DJ-the-almost-preschooler

My first thought when starting this post was, how is it possible that our "Baby #3" is headed to 3-year-old preschool? But, here we are. It's time. DJ is a headstrong kid and affectionate and a sweetheart and a riot and a handful all rolled into one. Unlike the girls, he's perfectly happy to play on his own and "make his own fun," as we say. He loves pretty much all the classics: trains, cars, construction equipment, Transformers, all things Batman or Avengers or other superheroes, dinosaurs...you get the idea. DJ loves his sisters but does NOT love when they tell him what to do. He also does NOT love when terrible things happen to him, such as: he drops something, his hands get sticky, his shirt gets a drop of milk on it, someone looks like they MIGHT want to play with the thing he wants to play with, a dog bumps into him.

In true Wernet-kid form, DJ believes the funniest word in the English language is "eyeball." He loves to make us laugh...usually by saying "eyeball." Soon--very soon--I think he'll enter that awesome helpful-four-year-old phase. Just today, he was very interested in helping with the dinner waffles and when I picked him up from my mom's this morning (he spent the night with grandma and Xander for the first time!) he'd gotten himself dressed. He did have his shorts on backward, though, and when I helped him turn them around, I discovered he was wearing the clean underwear over the other ones. We'll keep working on that.

At the doctors office, DJ weighed in at 34.4 pounds and is 40.5 inches tall--I need to throw those stats in here so we can remember how much he's grown...and compare Eddie someday.

DJ is a wonderful, loving child whom we love enormously. Just thought I'd let that preface the next sentence. When I went to find summer pictures of DJ, I didn't have many. He's one of our "not-yet-proficient" kids when it comes to being photogenic. He is adorable, though.

While the girls were at day camp, DJ and I got to be buddies for a whole week. We did this Avengers puzzle. I said, "DJ, let me take your picture with the cool puzzle." He said, "Okay. I'm going to make this face." And this is what I got.

For Annie's birthday party, the kids dressed up as their favorite princess or in ninja black. DJ wanted to be a baseball player.

Camping. Also, going on a mission to Mars.

Cutie.

Eddie is #1! (Well, #4, but he is 1)

There's something of the miraculous in Eddie. I'm sure there's no way to describe it well, but he was born at the front end of a rather tumultuous time in our lives. He was born early in a summer when Kevin was going through rapid change and new responsibility at work, I was preparing for a new job and in the middle of writing my dissertation, and my family experienced a complete upheaval. The year proved a difficult one overall.

And here was this sweet, content, wonderful baby. I'm not just saying that. It is an objective fact. He's my fourth baby and I have seven nieces and nephews--I've seen many kinds--and Eddie's an easy one. His first morning home from the hospital, he woke up in my arms, looked at me as I sang the "Good Morning" song, and smiled. A real, happy, smile. I know--babies don't smile that early. But it's true. The girls' piano teacher swears her two-weeks-overdue son smiled at the nurses at the hospital, and I never believed her until I saw Eddie do it. And he's hardly stopped since. Kevin's nickname for him is Eddie Smiles.

Not just that--he's also perfectly happy to watch the other kids or entertain himself. If you've ever seen Disney's Phineas and Ferb, Eddie is our Perry. Several times a day while I'm cooking or cleaning or whatever, I realize I don't know what he's up to and I ask the other kids, "Where's Eddie?" And he's just off playing ball or dropping pieces of chalk into empty paint cups or sitting in the dog kennel. I actually would not be surprised if, like Perry the platypus, he's a secret agent.

His favorite place to hang out. I really don't know why.

Anyway, I'm not sure how I would have managed a high-maintenance baby this last year. God knew what he was doing, and His timing was perfect, though it didn't always seem so. He sent us this little guy who just seems to ooze a "life is good" mentality.

And now he's one! As I told Kevin, birthdays just seem to be made for a kid like Eddie. Easy-going and unassuming, he's happy with whatever. It was great to celebrate him for the day.

Eddie was actually pretty grumpy on his birthday (teething), but Kevin managed to get some happy pictures before the complete meltdown.

 Let's see, what else...at his checkup he was 22 lbs. 14 oz. and 30.75 inches tall--not a whole lot bigger than at eight months. He's sleeping better but still wakes up at night. His first words were "ball" and "yum." Funny stuff. Now he mostly says, "Uh oh _____." Like, "Uh oh Daddy," or "Uh oh baseball." Eddie loves his blankie and his big brother and sisters. He loves playing ball. He's not walking yet, but he's been butt-scooting around for months and will crawl when he feels like it. He can climb stairs and get on the couch on his own. He's crazy about brushing his teeth. Aunt Emily is probably his favorite non-parent grownup--they've spent a lot of time together this year, after all.

We're so thankful Eddie's a part of our family, and I can't wait to see what the next year holds!

His first time camping! All he wanted to do was climb in the chairs. 

Chillin' poolside

It took awhile before we noticed Eddie scooping macaroni and cheese out of the dish and into the water glass while out to eat at our family vacation.

These kids

"Be careful how you perceive the world: It is like that."

-- Erich Heller

So, Kevin thinks I have a tendency to pigeon-hole our kids. Like I over-generalize their personality traits. I try to be careful about that. I mean, if there's one thing grad school taught me, it's that the stories we tell about each other significantly contribute to the development of our identities, for better or worse. (Luckily, that's not the one thing grad school taught me. For example, I now now how to save Word files as PDFs. Also, what the words "gerund" and "Glenda Lappan" mean.)

That said, I love to look back on the stories about our kids on this blog. It helps to remember how much they've grown and changed, but it's also telling about their more enduring personality traits. There are just things they say and do and aspects of their "way of being" that are a lot like the things they said and did and were years ago. And you start to see...yeah, they're like that.

Since I've been so bad at keeping up these past few months, it's time to say a bit about each of the kids--my time with them this summer and what they're up to. I'll try not to let my perception define them--but I am their mom, after all. I like to think I know them better than anyone else, plus I'm sure they'll all be in therapy someday because of me, anyway.

They'll each get their own post, but I do want to mention: We kind of have two teams in this family. Yeah yeah, we're all on the same team, but the kids are a little like the puppies on Disney's Lady and the Tramp--some just like the dad and some just like the mom. There's what Nellie calls "Team Wernet," with their strong emotions and sleeping with their eyes open and wanting savory foods for breakfast. The rest of us tend to be pretty easy going and could live on cold cereal until the end of time. In pretty much any fight, I'd predict my team loses, but that's okay.

Actually, Eddie's tough and Annie's scrappy, so maybe we'd hold our own.