad and can't help but want another boy to join the gang.  But another side of me would love for them to have a little sister.  So really I think either way I'll be happy.  Everyone except Will definitely understands what's coming.  Dan will often come hug my tummy and say "Baby!"  And Joe can be surprisingly very thoughtful about it.  He'll ask, when is the baby going to come out?  And, how does the baby come out?  I told him there was a special hole in my body where the baby comes out.  His response was, What is it called?  I had to think about that one for a second... I told him it was called the birth canal.  And phew, the questions stopped there :)

I'm so excited to have another baby join our family, and I actually am looking forward to starting this next chapter of our lives in Boston, but honestly I'm kind of dreading doing both at once.  A new baby is so much work, and moving is so much work, so I get a little anxious thinking about the month of June.  It's sure to be a chaotic one.  Knowing that my mom will be coming for a couple weeks followed by Pete's parents helps calm me down a bit.  And so many people have told me they want to help out when it gets closer, so it's nice knowing we will have a lot of support.

John will also be getting baptized at the end of June.  I was a little bummed when I found out we wouldn't be here in Michigan for his baptism so he could invite some friends, but it will work out.  If things go as planned, we'll baptize him in Boston while Pete's parents are still out helping us with the move.  I really can't believe he'll be old enough to get baptized.  For so long I thought parents with kids who were old enough to be baptized seemed so old, and now I'm joining them :)  John is such a sweet kid, I feel so lucky to have him as the oldest.  He's a good example to his youngers.  He has started reading the Book of Mormon on his own without me ever telling him he should.  Not every day, but a couple days a week.  He'll often read on the way to church, then continue reading through the first part of Sacrament meeting.  And sometimes if he sees me reading, he'll go get his scriptures and read too.  I told him when I was younger I had a goal to finish reading the Book of Mormon by the time I turned 12, and he told me he wants to do the same thing.

I'm still teaching John and Dan piano.  We practice every morning before school for about 30 minutes each.  That means I have to wake them up at 6:15, which seems so early, even for me, but piano doesn't happen if we wait until after school.  They come home tired and wanting to relax.  We've worked into a good routine though.  We wake up and eat breakfast with everyone while we read scriptures (we found it's a lot easier to read while they're eating in the morning than it is at night when everyone is all riled up).  Then we practice piano.  John starts first on the even days, since his birthday is on an even day, and Dan starts first on the odd days.  John practices on his own for the most part.  I'll sit down with him on Mondays and go over a few new things for him to practice, then he'll take it from there.  But I'll pop in if I he needs help.  I still sit with Dan for the 30 minutes.  He has a really hard time staying focused and knowing what to do if I'm not right there.  Some mornings he is the happiest kid and giving me hugs in between songs and exclaiming "I love you, mom!" and some mornings he wants nothing to do with the piano and tells me he doesn't even like it, and it's all I can do to get him to play anything.  And sometimes I just have to walk away and tell him I can't practice with him when he's acting like that.  I prefer the mornings when he's giving me hugs :)  John and Dan would probably move faster with the piano with a teacher who knew what she was doing, I probably don't expect enough from them.  But it's working alright for now.  I may start Joe in the fall, we'll see.  He wanted to learn Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, so I taught him that.  And Will is so funny, a couple days ago he pulled out John's piano book, opened it up, sat it on the piano, then hopped up on the bench and started playing.  Haha.  Such a cutie.  Copies everything his brothers (and I) do.

School has been really good for John and Dan this year.  John has Ms. Budd and Dan has Ms. Cook and I have liked both of them a lot.  They both seem to fit in with the other students and have made friends and enjoy going to school.  On Fridays it just so happens that Ms. Cook and Ms Budd's classes get together and have assigned "reading buddies," pairing the Kindergartners up with the 2nd graders.  So they let John and Dan be together, and they just love it.  John really enjoys math and art and Dan has become a great reader.

