ball fields here we come

I knew with two boys eventually the day would come when we would begin preparing for spending our weekends outside at some sort of ball field. What I wasn't prepared for is how excited I would be to have that day arrive! Earlier in the summer me and the girls I was pregnant with (Tamara, Patsy, and Sheila) had began discussing various options for soccer and sadly I had kinda given up hope that we would be starting this new adventure this year because after calling around trying to see if anyone would make an exception to the rule that says, "Participant must be 4 years old by September 1st" and receiving a "no" I was reminded that this is a good opportunity for me to remember that all rules apply to everyone, even my child! But when I received an email back from the rec center saying that it would be okay for him to play I was soo excited that this time the rule didn't apply! Mason and Micah were napping and I read the email and said (out loud) OH YEAH...then I reminded myself that it was quiet time and I should be careful not to wake the boys :D Right away I called the rec center staff and signed Mason up over the phone and asked if they had room for his cousin Nicholas...and YES they did! I was sad that we wouldn't have a team of lots of people we knew because I know it would have been a BLAST to watch Mason, Nicholas, Benjamin, Nigel and Olivia all running around playing soccer together for the first time...but I am overjoyed that Nicholas moved to Charlotte just in time and that I get to watch he and Mason play soccer for the first time together!

When I let Mason in on the news that he was going to get to play soccer you should have seen his cute little face his mouth wrinkled up, his eyes darted to the right and he raised his eyebrows then said "You mean for real"? When I said, "yes, for real" He jumped up and down, squealed, ran around in circles and fell on the ground! He went on to talk about watching his cousin Owen play soccer then came the thousand questions: "Mommy, will Owen be on my team?, Will I sit on a bench?, Who will be my coach?, Will I get to be the goalie?, will I wear a uniform, What color will my team be?...some more running in circles followed by squeals and falling on the ground! What an awesome feeling to watch your child get so excited to finally be able to do something hes been waiting to be "old enough" to do.

Earlier today Sheila brought Owens old Soccer shoes, shin guards and soccer socks by for Mason...as soon as we walked in from her car Mason wanted to try on his new gear and go outside and practice soccer...he called the shin guards hard hats for your legs, pretty creative idea if I do say so myself! Tonight was the 'Parent Meeting'...I made the mistake of telling Mason that there was a parent meeting for SOCCER (all he heard was soccer and that's all he talked about ALL DAY, I must have told him like 20 times that there wasn't a game or a practice but just a meeting and that he wouldn't be playing tonight...I didn't want to stifle his excitement but...uggh... I learned to NOT tell him until we are on our way! During the parent meeting Kristel wrote me a note saying "we are officially "Soccer Moms"...how fun to be sharing that with her! And we will be the BEST SOCCER MOMS EVER!! I just need to get a tripod and some extra memory cards for the camera!

Once we got home Mason wanted to show his new gear to Chris and go outside and play soccer, so I guess he did get to play soccer tonight after all. As we were playing with him Chris and I looked at each other and gave the fake cry and said, "Oh hes getting too big too fast" But even though its sad that he is growing up its so much fun too! I hope that he learns how to have great interaction with teammates, determination, perseverance, grace, compassion, what it means to not be selfish, or prideful and I hope he has fun, I hope he likes it, I hope hes really good at it, I hope he wont get hurt, I am sure he will I just hope I have the right words to say and that Mason will discover that anything he dose he can do because the Lord has given him the talent and ability to do it!

Ready or not rec center here comes our 3 1/2 year old to play in the youth 4-6 year old league!

Milestones

To infinity and beyond! So it seems that the boys are making great strides to meet and complete their age appropriate milestones...who, I wonder, even came up with this idea, that children at a certain age should be able to do ________...in many cases this has caused me to rush to the Internet to surf that specific topic and gather information from other moms who've already helped their child to meet whatever milestone and try to put into practice their advice mixed with my own opinions and then often times I end up letting it go and that's when they accomplish the task! Last year almost to the week, Mason was day potty trained but still needed pull ups for night time. Recently I had begun my Internet research on how to night train your child...well, I've come to realize you cannot "make" someone know how to wake up to pee...they just have to figure that out! But after talking to a mom friend and hearing her idea of keeping track of how many nights her little girl was "dry" with a sticker I decided to give it a try!

We went shopping for Benjamin's birthday gift and Mason wanted all of the Buzz Lightyear stuff too, so I told them that maybe we could take him back to Target to get the toy he wanted once his pullups were dry in the mornings for several days in a row...so we began tracking with stickers and day after day he woke up in the night, (sometimes crying for help, but still waking up wanting to go to the toilet vs the pull up) to pee and in the mornings he was dry! So today was like 9 days in a row so we took a family trip to target and he picked out his toy and Chris just put him to bed with NO pull up...we will see how it goes...maybe I should go to sleep early tonight in case I'm changing sheets in the middle of the night?

Micah is reaching his own milestones as well...He now mainly eats the family meal with an occasional baby food mixed with cereal. He still has no teeth at a little over 9 months old, but hes really good at gumming food! Hes eating toast, soft fruit, turkey loaf, meat loaf, puffs, Cheerios...in fact if you do spoon feed him you have to sneak the spoon in between him feeding himself! Even though hes still a little on the skinny side, he eats a lot! I'm really working on using the "more" sign, but for now banging on the highchair tray is getting him more food!

BUT not for long....This weekend Micah also started clapping...which is basically the sign for "more" Its so cute you can just tell him, "clap Micah" and he'll do it. He and I have actually had some time to play alone, with out his eager big brother, and I sadly realized that I've not been playing as much with him as I did with Mason...I mean we all play together but I guess by 9 months with Mason I was already expecting that he could do a lot, or maybe I was over eager for him to reach all of his "milestones" that I watched closer to see everything he could do? Micah can do plenty! He loves to play "where's Micah" by putting a blanket over his head and pulling it off, he's making great crawling steps reaching and getting one knee under him and ALMOST will crawl! I'm trying really hard to divide my time equally between them and also trying not to compare the two either because, they are both cut from different molds and they are both developing right on time! So there are many more milestones that I'm sure they "should" be able to do and maybe some they are doing that they "shouldn't" be able to do yet...but I'm not paying as close attention so I guess I'll find out at their next doctors visits...and I'm okay with that!