November 24, 2013

Memories

This is a list of all of the things I've written down so I can remember them over the last year:

2012
- One of Zac and Katie's first time wrestling was during General Conference April 2012. Zac was laying on his tummy on the ground coloring and Kate hopped onto his back and started bouncing up and down. He giggled so she did it more. Then she started pulling his hair so that it pulled his head up and back. Guess what. He loved it. They did that for about 10 minutes and then they wrestled in a more grappling style for about 1 minute before someone got hurt and it was over.


December 2012 -- June 2013

-Zac called all meat chicken until he was about 3. I did this too as a kid.
- Katie and Zac play incredibly well together. They interact so well.
-Katie had thrush again around 17 months. Because she'd been hospitalized with this as a baby we knew the signs and caught it quickly and took care of it right away.
- We had eaten all of the strawberries in our house and Zac wanted some more. We were sitting down for lunch and I told him we didn't have any. He said, "We go to store." I tried to put him off by saying we didn't have money to go buy more right now. He contemplated this and replied, "We goon walk. Find money. Go buy Strawberries." He was convinced we got money by finding it in the parking lot.
-Zac wanted to take Rachel, his aunt, to the store and told me he needed a driver's license to be able to drive her to the store :)
- Katie woke up in the middle of the night crying about shoes and being able to wear them in bed. Nathan told her she could wear shoes in the morning and she went right back to sleep.
- Zac says everything is silly. A year later he's still doing this but now it's accompanied by a fake laugh.
-I felt our little baby girl, known as Alice, kicking an moving around in my tummy so much sooner than I did with our other kids. Probably had something to do with the fact that I knew what it felt like and was searching for it.
- I am extremely incapacitated while pregnant. With Alice I was physically ill until 24-26 weeks along. I didn't make dinner for 3 months for about 2 months after that I only made dinner about 2 times a week. Mentally I was worse off than in any of our other pregnancies and that's saying something. I remember after I started feeling better physically I was so excited to move but then got bogged down by depression. I really don't start getting back into life until after I have the baby.
- Zac and Katie would fight over whose mommy and daddy we were. When they'd wake up in the morning I would frequently hear, "My daddy. No, my daddy. My daddy!" Screaming. "My mommy. No, my mommy. No, My mommy!" This would often resolve with Zac saying, "My daddy."
and Katie saying, "My mommy."
-I was changing Zac's diaper once and asked him what he was thinking about. He replied, " Ummm, tractors." I thought that was the cutest thing.
-Before we moved away from New Mexico was really hard for Nathan's mom. She knew she was going to miss her grand babies sooooo much. She was babysitting them for us one time and started to cry. I assume because she was going to miss doing that. and Zac immediately was concerned for here and telling her, "Grandma, it okay. Be happy, Grandma." Then Zac said he was lonely (maybe he was reflecting what he thought she felt). Katie was almost asleep and sat up saying, "I I I I I lonely." She just wanted some of the love Grandma was giving to Zac. :)
-Whenever someone cries Zac immediately gives them hugs and says, "Don't cry. it okay. be happy". He has done this for Years!
-Before and After we had Alice, I tried to take the kids on dates to help them still feel loved. They loved going on dates and would talk about it all the time. Zac still talks about it.



