Thirty seconds of time...

Henry is the best baby ever.  EVER.  He eats, he sleeps, he eats again, he sleeps again.  Not a whole lot else going on.  He's now almost a month old, which would put him at about a week old for a full-term baby.  He's about eight pounds now, I think.  He looks like Benjamin and Ethan combined, so I tend to call him Bethan.  I can't wait to see what his little face is going to look like in a few months.  He really is a sweet baby.  I can't stress that enough.  I wish that I had more exciting things to say about him, but hey, he's a newborn.  They don't do a whole heck of a lot. 

We finally have our sweet Ethan back.  He will a total pill for about six weeks.  Oh, he was terrible.  We aren't sure what that spell was all about, but we are sure glad it's over.  I actually thought to myself one day that he was my least favorite child.  I laughed about it afterwards because you're not supposed to have favorites when it comes to your own children, but at that moment, I really did.  But he's back to being our funny one, and he always amuses us so.  Pretty sure he's going to be a prankster of some sort when he gets older.  I'm not sure why I feel that way, but I do.   

Benjamin is just a doll baby.  I've said it a million times, but he really is.  Funny thing about Bp this week is that he likes his lips brushed after you brush his teeth.  Well, the whole scenario is that I let him brush his teeth and then I finish it all up for him.  His lips have been chapped something awful for about a month (no idea why!), so I've been brushing them after I brush his teeth to get off some of that yuckiness.  They've finally about healed and I forgot to brush his lips last night, and he looked at me strange and said that he needed his lips brushed.  He looked in the mirror and puckered up and was completely serious and I had to turn my head because I didn't want him to see my laughing.  Just the seriousness was what made me laugh. 

Combining blogs

We've had to combine the blogs!  It's too difficult to keep everything updated.  I'll keep Benjamin's blog intact, but most of his future postings will be on this blog.  Poor little Ethan's blog hasn't been written in in over a year, so maybe something will finally get recorded about him.  My own blog is definitely going to be combined into this one.  I'm not really sure how I'll even have time for my own thoughts, but  maybe they will somehow spill over into this blog.  Here's hoping, but no promises. 

Jail

This is the conversation we had when we arrived home from gymnastics this morning:

Bp:  Mommy, I wasn't strapped in.
Me:  Benjamin, I heard it click.
Bp:  I unstrapped it.
Me:  (in my most serious voice)  Benjamin, that is very unsafe and Mommy could go to jail for that.
Bp:  (in his most serious voice)  That's good to know.  But Mommy, I would come and get you if you were in jail.
Me:  That's also good to know.  I appreciate that.  But please don't do that again.

Angels

I know that you'll probably all think that I'm crazy, but perhaps not.  Maybe you've noticed this yourself with your own children.  When Benjamin was very small (less than 4), and a story was read to him about angels, he would comment that he liked angels.  Now, being a little skeptical, I would ask him what an angel was, and he would always respond with a description of their wings.  I'd ask if he saw angels during the day and he would always respond with "during the sunny day" (he still says this part), which means in the morning to him.  So okay, sure, why not see angels during the morning?  It's always been my favorite part of the day, and I really miss waking up early (completely well rested, mind you) and being outside.  But back to the story, the point is that he has always commented on angels, and has always seemed to know what they were.  I have no idea if he knows or has ever known what their purpose is in our lives, but he loves them.  And then a funny story...

So he loves reading out of his Bible.  I'm not even bragging about this because it isn't as if I have made huge encouragements for him to do so.  It's not ME at all, even though that would be nice if it were.  We have several children's Bibles, but one in particular is more of a big kid type Bible, and he favors that one the most lately.  It has 512 pages.  I know.  He will look at it for an hour if he's left alone with no distractions.  This is a VERY long time for him to do anything.  So the other night he wants me to read it to him before bed, and we get to one of the stories with an angel, and he says, "I wish I had wings."  And I was sort of paying attention, and sort of reading, and I said, "Oh, like an angel?"  The response was laughter and, "No, like a helicopter."  So part of laughed and part of me cringed because it was a signal that he's growing up.  There are reasons that God lets the very young see angels- they have no reason to doubt their existence.  He still loves to read about angels, but he doesn't talk about them anymore.  

