The Jespersen Family: A New Year

Oh, new year's resolutions. I'm a sucker for them every time. My goal is to blog once a week this year. Since there is no sense trying to catch up on the past I'm just going to have to move forward.

*I have officially weaned Pete. Since March of 2011 I've only had three months that I wasn't pregnant or nursing. So, yeah, it was a little bit sad to be done--to realize I'm all done ever being pregnant or nursing, but I'm pretty excited, too.

*Speaking of nursing, (sorry Clair, I promise this is the only crude one) when I was nursing in the family room when Pete was a little baby, and after switching sides, Jack asked, "Are you having fun with the other boob, Pete?"

*Jane and Jack have been playing Trouble on repeat. It's cute. I'm glad they are both old enough to be able to play board games now.

*Christmas break has been great. It is so much easier for me to just have the kids at home, sporadically having to bathe them, not doing any homework, and not trying to get them anywhere on time. There has been the run of the mill sibling arguing but there has also been a lot of good playing.

*A long, long time ago, when Jack was still in preschool he told Jane that his preschool friend TJ told everyone at school about how he fell in the water and a dolphin pushed him out to save him. Jane said, "There's something you need to know about people in preschool. They lie."

*Jack has, unfortunately, learned that the term for a tummy ache is not, "stummy ache".

*Jack started kindergarten. He didn't like it too much at first. He said, "Mom, you have to sit there with your lips like this (closed). And your arms like this (down). And your legs like this (crossed). You can't touch anybody....THE WHOLE TIME." But he is starting to like it more.

*At first Jack was disappointed with the amount of friends he was (or wasn't) getting. When I would ask why he wasn't making friends he said, "Nobody looks good." I never got clarification on what, exactly, he wanted them to look like. Eventually he started branching out but he had the hardest time remembering anyone's name. But I knew he was asking them because he told me once how he goes about getting friends. He explained, "I go up to them and say, Do you want to be friends? Then they say yes or no. If they say yes I say, We should tell each other our names."

*Hank and I survived potty training pretty well. He is not perfect by any means but he is diligent about the poo. I can handle the pee accidents as they come. We have our toilet sticker charts that he loves and the toy he is working towards getting on top of the cabinet above the toilet. If you ask Hank how he will get the toy he will point from his butt to the toilet and make hilarious and horrible-sounding poo noises.

*One time Jack told me about his dream. He said, "I was dreaming about heroeing and hugging the sun."

*Jack asked me (while I was taking care of Pete), "You can do whatever you want with your baby, right Mom? But you don't want to kill him."

*Jane told me, "Mom, I draw and sing like a teenager. I'm really good at those two things."

*I just checked and can't believe I didn't write about Hank at all last year. Oh man, he has been adorable too. He was pretty late at talking. He has gotten much better now but the sound of his voice and cadence is still pretty awesome. Did I ever talk about how he loved drinking from tiny little cups. I'm talking TINY. Like a lego cup that only holds a drop. He would sip it and give a satisfied sigh. And for some reason "mamoo" meant help me. But he's much bigger now.

*The other day I was sitting with Hank in his room and he was getting into his wild and crazy hyper mood where he yells in a raspy voice. So he climbed onto his changing table dresser and found his money jar. He yelled, "That Hank money!" He excitedly got out a dollar bill, looked at the picture on it and yelled, "What?! That's not me!"

*Hank is the sweetest kid. Matt and I talk often about how we hope we don't ruin him. He's so polite, always says please and thank you. And he shares all the time. Even when I would rather he not, because the sibling he's sharing with doesn't deserve it because they are being jerks, he will still share.

*Hank gets tired of feeding himself sometimes. He would just rather we do it. It's annoying because, you know, I have another baby to feed. But sometimes Hank will grab a toy or something and hold it in both hands and protest, "I have no hands!" meaning he has no hands with which to be able to feed himself. So, that's cute.

*Hank is so funny about the little names we call him. I'd never noticed just how often you refer to people as something other than their name. But with Hank calling us out on it every time it's gotten pretty funny. "Goodnight, son" "I not son, I Hank." "Ah, Hank, I love you, man." "I not man." "Come here my little baby." "I not baby." "You're such a sweetie." "I not sweetie, I Hank."

*For awhile Jane and Jack were getting along really well when they were their alter egos, Sasha and Bronson.

(Time for facebook status reposts. This is what this blog has come to:)

*Sometimes Jack gets super grumpy and A LOT of things bother him. Like just now, when he came down the stairs with a scowl on his face (and not eating anything). "Being a kid is so dumb!" "Why Jack?" "Because! Because I have to just keep swallowing and swallowing!" (Demonstrates a couple exaggerated swallows). "I swallow once and I have to swallow again. And again and again and again! Being a boy is dumb."

*Jane loves birds and put together a bird watching costume for Halloween. She was so excited. After school she said, "Mom, I look like a boy."

"Who said that?"
"Two kids."
"Oh, that's sad. They don't have parents that have taught them that girls can be whatever they want to be? That they can be a girl without dressing like a princess? They haven't been taught that boys can look like girls and girls can look like boys because we are all so much alike?"
Jane was silent so I asked, "What do you think?"
She said, "That's true. That worked." And she ran off to look at birds.

*Jane and I procrastinated her optional Reflections school project until the last possible minute when she drew something as fast as possible. After reading it needed to be mounted on something hard and have a mission statement and with school starting in just two minutes I asked Jane if she REALLY wanted to turn it in. She said yes....and that everyone who turned something in would get a Rice Krispie treat. I laughed and said that was such a silly reason to do it. And she said, "Why? Who doesn't love a good Rice Krispie treat?" Touché.

*During the first week of school Jack came home with a blank piece of paper and a note for me to make him a "kissing hand" for him to take to school to have when he misses me. He handed it to me and said, "Let's just throw this away. I DO NOT need to put a piece of paper next to my cheek."

*Jack is always trying to process dying. He asks a lot of questions about it. When my parents were visiting this summer we saw him looking at my dad's arm when he started singing, "Guess who's going to die soon? Not me. Not me." I don't think my parents quite knew what to make of it but I knew exactly what he was getting at. So I asked him later why he was thinking about who would die soon. He said, "Cause I think grandma and grandpa are going to die soon, but not THAT soon." "Why do you think that?" "Cause they have a lot of cracks and lines in their skin." And then after kindergarten started he told me after having a sub, "She was really old. Good thing I didn't sing, "Guess who's going to die soon?"

*Jane combined the words fine and lucky to describe how she was feeling. The resulting word was vulgar+y. Now she just told me she combined the words shiny and glitter to name her new ball. We had a fun discussion on appropriate and inappropriate terms for toilets.

*Jane was SO nervous for Jack to go to kindergarten this year. "What if he doesn't make friends? What if there's a bully? What if he gets in trouble? Or what if he gets HURT! I don't want him to go to school! I just want him to stay at home and have fun!" Poor girl.