Hey Little Sister

We've had a heartbreaking couple of days. Some very dear friends are living through a horrible tragedy at the very young ages of 25 and 27, and although we've tried to be there for them everyday, the truth is there's nothing we can do to comfort them right now. There are no words to bring them peace...and so we pray continuously. Everytime I look at my children I think of our friends and the loss they have had to suffer, and my heart breaks a little more.

I don't know if it's the emotions of the last several days or my hormones (am I still aloud to use that as an excuse?) or having a newborn who hasn't quite developed a personality or what, but I've been so appreciative of and intrigued by Hunter's developing little personality lately. Since James has been with our friends the last 3 nights, I've been home alone with the kids, and tonight as H and I were hanging out, I thought about how much I genuinely enjoy spending time with him - not just caring for him, but interacting with him and talking to him. It's an honor to watch him grow into himself. I so want to cherish and hold close the time I have when he actually wants to hang out with me, because as much as I want to be the cool mom, I have a feeling he's not going to run over to me and say, "I wanna cuddle," once the pre-teen years hit.

There have been a couple of stressful moments when I've been home alone (wearing your infant in a sling while bathing and drying off your toddler is kind of hard, huh?), but mostly it's just been awesome to get to watch Hunter's love for Char start to grow. He often abruptly stops what he's doing, runs over to her and says, "hug her!" or "I wanna hold her hand," and he'll do just that.

But as sweet as he is to her in the house, once we get in the car she becomes the most frustrating and annoying thing in all of the world to him. Char hates the car and screams her head off nearly the entire way everytime we go somewhere. Hunter can only tolerate this for about 1.3 seconds after which he balls his fists up, throws his body into full on tantrum mode, and screams (and I mean screams), "NO BABY CHARLOTTE!" over and over. We've learned it's a difficult thing to teach your toddler that babies cry, and you can't get mad about it...especially while we're in the car. Providing quality parenting while driving is not a skill we've mastered at this point.

Thankfully Hunter doesn't hold grudges yet, and quickly forgets about Char's screaming once we get in the house...


I know. So sweet:)