Bunny Love

This year marked Hollis's third official Easter, and this year I had some plans.  I am not religious and I am not traditional or ceremonial. This is fine and usually I am okay with it, but when you have kids you want them to have fond memories of their childhood.  I grew up in mixed family, a working poor family, and despite how hard my parents worked day in and day out, raising five children, they never forgot to celebrate a holiday.

Easter was big holiday in my family.  My Uncle Nate would throw a huge Easter party every year.  There would be an egg hunt and an egg toss.  Everyone would show up and have a great time.

This year, Auntie K was here to help remind us of the importance Easter fun.  She got Hollis all excited to color and decorate eggs.  She found a ninja turtle inspired egg project and Hollis was sold.  He talked about everyday until we made eggs together.  On Easter, I missed a neighborhood hunt and brunch, but luckily Hollis was with friends and went to Lincoln School for a hunt.  He had a great time!

"Turn the page"

Every night when Hollis and I go to bed together, he cuddles on top of me and asks me to tell him about the fun things that I did.  After I tell him something, he asks me to "Turn the page" or "Next, page Momma."  Sometimes I wish we could just go to sleep, and I forget how incredibly special it is that my little man wants is soothed by hearing me talk about my day. 
Hollis and Georgie came to my first crossfit competition a week ago and cheered me on.  This was the first time he got to see me perform all the things I tell him about each night. 

I will be Captain Hollis and you can be Captain Momma

I need to write down what he says when he says it.  By the time I sit down to blog I can barely piece together the adorable things he says.  He uses his semi-limited vocabulary to express some complicated thoughts and they are just so priceless and unfortunately they are likely to have a short shelf-life.  This morning I asked Hollis for a kiss and he said "I just got to do something real quick and I will kiss you later, I promise."

He is very expressive, with words, with hands and with his face.   I love watching him think about what he wants to say while he is saying it.  It is no easy task.

We just spent a lot of quality time together over Spring Break.  We didn't have much childcare arranged, so it was mostly just me and him.  We went to the park, to a birthday party, the whole family spent a day in Portland. While in Portland, we visited OMSI and the Avalon Nickle Arcade.  We had a blast.

First Day of School

For the last month or so Hollis has been asking to go to school.  He also asks to "go back to soccer game" and "can I play baseball game too."  I think it is great he is able to tell me that he has interests and that he wants to get involved.  Last year my best buddy went in on soccer lessons for Hollis. We all (Hollis included) thought that he would be playing soccer during the lessons, but he just didn't like the whole sitting down and singing songs or talking part of the soccer lessons.  It was an hour long and about half of it was sitting down, a quarter of it was running around looking for sharks, and the remaining quarter was playing soccer.  I spent the entire time trying to fight my child to participate like all the other kids.  He didn't want to do it, and honestly I didn't want him to do it either.  We only made to half of the lessons and I never thought about it again.  Hollis, however, is thinking about it again.  



The last few months I have been trying to wrap my head around preschool.  Which one to choose?  How close is it, what days do they
offer, can we bike there, how many hours do they offer, what do they feed the kids, can we afford it??????   I found the Nymphs in Nature program, a one-hour, one day a week outdoor nature play program during my preschool search and told Hollis he was going to school.  He was thrilled.  We talked about what we put in his backpack, and what we might do when we get there.  Today was his first day, and although he was bummed that Georgie and Ayla weren't there, he had a great time. 

When we walked in to the classroom he was immediately engaged in wonder.  There were tanks and cages with animals.  He was greeted by Teacher Laura, and said "I didn't bring my ninjas."  She showed him where to hang up his backpack and jacket and took him to meet the class rats, Salt and Pepper.  He sat with the class during circle time to learn all about beavers.  He helped dress up a classmate as a beaver.  We went outside and played games, collecting cards that represented a beavers needs and he ran around as a beaver trying to escape the teacher posing as predators. 

We went inside again, the kids built a beaver dam out of sticks and mud and then they put houses and trees in a tank full of dirt,  the teacher scraped out a river in the dirt and then she flooded the tank with water and watched the river fill.  Then the kids helped build a dam.  He loved every minute.  Especially when he saw a box turtle crawling across the room toward him.  He smiled ear to ear as the teacher let him touch the turtle.  We had such a great time.  I look forward to sending him to preschool at the same place.  It will also be nice because we can walk and bike their easily.

Happy Valentine's Day!

The other day we went to a friends house and they were making cookies.  The kids were making cookies.  Hollis jumped right in and helped with mixing and putting the drop cookies on a sheet.  I could tell that he was really engaged and that he liked being a part of the process.  I wondered why I haven't done this at home.

The next day was a Co-op day for me, which means I had all three kids with me.  It was the day before Valentine's day so I decided we would make cookies and valentines together to take home.  Maybe not too surprising but Hollis had more difficult time with me.  He just kept eating the sugar, the sugar-peanut butter mixture, the sugar-peanut butter-flour mixture and so on.  I tried to be cool as the mamma I watched the day before, and I think I did okay.  I sort of rushed the whole experience as to keep the kids from eating all of the chocolate chips.  But they did a lot of work, and it was great to give them the baking experience.

The cookies turned out great - although there is not much chocolate chips in them!   Happy Valentine's Day!

Nakakeens, Mousy Ousy and more Hollis-onics

Each day Hollis gets a little bit better at communicating and I know that his made up words will slowly disappear from our family vocabulary.  I just want to take a moment to record some of my favorites.  Usually we a have tough time figuring out what he is talking about and then we adopt the words into our own vocabulary.

Nakakeen - Napkin
Mousy Ousy - Mike Wazowski
Marfa - Martha
Omul - Oatmeal
Ogurd- Yogurt
Bassettball - Basketball
Ocopose - Octopus
Egos - Legos

Big Changes, Mixed Feelings

"Momma, take a picture of me in my Sponge Bob jammies, please."
 
Hollis had his last serving of "milkies" the day before Thanksgiving, the night we tried putting on some size 3 two-piece jammies instead of his go to zip-up onsies.  He was so excited to fit into jammies just like Georgie wears. 

I didn't have a plan for breastfeeding.  I knew I wanted to let him call the shots for as long as I could handle, and for the first 2 years or so it was going fine.  Recently Hollis became really demanding about feeding, and wanted milk sometimes 5 times a day.  I felt like we were going backward.  He started to eat less at meal times, and sometimes would skip dinner.  I started to think it was time wean.  I still have mixed feelings.  I loved holding him close and watching him fall asleep in my arms.  I love that he can be nourished by me, but it has to happen sometime, and well I decided to go for it.

With how tough it was to lessen his feedings, I thought a cold turkey wean would have been much more difficult of a transition.  He has surprised me.  On Wednesday morning, I told him that he was a big ninja now, wearing big boy jammies just like Georgie, just like Ayla and that he doesn't need "Momma milkies" anymore.  He seemed a little sad but mostly proud to a be a growing up. 

Also since Thanksgiving Hollis has kept his underwear clean.  He has being making both 1s and 2s on the potty.  The times they are a changing!