It has been fun having Joe be my little buddy at home.  We have a lot of time together with John and Dan being at school all day and Will napping for a couple hours every afternoon.  It's amazing how fast younger siblings catch on to stuff when they have older ones leading the way.  Joe is starting to read and is so proud of himself.  He still has another year until he'll start Kindergarten and I'm leaning towards just keeping him home with me instead of doing preschool.  We'll see.  I don't really know what the options will be in Boston, but I've heard it's pretty expensive.  And I really do enjoy my one-on-one time with him.  Although I guess there won't be quite as much of that in the fall with the new baby around.

And Will.  Oh Will.  He is just entering the "terrible 2's" and I have no doubt he will give us some trouble this year.  The kind of trouble that you can laugh about later.  Earlier this week I came upstairs to find the contents of my wallet scattered all over the floor next to the computer.  I guess I had left my wallet up on the table.  After putting everything back I realized 3 of my credit cards and a swimming pass were missing.  I looked around for them everywhere but couldn't find them.  So later that day I brought Will upstairs and pointed to my wallet and showed him my a credit card and asked him where he had put the other ones.  So he pulls a push toy up next to the computer, stands on it and points to the place on the computer where you put a CD in (he can't say much yet, so I had to go off of body language, pointing and facial expressions).  And sure enough, I could see the edge of one of my cards!  I would have never found them.  Until I tried to put a CD in, that is.  I was able to get the 3 credit cards out, but the swim pass wasn't budging.  So after a little research online, I found out the best thing to do was to turn the computer on its side and give it a firm shake and let gravity help.  Duh.  It came right out.

Pete has gotten the kids into March Madness this year.  He helped John and Dan fill out their own brackets and boy, they have become crazy about it.  Especially John.  I've never seen such a young boy get so into the games.  It seems like he's going to die when a game is close in the last minute or two.  He'll wake up and want to check the scores from the night before to see who won which games and then compare it to his bracket.  He passed up a bike ride with dad to watch one of the games last week, couldn't be pulled away.  It's probably a good thing it only lasts about a month.

I am loving this stage of life.  The kids are at such fun ages.  They are little buddies and still so innocent.  They love to wrestle.  John, Dan and Joe often go over to the couch after dinner and have their little wrestling match.  Someone always gets hurt.  If they come crying to me I tell them to sit on Dan's "roly poly."  It has become the recovery chair.  Sometimes the shirts come off and the kids start flexing their muscles.  Will will then run over to me and will want me to help him take off his shirt too.  He likes to be a part of the madness.  Although if Will gets on the couch, John will usually holler out to me to come get him.  Will always gets hurt and isn't the most fun to wrestle with just yet.  I found some kids punching gloves and helmets (the real deal) at a garage sale last year but still haven't given them to the kids yet.  But I'm sure they'll get a lot of use out of them when I do.

We went for a walk on the bike path downtown this afternoon.  The sun was shining, the sky was blue, the temps were in the high 40's and it was absolutely wonderful.  The sun actually felt warm on my face.  John and Joe brought their bikes, Will walked and rode in the stroller and Dan wanted to run.  Pete and I were pretty slow with Will, so the 3 older ones would race ahead and then race back.  Joe would usually (ok, always) come in third place, but didn't seem to upset about it.  But one time he got back to us and John and Dan and said, "Oh!  I got last place!"  And Dan came over and patted him on the back and said in a positive voice, "No, Joe!  You got third!"  Joe seemed excited about this and they kept on racing.  The kids are so supportive of each other and I really hope that that can continue.

Earlier today at church, the kids wanted to sit extra close to me and Will refused to leave my lap (which is getting to be a bit uncomfortable with my belly poking out so much).  John wanted to cuddle into one of my sides and Dan and Joe were on the other.  I kept telling people to scoot down and give me a little more room, but within a couple minutes everyone would be right back where they were.  I tried to get Will to sit on Pete's lap, but he almost started to cry when I started handing him over.  So I was stuck.  I had to take a deep breath and remind myself that someday I would probably miss these 4 little bodies suffocating me :)  Sometimes I do enjoy the snuggles and all the touching, but today I was counting down to the time when the kids would be off to nursery and Primary and I would be able to sit for almost 2 hours without someone sitting on my lap.