I have been a horrible blogger over the last few months, ever since shortly before Christmas, really. It seems like ever since the Christmas season arrived, life hasn't slowed down.
Nevertheless, I have started several blog entries, but never finished editing them so they could be posted. Maybe I hadn't sufficiently processed those thoughts, or they didn't need to be shared right now (or possibly ever). At any rate, I have been processing thoughts during this time - just not able to verbalize a lot of it in a way that satisfies me yet.
Some news for those of you who don't see me every week or so: The boys are great. Jacob is still doing well in school and enjoying it. His reading still amazes me. One day it seemed to just come together for him, and then his reading vocabulary grew exponentially over the next few weeks and continues to steadily grow at a satisfying rate. It is wonderful to see him want to read, to stretch himself, to enjoy practicing, to seek out more, and especially, to bless those around him with his skills (I am thinking mainly of his two little brothers who love to be read to). He is tall and solid and strong - he has made a goal of conquering the playground equipment at his school, not just playing on it. One by one he conquered the various sets of monkey bars and rings, and now he and his friends dare each other and cheer each other on in completing various tricks on them, like hanging upside down. They have a scoring system for their acrobatic feats, and I had to suppress a laugh when Jacob announced that he had gotten to "Super Rainbow" level. Hah! Such tough boys, but still not aware of which things are supposedly feminine.
Ethan just turned five. I can hardly believe it! He is growing taller and looking more and more like a school-age boy instead of a preschooler. He plays pretend all day long, especially Spiderman, Star Wars, Transformers - any strong, fighting characters he hears about. He loves to be with his friends and his brothers, although he is still quite attached to me and wants to cuddle and have me play with his hair or rub his back anytime the opportunity arises. (Of course, Jacob still likes to cuddle, too, but only at certain times and much less overall than Ethan. Ethan has always been our more physically affectionate one, though.) He has gotten to the stage of asking questions, being more curious and wanting to know the answers. He didn't do this as early as Jacob, but I think it was because previously Jacob was asking all the questions for him. When he was younger, he probably didn't understand all the questions and answers, but as he grew he would have started to take it in, and it was probably enough information to satisfy his own curiosity vicariously. Now that Jacob is in school all day, and Ethan continues to grow in his understanding and perspective of the world around him, he has started to ask his own questions. I absolutely love it. That is one part of being a mom that I wouldn't trade for anything. He is also a physically strong and healthy little boy, like his brothers. He too likes to play outside and test his skills in our backyard and on the playground, but it is less of a focus in his life than it is in Jacob's.
Samuel continues to be an absolute delight. He is almost 21 months now. He is so soft and squishy and round - round cheeks, round belly, round bottom. He wants to do and have everything his big brothers do and have. He gets as excited to see them as he does to see us. He tries to wrestle with them just as rough and long as they can handle and will even initiate the wrestling himself (which can be a problem if his targets aren't ready to be wrestled). He doesn't say much intelligible yet, but the third time around I'm not freaking out - our other boys didn't speak much at this age either. He loves me with abandon, but perhaps I only notice his intensity because it is contrasted by my bigger boys gradually being more independent and not as transparent with their devotion. I am just as enamored with him as he is with me, of course - as I have been with each of my boys.
As for my life of late, I would say overall things have been going fairly well. I have had struggles, as always seems to be the case - difficulty with the boys (although you wouldn't know it from my glowing descriptions above :-) ), difficulty thriving in my role/position, difficulty processing and understanding the questions that come to my mind and heart sometimes, and difficulty dealing with my own weaknesses and limitations. Like I said above, I've been processing these things. Sometimes the process seems too slow to bear; other times I can see growth, and I am encouraged. Maybe I can write more about that later. For now, I think I will leave this entry as mostly an update on the boys, so that I can ensure it actually gets posted. Oh, and here are some pictures from Ethan's fifth birthday party, in case you haven't seen them on my Facebook page yet:
