Smiling Mom

Today is my dad’s birth­day.  He and my mom mean so much to our family.  We talk with them almost every sin­gle day.  To cele­brate his life, we made a pod­cast for him.

Dad, happy birthday!!

happy-birthday-grandpa1

For the rest of you, my Didj con­test ends tonight.  I’ll choose the win­ner and post it tomorrow!

Babe,

Today you tur­ned 32.  And although you’ve already had a chance to see this pod­cast, pic­tu­res and all, I wan­ted to post it here so you can come back when you might be doub­ting the impact you have on our chil­dren, or when you are fee­ling down.

The time you spend with us is pro­found.  The extra effort you put into get­ting eClaire to gig­gle is so won­der­ful.  The spe­cial atten­tion you give BC when you teach him about science, earth, or just how to fix things around the house are for­ming las­ting memories.

When you read to our chil­dren in the eve­nings, you soli­dify your pre­sence in their lives.

The man you are comes through in the daily actions of your chil­dren.  Your daugh­ter is meti­cu­lous.  Your son is a gent­le­man.  Your daugh­ter a so very bright.  Your son is help­ful and kind.  Your chil­dren reflect you.

I’ve added the video to this post for you to come back to every time you begin to won­der what you really mean to our kids.

You are the best man I know.

Happy Birth­day.

Love,

Me

Dear BC,

Today you tur­ned four. My baby. Four. When did that happen?

When I think back on how much you’ve grown up this year, I’m simply blown away.

We were cam­ping on your third birth­day last year with our dear friends. This was our first major cam­ping trip as a family. You loved every bit of it. Soon after the trip, we drove down to Indian Wells to attend Grandpa’s con­fe­rence. This was your first expe­rience in a hotel. You were espe­cially exci­ted that Non­nie let you eat Fruit Loops out of a wine glass. Now that’s living it up!

You began preschool in Sep­tem­ber, and took to it like a fish to water. I always knew that school would be a happy place for you! Daddy and I atten­ded your win­ter and spring per­for­man­ces. You were cen­ter stage each time. And after every song, you’d give Daddy a thumbs up, because you just knew how proud he was of you. Man, I loved that! We also met with your teachers for two con­fe­ren­ces this year. In each con­fe­rence your teachers told us what a lea­der you were. You were always willing to lend a hand to a team­mate in need, set an exce­llent exam­ple, and do the right thing, all the time!

My heart beams with pride.

In Decem­ber you lear­ned how to read sim­ple words as we drove down to San Diego. Six months later, you can pretty much sound out most words you come across. I knew you ‘got it’ around March when we were eating din­ner at Bucca de Beppo and you asked me what (pho­ne­ti­cally) “Las-a-gn-a” meant. Lasagna? Seriously? Today you can read sim­ple books such as Hop on Pop by Dr. Seuss… although you’d really rather be pla­ying than rea­ding. Which I honor. You are only four, for good­ness sakes!

Santa brought you a bike this year for Christ­mas. We knew that you’d be riding like a champ within a few months. And true to your form, you began riding your two whee­ler without trai­ning wheels around April. Now you are an expert. You can ride on dirt, over grass, up and down side­walks, around sharp cur­ves… anywhere and everywhere. You love riding your bike more than just about anything else.

This year you matu­red so much. You’ve begun to calm down. You, not often, play inde­pen­dently pushing cars around, dra­wing pic­tu­res, wri­ting words, and gene­rally doing things more by your­self. You also have lear­ned the art of kee­ping quite… more often. Let’s be honest. You are in NO WAY an inde­pen­dent child. You’d pre­fer to talk my ear off, and play with me 100% of the time. But you CAN be inde­pen­dent every now and again. Phew! What a relief for your Daddy and me!

You often walk around the house spe­lling words, “M-o-m-m-y-e please help me!!” “I want to go to the g-y-m!!!” “I want some j-u-s, please!!”

You are your daddy’s appren­tice. Anything he needs you to do, you do, imme­dia­tely. This is so cool!

I’d have to say that your best attri­bu­tes cen­ter around your desire to make peo­ple feel com­for­ta­ble. You still always greet and com­pli­ment adults and chil­dren alike. You tell them they look beau­ti­ful, they were nice, etc. It is so cool! And oh so mature!

But the thing that makes me beam with pride is your deep desire to help in a cri­sis. There have been a few times this year where your sister’s been hurt badly, and we nee­ded your help. Fas­ter than we could blink, you’d already got­ten her blan­ket, ice, and anything else you could think of that would com­fort her. You’d then stand at atten­tion awai­ting any direc­tions from Daddy or me. How cool is that? Let’s be honest, you totally get this ama­zing heroes­que attri­bute from Daddy and sooo not from me!!

You are one awe­some kid. My eyes well as I try to grasp the per­son you are beco­ming. Your great­ness overwhelms me. You have poten­tial to be anything and everything your heart could dream up.

Happy Birth­day, kid. I love you.

Love,
Mommy

P.S. Thanks for taking an extra long nap today! And thank you even more for STILL taking naps at the age of four… Dang, how’d I get so lucky?

Today was BC’s fourth birth­day. Isn’t it ama­zing how days feel like years, but years fly by like days?

Tomo­rrow I’ll have a let­ter to BC pos­ted, but for today, I’ll leave you with a few pic­tu­res from BC’s birth­day party yesterday.

This is BC just before he blew out his cand­les on his home­made Spi­der­man Cake. (Details to come!)

BC eagerly anti­ci­pa­ted this birth­day for many months. And this was the moment.

During the pinata, our family uses an aty­pi­cal “bat” aka baton, and shouts, “Get on the ground… stop resis­ting!” Ya… maybe that story is bet­ter left off my blog. Notice the jum­per house in the back­ground! It had a 10 foot Spi­der­man han­ging off the top! AWESOME!

Even my little dar­ling eClaire got a few nice shots! Right in the jugu­lar… poor Spiderman!