He is growing up so quickly, and so many big kid mentalities are creeping in.  It's a bittersweet time, but mostly just sweet.  He sits and plays video games on his ipad, and says cool and awesome with regularity.  He wants to sit with Daddy and play his "fight man game" (which btw isn't like gruesome or anything, although the characters are a bit too shady for my liking) when he really should be going to bed.  We have pics of his birthday coming up! 

Candy

B:  (said while pulling up shirt) My baby needs candy.

Me:  Well, babies like healthy foods like bananas and strawberries.

B:  My baby certainly likes candy.

Selfish girl.

So yesterday, I realized how selfish I really am, and it was such a horrible feeling. 

Benjamin is just over the line of being completely functional, and sometimes I get annoyed by the small things in our life that are inconvenient.  For example, he has a few OCD tendencies, and nothing major (yet) like the typical hand washing or turning on lights over and over.  Most of them are actually quite common, and apply to lots of neurotypical children as well.  So sometimes they annoy me, and especially so if I'm tired, or hungry, or thirsty, or if the sky is blue, or... ha, no, it's not that bad, but it's hard being pregnant and having a baby that is getting increasingly heavy and still wakes up two or three times a night on most nights.  So my patience gets thin, and as with any child, patience is something that you really do not want to run out of at any time.  And on top of it, I had contractions yesterday afternoon, so that made it a bit worse.  (I'm fine.) 

When I say that we've been potty training for years, I'm not kidding.  He gets better, he gets great, he's at rock bottom again, he gets better, etc.  It's just like anything that we've ever had to do with him, but since it's affecting us more, it's a major issue these days.  And he's turning five in a few months, and just thinking about that makes me cry and grieve all over again.  I hate birthdays, I do.  I'm not some crazy "I hate parties" Mom, I promise.  It's just that parties bring birthdays front and center, and sometimes it's just easier for me not to acknowledge that he's another year older.  It's hard to explain to people who have "normal" children because these types of thoughts just never enter their minds.  They're usually worrying about their kid being able to read in kindergarten, and here I am, still worrying about him using the potty.  Textbooks will tell you it's just part of the grieving process, and I do agree with that... sometimes it's just harder than others.

So I'm sitting there, irritated with him, and I remember that he's so small.  And he's only small once.  And he might not ever be completely potty trained.  One day he will grow up, and I don't want him to remember the irritation in my voice.  He knows it irritates me, and he is trying... some things are just harder for him, and he knows that without having it explained to him, which brings up a whole lot of other issues about self-realization that he's different.

And this rarely happens, but I wished my life different... and it's such a horrible feeling.  Benjamin is such a sweet child, and God gave him to me specifically.  So basically, I wished that God had given him to someone else.  Given my Benjamin to someone else.  I was heart broken for myself for even thinking of such a selfish notion.

I am reminded that all children are a gift.  

fairness

Sometimes I wonder what is fair for my child in terms of explaining his disability.  Should I just tell people?  Or should I just let him be who is, and then let them wonder?  Part of me wants to do both, but usually I just inevitably say nothing and hope for the best.  I'm way past making excuses for his behavior, and I have the luxury of doing so because he is still a young child.  Not that I'm fearful for the future (Well, obviously I am a tiny bit.  I doubt that you'd find any parent who isn't at least a little fearful.), but I know that there will be a time in our future where people will start to notice that he's a bit different.  People do notice now, of course, but most people can't quite put their finger on it since his language skills have progressed so nicely.  So I never really know what the best answer is when we meet new people.  I'm always thinking in my heart that the best answer is that he's special, but that has such a bad connotation because people use that to mean "slow."  Benjamin is most emphatically not slow.  Neurotypical learning impaired, yes.  Slow, no.  Special?  Most definitely.

(as I'm being backwards bear-hugged)