I Don't Want to Forget...

I don't want to forget...

• Overhearing this conversation - 
• Bret:  "I miss you, Meena."  
• Serena:  "You miss me?  Your great big sister?"  
• Bret:  "Yeah."

• The phase of having book characters come to visit.  Although Serena still plays a little at pretending to be Kanga or Mrs. Mallard or Mary (the mother of Jesus) or Miss Clavell (from Madeline), she doesn't get nearly as immersed in it as she did before.  Now, all the different book characters come to "visit" and play with her for the day, or sometimes for a few days.  They keep her busy as she reenacts scenes from stories (often throwing her own twist in it to make it turn out the way she'd like it to), and then she has to feed them and put them to bed.

• After reading Jan Brett's Gingerbread Baby and Gingerbread Friends, Serena had this conversation with me, "We should make a gingerbread baby."  I was busy in the kitchen getting us ready to run errands for the morning when she broached this topic. "Yeah we should," I said absentmindedly.  "Yeah," she said, getting hopeful, "Maybe later this day!"  "Um, no we won't have time today, but maybe another day when we're not too busy."  Then, with great optimism as she'd just come up with a way to overcome this obstacle, she said, "Well, I'm not too busy!"

• The song Serena sang the other afternoon:  "I've been workin' on the rainbow all the live-long day!"  ;D

• Bret's pat answer to being called a baby, "No, I'm not a baby!  I'm Bretster-Boy!"

• Serena coloring a picture (of Santa Claus, no less) for God.  "I'm going to hold on tight to it when I go up in the sky to heaven so the wind doesn't take it away from me. "Because I want to give it to God!"

• Over the last few weeks, we've been able to get to know out neighbors...particularly one family who has a 9-yr-old and twin 7-yr-olds.  Serena has spent a lot of time playing and talking across the fence with her new friends!  The other day they gave her a teeny tiny toad they'd found in their yard, and she "took care of it" in her little wagon all day.  She gave it all kinds of vegetation and loving tender care.  She talked and talked about it whenever we were inside and then every few minutes she'd run back outside to "check on him."  

• This morning's startling announcement from Serena, "Tyler (our 7-yr-old neighbor) is going to have FUN when he marries with me."  Jordan and I, trying to be nonchalant because we want to know where this is going, "Oh really?  Why is that?" "Because he is going to get to see me a LOT.  And he really loves me."  The really funny part is that we do not do any sort of boyfriend/girlfriend teasing or talking in our home.  She just pulled this out of nowhere; it was hilarious!  Jordan just kept saying, "Girls are so scary."  ;)

• I weighed and measured the kids, so thought I'd post their current stats:
• Serena (almost one month before turning 4) - 39.25" (42nd percentile) and 36 lbs (62nd percentile)
• Bret (28 months) - 34" (11th percentile) and 26 lbs (13th percentile)
• Cody (9 1/2 months) - 29" (67th percentile) and 23 lbs (80th percentile)