|
The Christmas season again finds the Yates household full of noise & love and greatly blessed with health & happiness (our wealth = plastic fisher price toys and stuffed Pokemon figures!) We hope the same for you and your loves ones (except for the noise!) The big news is: It's a boy?! In early March -in the middle of the night, of course- our family grew yet again as darling Stealth Baby was born at home, an event which was both fulfilling and satisfying. Everything was quite routine, except he was 9 1/2 pounds! And he was born face first! And he was a boy and not a girl - which, because everyone was dealing with the fact he was coming out wrong, no one thought to check for about 5 minutes! (He's wrapped in pink for all his birth photos, oops) It was a non-event for Pumpkin and Precious. They went to sleep and when the came bounding into the bedroom the next morning, mommy had a baby. If you ask Pumpkin how babies are born he starts off saying, "Well, first you go to sleep. . . " So we had a great morning with all 5 of us snuggled in bed together getting to meet our newest addition. Stealth Baby has been a very special baby for me. Every child is a gift, of course; Pumpkin is the gift of exuberance and Precious is the gift of confidence, but Stealth Baby - our stealth baby - Stealth Baby is the gift of love. He has made me realize the babies are nothing but vessels of unconditional love. You get complete adoration in exchange for simple tasks like smiling at them. Stealth Baby has so much love to offer (much of it reserved for our cat) and it has struck me again and again how really lucky I am to have him be in my life. That said, he adores the cat above reason, followed by his siblings and daddy. I daresay I'm last on the list! Stealth Baby crawls like lightening, and really attempts to be in the thick of things with Pumpkin and Precious! So when they play hide and seek, there's Stealth Baby scrambling down the hallway after them, frantically trying to keep up! Pumpkin is now four and at an Awesome age. Quite simply, Hubby and I have been replaced by a swingset. He's so big (wants to do everything by himself ) and yet so little (he still sleeps with his favorite bunny.) Pumpkin is growing by leaps and bounds, and everyday he does something new on his own. Hubby and I have begun the painful process of letting him grow up. He's now allowed in the backyard on his own, and is allowed inside his best friends house. He enjoys the freedom of being on the swingset without me right there beside him, and he and his friends spend entire days in the sandbox or on the deck with only minimal intervention. A mixed blessing when you want him to be your little boy forever. We thought Pumpkin was old enough for organized sports, but when we made the list of everything we wanted him to do, we ended up with more activities than days. So, we pared it down using the following three rules: lots of movement; few rules; no equipment that could conceivably be used as a weapon. That said, Pumpkin takes soccer and swimming, both of which he really enjoys. I cannot describe to you the mass chaos of 25 4 and 5 year olds, some with minimal understanding, 'playing' soccer. Hubby and I alternate turns taking Pumpkin there, and come home in tears from laughing so hard. Precious is our reining princess! I am simply in awe of this little being I've created. She's just so "There". A friend once said, "Boy, she sure has a strong sense of self," and boy is that an understatement! This child has an opinion about everything! This shirt, these shoes, those diapers (everything has to be pink, by the way) with lots of "nooooooo!"s thrown in for good measure. I call her my rainbow; outbursts followed by the sun. There are lots of tears when she doesn't get her way, and a smile that could melt butter when she does (which is often.) She absolutely LOVES stuffed animals, and can't leave the house without one of her multitude of teddy bears in her arms. She was born to mother, and actually really seems to enjoy having Stealth Baby around. Stealth Baby and Precious have a special relationship, and she mothers him to the best of her 2-year old ability, meaning I often have to rescue him from her 'charms' as she 'tucks' him in with a used, wet washcloth or insists on covering his head with a blanket. He's survived her love so far, and the two of them have their own little world where giggle and interact with at each other. Words cannot describe my headstrong little girl, I can only say, 'Wow.' As you can plainly tell, Hubby and I are hopelessly outnumbered, and outsmarted as well. All three children are mobile now, so our house is a study in random, perpetual motion. Someone is always missing or crying or taking their clothes off to run around the back yard. However, if you lower your standards far enough, even Greek tragedy can be funny! In household news, we decided there wasn't nearly enough noise in our house, so we bought a piano. Yes, I've already begun to live vicariously though my children. I've always wanted to be able to play the piano (ok, not enough to take lessons or anything) so I'm eagerly anticipating the day when my children are old enough to take lessons and then they'll play the piano for me! At the moment, no one can sit still long enough for actual lessons, so we just randomly bang on it en mass an have a great time. Speaking of noise, Hubby's big news is that we are now the proud owner of a motorcycle. Not just any motorcycle, but a 1 ton Honda Goldwing 1100. Being Hubby, he didn't actually buy it ride to work or anything close to its intended purpose. No, what he wants to do is tinker with it. This thing never gets farther then our driveway before Hubby decides that yet another part needs to be cleaned or replaced. So, repeatedly, he and his buddies take it apart to mere motorcycle molecules - down to screws smaller than my fingernail that he excitedly cleans with a toothpick - before laboriously putting it back together. Only to take it apart 2 weeks later, just to prove that he can. But that's why we have hobbies, right? To keep us off the street. And his does! My contribution is much as always. I still work at the BLS, I still love my job, I still work part time, I LOVE working part time, and I still love my job independent of working part time. My days home with the kids are delightful, and my 5 months of maternity were close to the best months of my life. It was a hard decision to return to work, but once back I am again getting a great deal of personal satisfaction from my work. If nothing else, work is an opportunity to talk to actual adults, wear nice clothes, use full sentences, and eat in real restaurants with pauses in conversation. Hubby still works for the Army doing something with computers. [Every year I ask what he does, and every year I don't understand the explanation.] Happily, (for me, anyway) he rarely travels now, and the people he works with are exceptionally cool. Despite the addition to our family, Hubby has remained a regular on his softball team, which is probably the only way he has retained his sanity. I can no longer make fun of their lack of talent because they now have above a .500 record! One by one all his teammates have also gotten married and had kids, so it is quite the family fest in the stands! I think we horrify the other teams. So we've had a typical year overflowing with kid-created chaos including many bumps and bruises,and innumerable hugs and kisses. Again, we hope you had a wonderful year and wish you all the best in the new one. We wish you much happiness for a blessed Christmas, and rejoice in every pleasant moment life brings you.
Every day, throughout the year, we wish you the peace and love of Christmas!
The Yates Family
|