Sibling Rivalry

Max and Lauren fight. A lot. Sometimes it feels like they fight all the time. Their constant bickering exhausts me and irritates Josh. I finally understand how much it must have worn on my parents when my brother and I fought (which was all the time. Maybe this is just Karma?). Recently, during a really unpleasant argument (usually, Lauren does something Max doesn't like, Max either takes a toy from her or yells at her, and then Lauren smacks him. Shrieking from both children ensues. It is really fun (eye roll).), Max yelled that he did not like Lauren. I told him that I didn't think that was true, but that I thought he just didn't like her actions. I could see him think about this (I actually repeated something similar to one of my students today when he told me he hated his sister, who had just beaned him in the eye with a ball. Sigh.). Today, I walked into the kitchen to find Max drawing. I looked over to see what he was making, and it was a red, heartshaped piece of paper with two figures on it, one with short hair and one with long. Both had angry/sad faces. I asked him if he was sad about something and he said no. I asked him if he was angry and he said no. I asked him why he was making a sad/angry card and he said "no, it's a nice card, see the picture inside my picture?" and he pointed at another little face inside the body of the short haired figure. "This is to show Lauren that even though we fight a lot, I really love her inside my heart." and he held his hands to his chest.

I cried and hugged him.

Priorities

I started this last week but never had a chance to finish it. I figured I would finish it and post it anyway....

It's been a rough week. For the first time in a long time, I am seriously considering going back to work full time and either I am paying attention better or the children have been doing some really cool stuff which is showing me how much I will miss if I am gone. I have taken more hours since Josh got laid off and will be gone every afternoon when Max gets home from school, and that is really hard. I miss him already. He is reading everything he can get his hands on now, which is so much fun to watch. He is doing some really neat stuff in school, too. Yesterday, he brought home a map that he made in school of his neighborhood. It included a picture that he drew of the inside of our house. He showed me and Lauren and him in the basement. Lauren was vacuuming up the water that had leaked in during the flood and Max and I were saying "uhoh." Meanwhile, Josh was drawn in the attic, emptying mousetraps. I have no idea what his teacher must think of us. :)

Lauren never fails to make me laugh, when she isn't making me pull my hair out. She alternates between being sweet and fun and demanding and rude, and it can be very frustrating, but the good stuff is so good that it often makes up for the bad. She is so much her own person and continues to have her own style. I love the stuff she does at school and the crafts she does at home. She continues to love art and carries the case of art supplies that Grampa Rich got her for Christmas everywhere she goes. She has started to enjoy board games, too, rather than just dumping them all over the floor. She and I have been doing a lot of gardening together. I promised her we would plant blueberry bushes this year, because she loves blueberries. She is enjoying her speech class, too, and hopefully we will be able to understand her better soon. It has to be so frustrating when you can't get people to understand what you are saying.

James is just amazing. He seems to find joy in everything, especially throwing balls and playing with cars. Finally a child who falls into a stereotype. ;) I am so happy that I have had the opportunity to spend the time with him that I missed with Max when I was working and with Lauren because I didn't have the bandwidth to pay attention. (Poor Lauren. She really has gotten the short end of the stick in life, and yet she is still such a happy child.)

Way Too Long

So much has happened and I haven't posted in ages so I am just going to post a few pictures of our growing like weeds children. Max is 6.5 now and enjoying school very much. He has some close friends, is Lego and Star War obsessed and adores his baby brother. He learned to ski this winter and seemed to really enjoy it. I hope that I will get to ski with him next winter.

Lauren is almost 4 1/2 now. She suddenly looks like a girl instead of a toddler. She has gotten taller. Her speech is still difficult to understand, but she had her adenoids and tonsils out last month and hopefully that will help things. If nothing else, she can breathe through her nose for probably the first time in her life.

James just turned one and continues to bring me so much joy. He is a funny little guy and into everything. He isn't walking, but crawls faster than you would think possible, usually laughing hysterical as he runs away from you. He is great at going up and down stairs and climbs as much as his sister did at this age. God help me. I am loving every minute with him.

