To welcome in the year of Twenty-Ten, I have ten random facts about each boy for you! Happy New Years!
RICKY
1. He has mastered the DVD player. He can fly through bonus features and games that we didn’t even know came on some of his dvds! Last week, he changed the controls so that our dvd player was all in French.
2. He likes going to the barber and singing songs for him. This is an outing that Ricky does with my mom, so all my information is second-hand, but on their last visit Ricky was trying to sing “The 12 Days of Christmas.” Neither he nor the barber could remember all the words, so his barber stopped the hair cut and went to print the words so they could finish their sing-a-long.
3. Ricky is a very independent player. He likes playing with Billy and his friends, but he is really good at just playing on his own. He is very particular about how his games should be played and where his toys should be. This has been known to cause a few problems, since Billy’s method of playing is not always the same, but it is fun to watch Ricky know what he wants.
4. He loves to read and be read to. Even when he uses the bathroom, if he’s going to be more than just a few seconds, he grabs a couple of books to read while he waits.
5. He adores school. I’m pretty sure most days he loves his teacher more than us! I volunteer for his class and his teacher had me working with the students to determine their starting reading level a couple of weeks ago. Most were on level one, but when I got to Ricky he was way beyond that. It took about 15 minutes of reading and we made it to level twelve and still weren’t to the his starting level. At that point though, he looked at me with sad eyes and said, “Momma? Are we done yet? I’m missing all the fun stuff in class.” I let him go back and made a note to work with him again next time.
6. Ricky is a very sound sleeper. His brothers’ cries do not wake him up. Adjusting his weird sleeping positions so we can tuck the blanket back around him does not wake him up. His own snoring does not wake him up!
7. He loves his pajamas. Ricky likes comfort and changing out of his pajamas each morning is not his idea of fun. Since getting his newest Christmas pajamas, we have to come up with good reasons for him to willingly take them off each morning (company is coming over, we’re going on an errand, etc.)
8. He has a tender heart. He doesn’t like hearing little ones cry and tries to make them smile with a toy or a song. He is very attached to his toys and memories and has a hard time letting things go. Saying good-bye to someone he won’t see for a long time makes him quiet and thoughtful for a while.
9. Ricky is silly. He loves to make people laugh and when he starts joke telling, he is hard to stop. He likes to laugh and tickle and get piggyback rides and walk upside down on the ceiling.
10. Ricky is my helper. He may not always want to help because he’s doing other things, but he will fetch me diapers or pacifiers or pencils or turn the tv off or close a door or pick up toys. Usually he’ll do it with a smile and if he isn’t, all I have to do is ask him where his smile is and it can’t hide. He’s gotten so big and is no longer my little boy. I love finding out who he’ll be!
BILLY
1. He likes to sing. He doesn’t perform his songs, but if you listen carefully you can hear his songs and occasionally recognize them. His rendition of “Jingle Bells” has its own melody, but is just as sweet as the original.
2. He’s learning to get himself undressed. And seeing his naked little bum peeking out from under his shirt as he is running away from you is pretty much cute enough to get him out of trouble for running away from us!
3. Billy adores trains. This isn’t a mild fascination, it is a love affair. We have too many toy trains to count and they are generally the first thing he goes for in the morning and the toy he’s trying to drag to bed with him at night. He knows where all the train tracks are that we get to drive over on our outings and now he’s been introduced to the Train Museum and is adamant about going back.
4. He thinks faster than he speaks. This causes him to repeat the first word of his sentence. It can be annoying. “I … I … I … I … I want … I … I … I … I want another kiss!”
5. He’s been having a lot of bad dreams lately. They cause him to wake up crying horribly. A cup of water, a kiss on the forehead, and “jus’ one more song” usually help him go back to sleep. (last night it was “jus’ one more song” 5 times, but still …)
6. Billy knows his colors and can count to 10 and how to count backwards from 5 (this is from hearing the warning countdown so many times). He changes his favorite color almost daily, but the most common answer is green.
7. He loves playing chase around the island in our kitchen. Whether he’s running with Ricky or pulling string for a cat, Billy can just run and run and run.
8. He is a master of the Sit-n-Spin toy. He has known how to spin himself for a long time and just loves to go around in circles. His nursery class at church has one and one Sunday he spun himself for so long that he just started to cry but his teachers couldn’t get him to stop spinning! He really can go for a long time!
9. He calls Rusty “Dusty.” He can only remember two of our cats names (sorry, Linus). He frequently calls me “Pop-momma!” He adores my friend Shanae (it is a very cute bond). He calls himself “Belly.” He does not like it if you call him something other than his name … I sometimes tease him by calling him George and he gets his cranky face and says, “Not George. Me Belly!”
10. Billy is getting good at his own prayers and they generally crack us up! I usually have to prompt him in the right direction, but he finishes. Last night it I whispered, “Thank you for the …” and he finished with “…snow and we go sledding.” My favorite is his list of who to bless … you never know who might be on it. He usually blesses our family and Shanae makes frequent appearances, but sometimes he adds the cat or the Christmas tree or furniture. They are very sweet prayers from our very sweet Billy.
RUSTY
1. He squawks like a dinosaur. He schreeches and yells and really does sound like a baby dinosaur! We love it!
2. He constantly wiggles. Even when he is sitting in his high chair to eat, his hands are in the air and he is rolling his wrists and his little feet and legs are moving like he’s walking somewhere. The wrist roll is almost constant, unless he is actually waving bye-bye which he can do now.
3. His second top front tooth finally broke through a couple of days ago after what seemed like weeks of teasing us. It is a big tooth and brings his total up to 4 teeth.
4. Rusty loves his Baby. It is a little stuffed lamb-thing that says “Baby” on its belly. The big boys have named it Super Baby. When you give it to Rusty, he usually buries his face in it and squeals in delight.
5. He is a good sleeper. He is ready to be put to bed around 7 each night and can sleep until 8 the next morning. Sometimes, especially when fighting a tooth, he’ll wake up once, but many nights he is an excellent sleeper. (But he wakes up stinky every time! What is up with that?)
6. He wants to do whatever his brothers are doing. Yesterday we took the kids sledding and I held Rusty on a blanket to watch the fun. He squirmed and screeched and would get so excited everytime they were at the top of the hill by us, just waiting for Kevin to pick him up and take him along for the fun.
7. Rusty is drawn to nightlights like a moth to a lightbulb. We usually unplug them when he’s crawling around the bedrooms, but if we don’t, he immediately knows and crawls over to unplug it for us. He’s even been drawn to the one at Grandmama’s house and can conquer any barrier we put in his way to get to it!
8. He likes most everyone. He hasn’t experienced any stranger anxiety issues and will usually let anyone hold him. At church the teenage girls swipe him from us and he just gets passed around and around. As long as he isn’t too tired, he flirts right on back with all of them.
9. His hair doesn’t stand up quite so much anymore. As much as we have loved his little mohawk, it is finally starting to lay down. There is still a patch right on top that won’t stay down, so we’ll enjoy that a bit longer!
10. Rusty will be eleven months old tomorrow, which means he’s only one month away from his first birthday! He has been such an easy baby and such a fun addition to our family! The boys adore him and are starting to play with him more and more. His little smile can warm a heart!