July 2013 - 2013


-Zac kept hearing about how we were going to move and he started saying he just wanted to move and kept talking about going to Grammy's house after we went to Hawaii. He was more excited for those things than Hawaii.
- We were visiting my parents and Zac was sleeping a storage room below the kitchen by himself. He got so freaked out by the sound of people walking above him, told us it was monsters and kept asking, "What dat?" in a very alarmed tone.
-My kids call my dad Mr. Man. Zac took to calling my dad My Man for a while :)
-We went on a fabulous Blacker family vacation to Hawaii in July. We rented sedans, 4 door cars, and it's pretty difficult to fit 3 car seats in the back of one of those things. So, Katie or Zac would ride with Grandpa and Grandma because they didn't fit in the car with us. When Zac was riding with us he would ask, "Where Katie?" all the time! He missed her and was worried about her. So cute :)
-Zac growled at everything for a very long time. We would chase birds and he would growl at them. He growled at bugs, at people etc. He still growls sometimes and it scares little Alice so much. She starts sobbing every time. Luckily, he's a tender-hearted boy and scaring Alice is helping him learn that growling is not appropriate.
- In Hawaii, Uncle Russ rode in our car. Zac LOVES Russ. Zac only wanted to talk to Russell, not mommy and daddy. He would frequently, incessantly ask, "Where it is, Russell?" or "What it is, Russell?" Zac is such a man's man. He loves men and boys.
-In Hawaii the kids were so scared of the ocean. I think the noise of the surf and the vastness were the scary factors, besides the unknown. After a couple days Grandma and Grandpa were able to coax them into the water. By the end of our vacation they loved the water.
-Katie agreed with everything and said yes to everything. Once, Grandpa asked her if she agreed about some law of physics theory and she emphatically nodded her head and stated, "Yes."
-Alice has been our happiest, most smiley child. At 2-3 months she just smiled if you talked to her every time. If I sang to her she would break out in a grin every time.
-We moved to Washington State at the end of July and it confused Zac and Katie so much. They always wanted to see Grandma and Grandpa and for a couple months wanted to drive to their house all of the time. Zac also asked for his best friend, Folken, from ABQ all the time. Poor kids adjust to change about as well as I do.
- About a week after we came back from Hawaii we were driving and Katie had a baby doll and we hear this song over and over again, "Swimming swimming swimming, fall down. Swimming swimming swimming, fall down." This was complete with actions from the baby doll.
- My sister Abi helped us move up to Washington and stayed to help us set up a bit. While she was here she saw a light shining through the kids' bedroom door. We glanced in and Zac, who had been given a flashlight and a book by Daddy, was giddy with delight turning his pages and reading in his bed at nighttime.
- We put in a sprinkler system when we moved to WA. Katie and Zac loved finding worms, holding them, collecting them and putting them on rocks. And then learning about how they keep the ground healthy and they their homes are in the earth etc. Then they kids put the worms on the patio and the worms were happy cause they had friends - this means they worms were all next to each other. The kids weren't fazed by it at all when their worms dried up and died. We had to teach them the worms really love the dirt.
-We were at a pioneer day picnic with our new ward and there was this little boy, about 13 months old who was toddling around. He stayed still by the pavilion for a while and Zac could not get enough of him. Zac kept hugging and kissing him on the top of his head, bending down and talking to him tenderly and just doting on him. It was so cute and hilarious.
- Nathan convinced me it was time to ween Katie from her binky. She always whined and cried for it and nothing could entice her to stop. So, we scissored a gash threw the tip of it and told her it was broken when it was time for her nap. We covered the trash with paper towels so that if she wanted to grab it out again she could and we had her throw it away. I will never forget the look on her face as she turned away. She had just lost her dearest, closest friend and was completely heartbroken. As she turned from her "Meme" her mouth was open in a silent sob and her eyes were full of tears. I comforted her and was almost as devastated as she was. Nathan prayed with her before nap time that Binky would be safe in Heaven. After nap time she told me about how she had prayed to Heavenly Father and that he was going to make it better. How she wanted to pry more to fix it and how she wanted to put a band aid on it. She was convinced that "Father" would fix it in answer to her prayers and that she would get Binky back. I cannot imagine how I'll handle it the first time a boy breaks her heart. Losing her binky was so hard for both of us, her because she wanted to use it and me watching her be so sad.
-We tried potty training our kids when we first got up here. It never worked for Zac, Katie had 2-3 days accident free and then noticed that her brother wasn't going on the potty and decided she wasn't going to either. Gaa! A couple of times, Katie would stand stalk still and cry, "Peeee!" She would run to the potty. Sometimes when she ran she would slip on her pee and fall. So cute and funny but pitiful too.
- Zac recognizes animal homes. We saw a spider web and Zac said, "Mommy, a home!"
-Katie cries during any movie. Her big eyes just well up with tears because she feels for the characters in the movie so much.
-Zac told me about 3 weeks ago that he would go pee on the potty if he got to go to the zoo. I took that condition and now both of Zac and Kate are potty trained! I had jogged down a note that one of my favorite potty training moments was Zac pooping on the potty for the first time but now I don't remember it. Also, Zac and Katie both want privacy now when the use the bathroom.
-Kate loves to take care of Alice. Both Zac and Katie love their little sister so much. Zac liked to squish her face between her hands like a fishy and they both laugh hysterically when that happens.
-For a while, I was putting a bin of toys in the kids' room so that when they woke up they would play with that and give me a little more sleepy time. One night I forgot to do that and Zac woke up asking, "Where my box, Mommy?"
-They had chocolate milk with their lunch one time and they poured it all over their food and the walls and the floor. I made them both nap and then help me clean up after nap time. After 5 minutes of cleaning, Zac said, "This hard!" I told him it was and that he needed to do it because he made the mess. It took we 3 45 minutes to clean everything up but we did it! And they haven't purposefully spilled their drinks since!