December family photo album(s)

Here is the family photo album for December. What a fun month it was. So much fun that we have two albums to share this month! I hope the holiday season has been great for all of you!

Here's the recap of the whole month....

December 2009

http://picasaweb.google.com/joshmaz/December2009?feat=directlink

I also put together an album just for Christmas day...

Christmas Day 2009

http://picasaweb.google.com/joshmaz/ChristmasDay2009?feat=directlink

Wishing you all a happy new year

Welcome to the new year everyone! Just a quick post today to start this new year off on the right foot. The kids (and us parents) all has a nice night out at a friend's house last night for NYE and today we mostly stuck around home and took it easy. James and I had fun taking some pictures for a new photography challenge I started today. (See my photography blog for a post about that.) We recently got the playroom organized again and James was enjoying playing with the trains on the train table and other fun stuff that we can now find again. I think he is holding some measuring stick in this photograph, and boy is he happy with himself. He's got such a cute smile, how could I not put his happy face on the blog again? Anyway, have a wonderful 2010 and enjoy all that the new year has to offer!

A day in the city

Today we took the train into Boston with all the kids. I (daddy) took a day off from work to have a nice family day. Our trip started out at the Museum of Science, as it often does. We spent a few hours there despite it being packed with the vacation week crowds. After the museum we made our way over to Boston's "north end" for some authentic Itallian pizza and pastries. Now we're all on the train north taking us back to home. It's been fun and it was good to spend the day together.

Christmas Day

We had another wonderful Christmas this year. Dorothy's mom and Grampa Rich came down to spend the holiday with us. The kids were a real joy, and James seemed to enjoy his first Christmas day too. (Even if he did nap through 3/4 of the gift opening.) As usual I spent plenty of time hoping around with the camera to try and capture some of moments of joy and laughter. I hope that your holidays were full of love and happiness too!

Here is a link to our web album for our pictures from Christmas day...

Christmas Day 2009

James and the tree

This is (was) our first Christmas with baby James in the house. I guess he's not so much of a baby anymore, but he'll always be our baby boy now. I took this photo just after the tree went up around the middle of December. It was a great tree, which was amazing considering we took all of about 10 minutes to pick it out on a very cold day at the tree farm. James was amazed by the strange new object in the house, covered in colored lights and dangling decorations. Fortunately we never caught him trying to climb on it, though there was one day when the tree was found mysteriously leaning dangerously to one side. Anyway, I love this picture of James with Mom and wanted to get it posted before the new year arrives. Hope the holidays have been wondrous for all of you as well!

"Family & friends" - November 2009

Just uploaded a new "monthly" album for November highlighting family and friends. Going to try to make this a habit every month, and maybe even go back through the previous months to see what I missed.

If the slide show doesn't work at all (requires Flash player) then you can jump to the album directly with this link.

Builder boy

Every now and again I see photos like this one and I think about what a proud and imaginative builder Max is. He's always creating something out of something, whether he's building with his growing collection of Lego things or just taping together pieces of cardboard from the recycling bin. He hopes one day to be featured in the Lego Club magazine's "Cool Creations" column. (Though I'm a bit perturbed at Lego at the moment for wasting no time in sending us catalogs we but still haven't received his Club magazines.) He's made airplanes from milk cartons, droids from old buckets, and helicopters from pieces of scrap wood. Lauren too likes to build things like just like her big brother, and I'm sure in a few years she'll be putting together some pretty cool creations as well. Occasionally we see her going around wearing one of my big leather tool belts with every toy she can fit crammed into the various pouches. Needless to say they both love to help Daddy in the workshop, and I try not to discourage it too often. Sometimes we even build things things together just so they can learn how to use the different tools properly. Building with the Lego's is a bit less stressful for Daddy though, so it's nice when we end up sitting around Max's Lego table putting things together. As you can see in the photo here, he's very proud of his creations. And we're very proud of him.