Two Glorious Years with Everett D!

Two years ago, at 1:26 a.m., Everett Daniel Foster entered the world.  We have been in love from the very beginning.  It is really amazing and wonderful what each child brings to the family dynamic and how hard it is to imagine what life was like without them.  Ev wants to be a part of the action, but is also content to sit and flip through books by himself or play with his "duys" (guys).  He loves to be funny and make people laugh.  He has cheeks that are so kissable and make his momma so happy.  His neck is super ticklish, just like mine.  He takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin'...brother has had more bumps and bruises (often to his sweet face) than our other two kids combined.  He is pretty easy-going, but will also stand up for himself and what he wants, often loudly.  Recently we took away the bink (pacifier) he'd had just for naps and bedtime.  Turns out, it was a magic bink that gave us 2-3 hour naps every day; since we took it away, naps either haven't happened or have been cut in half.  Oh well. He insists, "Play now!  Play now, please!" when I am putting him down for a nap and the other day as I put him in bed, dead asleep, he lifted his head and mumbled, "Play now..." and then settled in for a nice, longish, nap. :)

Everett D, you are such a cute, happy little man!  We love you so very, very, very much.  I am excited to see you take on your new role of big brother.  When you see a baby you crinkle up your nose in a sweet smile and say, "Oh, so doot!" (cute)  I love your spirit, your excitement, and the way that you take on the world.  You are going to accomplish a lot of goodness in your life, Ev.  Especially if you keep those cheeks.  You'll go far in life with cute cheeks like those.

Some things I LOVE and don't want to forget about the Ev Man (peppered with pictures from the last two years) ...

• He can say Kelly, but insists on calling his sister La La.  We all love it.  "La La, where aaaaare you?"
• EVERY TIME the car stops while we are driving (traffic, stop sign, red light) he'll say, "Do, please!" *go, please* I have to explain to him every time that I will go as soon as I can and he'll say with a resigned sigh, "Okay."

• If I smell a poopy diaper and ask Everett if he's poopy he'll say, "No, Max is!"  I say in a joking voice, "MAX is poopy?!"  Then he'll say, "No, La La is" and we'll go through everyone in the family until I get his bottom changed.  He thinks it's all very funny, and so do I.
• I'm not sure where he gets it because I say, "What in the world?!", but Everett D has taken to saying, "What da heck?!"  I didn't like it when Max said that at Everett's age (it just sounded too old and harsh from such a little person), but for some reason when Ev says it, it just sounds cute and funny.  I don't necessarily encourage it, but I haven't stopped it either.
• Brother has also taken up saying, "You kidding me?!"  Makes us laugh e-v-e-r-y time, which is his goal.

• Poor brother has a complex about being left behind.  Any time he notices that someone is about to leave the house, he comes running saying, "Me!  Me!  Me!" and goes to the closet to get his shoes.  
• We did The Twelve Days of Christmas for a few families this year and he had to be part of the action each time.  I loved it because every time we went running back to the van, he would sound winded, breathing really heavy...even though we carried him. :)

• He loves to snuggle "Mama, nuggle, please" and is my first child to have a blanket he loves.  I'm glad we don't have to take it everywhere, but when brother is in the mood for a 'nuggle', the blankie is often a part of the action.
• Speaking of the blanket, it has satin edges around it and I realized about 8 months ago that when I laid Everett down with it, he would run his hands along the edges until he got to a corner.  He then took the corner and rubbed it between his middle and pointer finger.  That has evolved to a favorite corner of the blanket and while I'm reading him stories before nap or bed time, he'll move the blanket around until he's found the special corner.

• Ev is more solid than Max at that age and that translates to fun wrestling and football times with Dad, Max and Kelly.  He rarely gets hurt or complains when he is tackled.  He'll get a ball, crouch down and say, "Set, hike!" and go running to throw himself into the couch/beanbag/recliner.
• Brother knows how to work this mama.  He has the cutest expressions and will give me the sweetest look and say, "Please.  Please, mama."  I have a really hard time saying no to him

• Ever since Ev was a baby, like brand-new from the hospital, he has cried big tears.  It broke my heart the first time because my other two babies hadn't cried real tears until they were older.  He kind of works the tears now and can bring them out when he wants something.  It is rather obvious when he's doing that and it makes me giggle inside, sometimes out loud.
• He is independent and loves to do things, "myself...no, myself" which I don't mind one bit.  He is, after all, going to be a big brother in a few months.

• Speaking of becoming a big brother, he is our first child to reach the age of two without becoming an older sibling!
• Everett LOVED the Christmas lights this season and would excitedly squeal, "MORE YIGHTS!!!" about a million times (slight exaggeration...very slight) every time we were in the car in the month of December.  His squeal would often end in excited laughter, which was very contagious.

HAPPY 2nd BIRTHDAY, EV MAN!

Clumsy

I get those weekly e-mail baby updates - what the baby looks like, how your body and life is changing. Yes, this is my fourth child, but heck if I can remember the week-by-week stuff! Just last week it was talking about how your center of gravity is off now and to be more careful.  That ain't no joke, folks.

