Growing up

Mac is growing up. I know this is ground breaking, stop the presses type of information, but today was one of those days that made me very aware of this fact.

The day started with an imaginary story time where Mac brought in a chair and most of his books. He then said "Good morning friends (that's what they call each other at school), who brought a book today? Raise your hands. Then he picked up a book and said, "I think ____ brought this one." He would read it, turning it so his friends could see and then repeat the whole thing.

It's fun to watch his imagination at work.

Then, we went to a 3 year old's birthday party for a girl from his class at school. This meant getting to spend a good bit of time with the parents I typically just see in passing at the end of the day. It also meant getting to see how the kids interact in person, not just the hard to understand stories we sometimes get at home.

The party was at Pump It Up, a warehouse full of inflatable bounce houses, slides, obstacle courses, etc. Mac was slow to get comfortable, but when he did, he went 100 miles an hour. He did insist that I do most of the things with him and only had to mildly twist my arm. We especially liked the obstacle course that ended with a slide.

Another part of growing up is starting to contribute, so I decided it's time for Mac to start pulling some of his own weight around the house. To accomplish this today, I got him to help me wash my car. He liked it so much he wanted to wash his truck too.

Overall, I felt pretty good about today. As I was telling Samantha about it all, I realized that Mac didn't watch any TV today, not even part of a movie. This may seem like nothing, but TV is so easy, especially on the days Samantha has to work, so I was pretty excited about that fact.

Playtime

Perhaps this indicates too much unsupervised playtime. Or maybe this is just how to have fun.:)

What's in a name?

We need a little help.

It was very exciting to learn that Samantha is pregnant and we recently added to that excitement when we found out that this baby will be a girl.  So of course, now we have to get to pick out a name.  We have several in mind, but one of the favorites presents an issue.

If baby #2 gets a name that starts with M, would any potential future children then also have to have names starting with M?
Yes, we realize that one, this isn't a huge deal and two, Mac's actual first name is John, but what do you think?

Thankfulness

Mac is deeply into the "why?" stage, something we are possibly enduring more than enjoying.  Don't get me wrong I love that he asks questions and wants to know about things, but after you have answered the same question for the 5th or 20th time it gets a little old.

Something else he is into that is more enjoyable is his thankfulness.  I think it started at Christmas with him telling everyone thank you for his gifts.  He still forgets to say thank you sometimes when he asks for his cup or little things like that.  Its completely adorable though when he thanks you for something random.

This morning he told me thank you for getting more yogurt at the grocery store.  He will also tell me thank you for picking out his jersey for him to wear to school or any number of things that happen during the day.  Our favorite was in the car the other day when Mac told Doug that he appreciated Doug packing his toy.  It took us a moment to comprehend what he was saying.  Mostly we just didn't expect him to use such a big word.  But he did it correctly and pretty clearly too.

So I guess we are thankful for his thankfulness.

Divine intervention

Last summer Mac decided he would announce to anyone who would listen that he was going to have a baby sister.  We had no idea where this came from, especially since most of his friends have no baby siblings and those that did primarily had brothers. But, despite being told that this was not the case, Mac was insistent.

Then, Samantha got pregnant and we told Mac.  All of the sudden, when asked if he was going to have a baby brother or baby sister, he would answer, "just a baby."  We often tried to explain that the baby was going to be a boy or a girl.  He only grew more insistent that it was "just a baby."

We had an appointment scheduled for this past week to have an ultrasound done and find out if the baby would be a boy or a girl.

We braved the snow and ice in Athens to get to Samantha's doctor so we could find out if this baby would be a boy or girl.  Thankfully, the ultrasound technician was brave enough to drive in the conditions as well.  Even as we took Mac into the doctor's office to watch the ultrasound, he continued to say that it was just a baby.

Now we know ...We are having a GIRL!!

Mac has immediately adapted to saying that he is having a baby sister and even saying "her" when referring to things he will do for his baby.  (like take her to feed the ducks and make sure she has gloves on)

We were very excited about a baby and had nearly convinced ourselves that we were just as happy with either a boy or a girl, but we sure are excited about this baby girl.
This post is entitled divine intervention because we feel certain that God had a hand in Mac's behavior during this time.  I think if he had continued saying he was going to have a baby sister for the last 20 weeks we would have all had our hopes up.  The reality is that we had hoped for a girl anyway (yes, even Doug), but Mac's neutrality on the subject helped us to have a good attitude and remember that either way a baby is an amazing gift from God.

Snow, continued

The snow was quickly covered with a solid layer of ice, so our snow day turned into two days.  Thankfully this was Samantha's week to have several days off and I didn't have to go in since the office was still closed.

Mac and I decided to get the wagon out and just take a walk through the ice and snow.  We saw the ducks at the neighborhood "lake" and decided we should come back to feed them.  On the way back home we saw kids sledding on the fairway of hole number 5 and couldn't resist.  We did sled a few times and watched as the kids played together.  The mom of one girl took a few pictures of us sledding, so hopefully we will have pictures soon.

Later in the day we went back out to feed the ducks and ended up building a snowman.  The snow wasn't originally good packing snow, but as it got better as it melted.  Mac couldn't decide if he wanted to push the snowman into the water, put him on the side of the road, or take him in his wagon.  He also couldn't decide if he wanted the snowman to be big or little, or if there should be one or a lot of snowmen.  The good thing is, he is typically happy with how things turn out.



School is still closed tomorrow. Hopefully we can find more things to do.  We're starting to run out of things that don't involve getting in the car.

Snow! Again!

In case you haven't heard, a small snow storm recently came through the southeast, depositing 6-8" of snow here around Athens.  It started Sunday night and Monday morning we had snow everywhere.

It was beautiful except for the fact that Samantha was still supposed to be at work.  Doug's boss already told him to stay home and check in during the day.  We all loaded into the car to try our luck on the road.  We made it maybe 10 miles and it took us close to 30 minutes.  So, we threw in the towel, turned around, and went home.  Its been great having time for the three of us to spend together.  We did take Mac out to play in the snow before the freezing rain/sleet started.

Doug tried to teach Mac how to make snow angels and showed him how much fun it can be to practice sliding in the snow. We even tried to show Mac how to make snowballs, but the snow wasn't wet enough to pack.