Flour Anyone? Anyone?

Charlotte has been really into hugs for about 2 months now.  She constantly asks for hugs throughout the day, particularly when I leave for work in the morning or when she has any sort of run in with the floor or wall or her brother...no matter how minor...she is so her mother's daughter.  We are already deep into the drama.  Here she is hugging Hunter the other night while we were waiting for our friends to arrive for dinner...

She also loves to try to help me out in the kitchen, usually while I'm cooking, but this same night she was more into the potholders than anything else...

She does so many cute, sweet things, and I adore her for all of it.

But y'all, today Charlotte's "help" in the kitchen was...how do I describe it?  Messy?  Constant?  Comical?  I'll let you choose.

I was having a sink disaster so I called my dad for insight and while I was on the phone, I heard Hunter say, "uh oh."  I turned around to this...

I quickly grabbed the bag of flour and set it on the kitchen table because clearly I was too focused on my other kitchen disaster to have the foresight to imagine that this would happen the second I turned my back...

Throughout the rest of the phone call with my dad, Charlotte walked through that pile of flour about 24 times and tracked it all over our house.  Then she decided she'd do some damage with the entertainment center...

When I got off the phone, we got to work cleaning up...

 At least she helped!

When James called to say he was coming home, I turned my back again to talk to him (when will I learn), and I turned around to this...

 Safe.

After we sat down to catch our breath of course she requested a "hug!", so I figured I might as well take a picture of that too...

It's my parental obligation to show the sweet side as well as the sassy.

Hunter begged for a hug, too...

And insisted we take a picture of it:)

At least we had fun making our mess!  Or at least they did:)

Jenny

Hunter has always had a vivid imagination.  I love this about him.  One of my favorite things to do is to stand outside his door and listen to him play.  The dialogue that he creates is wildly imaginative and often hysterical. 

Recently I've started to notice that Hunter talks a lot about someone named Jenny during his play time.  At first I thought he must have a new kid in his class at school, and he was just pretending like he was playing with her in his room, but whenever I'd ask about kids at school, Jenny's name would never come up.  So after some eavesdropping loving parent observation during playtime and some probing, I've come to realize that Jenny is not a classmate of Hunter's, but his imaginary friend.  Oh, and Jenny's a boy...told you he had a vivid imagination.

I have mixed feelings about Jenny.  I think imaginary friends are kind of cute, but the extremist in me is tempted to google early signs of Schizophrenia online so I can see if there's a link between the two.  It just kind of creeps me out to think that he has a friend that he plays with and talks to (and according to Katie, often yells at in the morning while he's playing in his room alone).  So my plan for now is to ignore Jenny's existence and hope that he goes away...and hope that we're not in for years of mishaps at the hands of Drop Dead Fred....er, I mean Jenny.

For now, I'm thankful for the real friendships that Hunter has...

Here's to fostering relationships with actual, living humans.  That's my parenting mantra for the week...human friends are good.  Let's have more of them.

Fruit of the Spirit

Hunter has loved his first year of preschool.  Next Thursday is his last day, but we signed him up for several different days of the summer program, and I know he'll have so much fun.  Tuesday was the spring program, and the 3 year old classes sang several songs, and let me tell y'all, Hunter was SO expressive.  I just know that kid is going to be some sort of musician when he gets older. 

Unfortunately my camera was not cooperating, and believe me when I tell you that the pictures below are actually good quality considering what I had to choose from.  If I had included the really fuzzy ones, you'd see that Hunter was serious about the choreography and lyrics.  He was leading the pack!

After all of the songs, they all recited Galatians 5:22-23a "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control."  Hunter was serious about that too.  He has been reciting it at home for us for months.

I surprised myself and got a little emotional during his performance.  As I sat there watching that lean, tall boy, I felt like his life was speeding by already...like it was getting away from me.  I know he's only 4, but I can't believe it's been over 4 years since he was born.  FOUR years, seriously?  I don't know how that happened so quickly.  He is my pride and joy...

...and I can't wait to see what God has in store for his sweet heart!

Pepper

I loathe going to the dentist.  I can think of very few things that I hate more than dental work.  But I've decided that it actually makes me a better therapist.  Those 45 minutes of sheer torture every six months help remind me of what life must be like for all of my sweet little feeding kiddos during their 30 minutes of daily feeding therapy with me...(What I'm sure they will one day lovingly look back on as their own version of cruel and unusual punishment.)

I hope for my own children that they won't share my dread of dental check ups, and with the experience that we had on Friday for Hunter's first trip to the dentist, I'd say we're on the road to that kid being in love with dental work...or at least being in love with his dental hygenist, Pepper.  How cute is that name?  She was destined to work with kids I tell you.  And as cute as her name is, her little voice was even cuter.  I was really impressed with the entire visit, y'all.  The wait time was extremely minimal and all of the staff were super kid-oriented and there were several different places for little ones to play with toys...that they even provided for us.

Maybe it's because I work with kids that are going through some pretty hard stuff, so I can see how important it is to approach things from the child's perspective.  Whatever the reason, I was seriously impressed with this place, y'all.  Pepper did an excellent job of showing Hunter all of her tools, using age-appropriate language with him, and being super gentle.  She reminded me of a really good Child Life Specialist. 

First Hunter got to pick out a toothbrush and the flavor "foam" (fluoride) that he wanted.  He went with Buzz Lightyear and Marshmallow flavor...

Pepper had to leave for a second after this, so Hunter started looking around at everything asking lots of questions and seeming a little overwhelmed...(just one example of a time when I was thankful for their speediness)...

Before we knew it, Pepper was back and started showing Hunter all of her tools. First she showed him the mirror and told him that it may rub against his cheek a little...

After he was comfortable with it, she rubbed it on his hand so he could feel it. 

Next she showed him the plaque scraper thingy, (I know my sister is loving my technical dental hygeine speak right now.) and told Hunter she was going to use it to "count his teeth". Here she's showing him by counting his fingers...

Then was the polisher (a personal least favorite of mine)...

Then the water squirter and suction tools (more with my technical terminology)...

She squirted the water on the chair and then sucked it up.  Hunter thought that part was WAY cool.

Then it was time for Hunter to lay down, so Pepper handed over these stylin' sunglasses and got to work...

I have to brag on my son for a second here (isn't that what the blog is for?), and say that I was so impressed with how cooperative he was during the entire exam.  Pepper thought so, too, so it's not just my parental bias:)

After the cleaning, it was xray time.  Once again Hunter proved to be the perfect patient...even with the bite wing things on the side that feel like they are cutting your gums all up.  I was extremely impressed with him.  And thought he looked like the most adorable kid ever in his lead apron...

We were so proud of H, and he got to pick a toy from the treasure chest for all of his hard work.  He went with a slimy snake toy.  Awesome.

Hunter got a sticker chart to fill out for spitting out his toothpaste - we're still using the training toothpaste because he swallows it.  When he completes the chart, we get to mail it in and get another prize!  Can't wait to see what that will be...hopefully not another slimy snake:)