The cuteness is getting cuter!

With the kids able to talk and express themselves so much more specifically now, I am amazed on a daily basis how much they know and how aware they are of what's up around them.

For example: David stopped me before I went through the kitchen gate with a gentle, "No, no, no, no, Mommy." and shutting the gate in front of me. "Outside?" (Like, "Don't you want to stay outside with me instead of going in the kitchen AGAIN??")

David also went trotting down to the girls' room when I had gotten him up from his nap. He could hear Gracie fussing to be gotten up too, and he reached up, opened the door, went in, and said, "Outside?" again, like "Are you ready to get up and go outside of this room now?"

David comes and finds me with a yell of "Mommy!" and tells me if someone has gotten an "owie."

Marcie remembers things for DAYS. Gavin showed her his blisters a few days ago and she still talks about "Daddy's two owies."

The boys call the motorcycle "Daddy car." They love to watch All About Motorcycles, All About Trucks, and the like.

Seth calls the cat and the dog "kitty" and "puppy" and will ask them to go outside with him, holding the door for them. "Kitty outside?" He'll also say, "No, don't!" and other things like that to the boys who are trying to push him around.

Gracie was eating a small bowl of raisins last night when the cat came up to try to partake with her. Gracie yelled, "Knock it off!" in her little high voice and kept yelling it every time the cat would come back. It was so cute because she said it so deliberately and articulately, but passionately. (She also walked around the house saying, "Marcie, knock it off!" when she was trying to find her, I guess.) Grace is our most articulate speaker.

Marcie says tons of words, but sometimes changes the consonants. Example: "potty" becomes "polly" and "bottom" becomes "bollom." (Can you tell we've been potty training?) "Blanket" is "ban-kek."

Will also has a big vocabulary but misses some of the parts of words. His favorite word currently is "truck," for which he says "kuck" using a lot of back-of-the-throat effort. It's very guttural. :)

Seth calls binkies (pacifiers) "minkies" for some reason.

The kids are only getting their pacifiers in their cribs now (we're serious this time!) because our stash is running dangerously low, plus I think it inhibits their speech and makes Seth work harder to breath through his nose if he has any congestion at all. I will try any and every way I can to slow down his high caloric usage from his chronic lung disease. :)

Will loves to say hello to Papua New Guineans. The afternoon greeting is "apinun," pronounced "ah-pee-noon." Will also loves to say "amen!" at the end of our prayers (and at the beginning, and several times in the middle, for that matter). His amen is pronounced very formally: "Ah-men." So he mixes up the two words - apinun and amen - and says to all the Papua New Guineans we pass in the Store or on the road, "Ah-men-noon!" He really yells it and waves, too. So cute!

What's even cuter is that David thinks Bill Cosby and his family (the Huxtables) on The Cosby Show are Papua New Guineans, so he very devotedly says "apinun!" to them every few seconds. (Does he expect them to answer back?)

David loves to line up cars in a row, stack cars on top of each other VERY meticulously, organize cars into his John Deere tractor compartment carrier, and will try to bite a hunk of flesh out of Will if he comes trundling along to steal and destroy. I sympathize with these kids. There are the organized, A-type ones whose work and plans are waylaid by the random, distractable and destructive ones, or by siblings who just think it looks like fun and try to organize/play their own way with the same objects. Will is the only one who doesn't really focus on a project for a long period. The other four will play very happily and creatively for a long time if left alone. Will always thinks whatever anyone else is playing with or organizing must be the best, so he needs to get in the middle of it too. However, Will loves to sit and read books. He "reads" out loud, which is adorable. Seth will sit and read for ages, but he just names the various things he sees on a page. He doesn't do a "narrative" like Will, sounding like real reading.

Marcie and Gracie potty trained for a day or two before I realized they just aren't ready yet. They had a lot of fun doing it together while it lasted, though. What was super cute was Marcie's "mothering" of Gracie during the process, including using a high-pitched, super sweet voice and crouching down to visually check for any "production" by Gracie.

The girls still refuse to go to bed without the other. They are such good friends!

I'd better get off now and go feed the kids. I have an appointment with the pediatrician on Thursday morning so she can assess Seth, so I'll update soon. In the meantime, his appetite and eating is still on the disappointing side, but I am reminded that this is the least of the battles we've watched Seth fight, and that I am commanded not to worry! :) Philippians 4:6 "Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God." It really helps to start with the thanksgiving because it helps me remember all we've been through with Seth and how loving and merciful God has been!!

Thanks for your kind comments by blog and email. They were encouraging! (Jonathan James, if you can figure out a way to get Blue Bell Homemade Ice Cream and Krispy Kreme here, I will bless you!!)

Gratefully,
Carrie

Gavin with Will and David on his bike. I'm in the far background.

One of our best friends and his sweet daughter with Marcie on the daughter's bike.