I fell last night.  It was awful.  We were walking in the parking lot, headed into Max's first basketball game (SO cute).  I was carrying Everett D.  Kelly decided to cross right in front of me and I didn't see her (you know, big baby bump and a toddler in one arm).  My foot caught hers and the stumble began.  Except it wasn't straight down.  I was trying to recover and in the process of trying to recover, I was hurling myself and my almost-2-year-old straight toward a curb about 5 feet in front of us.  I remember thinking, "I can recover, I can recover, I can...oh my gosh, lift your arm, don't let Ev hit the curb...oh my gosh, the baby!"  Then, THUD.  Immediately I threw up a little because the impact was so intense.  Everything hurt, but my immediate worry was Everett.  Tyler (who'd been walking next to me but couldn't catch us in time) was most worried about me.  I stood up and realized I couldn't really breathe because the fall had knocked the wind out of me.  I wanted to cry so much, but I mostly wanted to check out Ev and calm him down.  After that was accomplished (he has just one tiny bruise on his hip where he hit the curb, poor fella), I felt like I wanted to go back to the van and cry - not just because it hurt, but because it was so traumatic to have put two of my kids at risk.  But moms can't always do that and this was one of those times that I needed to brush it off and head into the basketball game.  It was a loooong 10 minutes or so before I felt the babe move in my belly.  Very scary for me.  I was trying to act normal all through the game, but it felt a little difficult to breathe and there was a lot of pressure on my insides.

We got home from the game and Tyler ordered me upstairs to lie down.  By this time my knees and back and neck were all pretty stiff.  And I was also feeling bummed about the new pair of jeans I'd gotten from Old Navy last Friday on a 50% off of their clearance sale (they were $8.99 and fit SO well) because they'd ripped at the knee.  I know, trivial, but it added insult to injury.  Do you know how hard it has been to find jeans I like the fit of?  Ugh.  I laid there, still feeling that same threat of a hard-core cry coming on, hoping that my baby would start wiggling like crazy the way he normally does when I lie down.  He did get some good wiggles going and I was so grateful.  Tyler had started putting the kids down and then a young man came over about 9:00 p.m. for Eagle Project stuff so I finished reading stories and sang some songs to Max and Kelly.  Everett was already asleep.  I went back to my room to lie down and thought I had remembered my little sister had fallen during her pregnancy, so I texted her about it to see if she went to the Dr. (she hadn't fallen).  Then I felt like crying more.  Then I talked it out with Ty and cried a little.  I had dreams about my baby all night.

I feel better this morning and the babe is back to his usual wiggly self.  The pressure is mostly gone.  I'm sore and can't bend my knee very well.  But mostly, I am so thankful everything - and everyone - is okay.  It was a reminder about how quickly things can change, a very small and mostly non-threatening reminder.  It made me feel so grateful.  It was also a reminder about how dependent these little people are on me.  I am very grateful to be a mom.  It's also really scary and sometimes makes me just want MY mom.

Promises have been made (to the hubs) to carry Everett less and less and to be more and more careful and aware of that whole center of gravity shift.  Hopefully that's the scariest thing I have to deal with for the rest of this pregnancy...

Snow! Glorious snow!

In my last post I mentioned that we got some snow in Washington while I was travelling home from Vegas.  It was more of a dusting on our side of the water and these are the pictures Ty took for me since this was the first snow we've had all season.

We don't get huge snowstorms around here very often.  But usually once a year we get slammed (and by "slammed" I mean 6 or so inches)! That's a big deal 'round these parts because it doesn't happen very often and because we don't have the equipment (enough snow plows) to deal with it.

Wednesday morning I was woken up at 5:30 by a phone call from the school saying school was cancelled!  A few hours later we found out Ty would be home for the day!  We danced and cheered and had a yummy breakfast and stayed in our pj's all day.  Well, of course we went out to sled and play in the snow, but we came back in and put pj's back on, had hot chocolate, went back out to build a snowman (the snow wasn't great for this, so our snowman is a little homely), watched a movie together...it was dreamy. Ev wasn't sure about walking in it at first.  He kept saying, "No, wet!"  So he stood at the back door, watching the kids play, until I got out there with him to show him that it was okay to walk in it.

The only thing that made it even more dreamy was that we got to do it TWO DAYS IN A ROW!  School and work both cancelled.  I love, love, love not being able to go anywhere and just being with my little family.  The second morning we actually got a lot of organizing projects done around the house.  That afternoon, Tyler declared we were going sledding on the hill at the elementary school, so he hitched a rope around his waist, tied it to a sled packed with our two youngest kids, and we all headed over to the school on the snowy streets in our neighborhood.  Max and Kelly realized they could slide down on their bellies like penguins and make it down the hill like that...so that's what they did with some of their friends from our neighborhood.  We stayed until it got dark and then headed for home.  Everett D loved sledding the first few times (squealing with joy at the end of the ride), but had a little wipe-out with Ty that wiped out his enjoyment of it all for the night.

After we got home, Max and I stayed outside while Ty and the other kids went inside and got dinner ready.  Max said, "Hey!  This is like a little Mom and Son date!"  We had a snowball fight and went sledding down our street (we live at the bottom of a steep hill) over and over again.  We had a few crashes at the end where we laid there and laughed for a while.  At one point I asked Max if he was freezing yet and he quickly said, "No!"  But then said, "Actually, I AM really freezing, but I'm having so much fun that there's NO WAY I'm going inside yet."  We ended that night playing the Wii as a family.  The next morning school was cancelled again and Ty didn't have to go to work until 11:00.  Even then he had to shovel his way up the hill (took him a half hour or more) and got to come home about 4:00.

I really loved those snowy days!  I am sure I won't love the days tacked on to the end of the school year, but in my estimation they were worth it.  Like, totally.