Woznation

Wil is 4!  He’s BIG, as he’ll tell you.

3 didnt really do him justice anymore.  He’s definitely a 4-year-old and so so so great and wonderful.  Hes such a good big brother to Evie.  He has more patience with her than I do!  He likes helping her and playing with her.  And he’ll help me decipher what she’s saying — One time at Busias, Evie came up to us, repeatedly asking us the same thing, but we couldnt make out what she wanted.  And Wil comes over and says ‘Evie wants to hide’.  Haha.  Sure enough, thats exactly what she was asking to do.  We’re still working on his speech.  We have yet to set up his therapy in IL – but hes working really hard at home.  I understand him 95% of the time, but it takes new people a little while to catch on to his pronunciations.

I got the idea to start a yearly ‘interview’ with Wil to see how he answers certain questions and how they will change over the years.  A few days after his birthday, I asked him the following questions, with his answers (and my clarifications in parentheses):

1. What is your favorite color? yellow
2. What is your favorite toy?  race car (a little white matchbox race car that he just recently became attached to)
3. What is your favorite food? cookies
4. What is your favorite show? robots (Transformers Rescue Squad on Netflix)
5. What is your favorite thing to wear? new ball shirt (We just recently incorporated a bunch of Luke hand-me downs, lots of ‘new’ items)
6. What is your favorite animal? a doggie
7. What is your favorite song? jingle bells
8. What is your favorite book? car book (no idea what he is talking about?)
9. Who is your best friend? Evan (Wahh – his friend from Baltimore who he hasnt seen in two months.  Then he asked when Evan was coming over to see his new house.  This made me sad.)
10. What is your favorite game? race car
11. What do you sleep with at night? race car
12. What do you want to be when you grow up? space shoes (He watched a Transformers where they all had space shoes? and is now requesting them every hour — I guess he wants to be some sort of astronaut transformer?)

So there we have it.  We’ll see how he answers them next year.  Onto his actual birthday —

We started the day off with pancakes and candles — and made a special crown for him to wear (a leftover craft from Liz! Thanks Liz!)  We went and checked out a new playground (they are all new, considering we moved in 4 days prior to his birthday), then played with water guns in the backyard all morning.

That afternoon we had tickets to go to Legoland!!!  Wil spent many hours playing legos at Mimis house in June, so we thought this would be the perfect place.  Phil was able to meet us there straight from work.  They had displays of giant lego creations, a few small carnival type rides, a big indoor playground, and a small movie theater for 10-minute lego movies. Both kids had a great time (until we left, when Evie had an epic meltdown, go figure).

When we got home, we skyped with all the grandparents, opened presents and had ice cream.  He loves the remote control car from Wendy and Nate, the spiderman glasses from Busia and DziaDzia, and the ‘gears’ from Mimi and PopPop.  Thanks to everyone who sent things for his birthday.  He had an awesome day!

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Thank goodness for Busia’s house!  I was so thankful to drop them off when Char got home from work – and then I would go work myself for a few hours and pick them up before bedtime.  Mark and Char always had tons of water toys to play with on the deck (swimsuits were optional for the kids – so there are not many pictures to share!)  Char and I also had some fun afternoons at Bryan Park Pool and going on an adventure hike out at Griffy lake.  Mark and Char also took the kids to the play ground and chocolate moose.  I also have a few pictures sprinkled in from Ross and Nicole’s wedding over Memorial Day when Em and Sam were here, and a few from Evie’s birthday that I didnt have for the other post. Lots of fun was had by all!

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I really dont think I will ever be able to repay my parents and the Wozniaks for letting us crash with all of them in Bloomington for 4 weeks this summer. I guess thats what parents are for — but I’m sure they are just as excited to go back to regularly scheduled visits. Everyone was exhausted! Our home base was “Mimi’s House”, as the kids called it, and we hopped back and forth daily so we hung out with everyone. The kids had a blast.  I liked to use the phrase “Razzle Dazzle ’em” because I felt like we were constantly trying to distract them from the whole mess of moving.    We had a constant parade of toys – birthdays – grandparents – holidays – desserts – pools – playgrounds.  It was non-stop.  I dont think they even had a chance to think about their home/friends/school in Baltimore (which is bittersweet, but I’m glad they werent sad).  They were completely out of routine — I relaxed a lot of rules, but then there were a bunch of new rules as well. Everything was different than ‘normal’.  So by the end, I dont think any of us were the best versions of ourselves, but we made it through.  And I’d much rather the kids be grumpy from too much fun, than from living in a hotel room in Chicago waiting for our rental house.

At Camp Mimi’s we had all sorts of fun. We went to Wonderlab and the Library.  Walked to the playground nearly every day.  Hung out with Andrew and Jessie (and Killian).  Watered the plants.  Played in boxes.  Went to see Grandma Bear (and saw Aunt Sue who was visiting from France!).  I also took them up to Indy for the day to see Celia at the Zoo.  And they had their first Jiffy Treat experience.  Like I said, they had more than enough activities to keep them busy.  And with the extra help, I was able to finish up some high priority projects at work, which I definitely could not have done watching the kids on my own.  Thanks to Mimi and PopPop for finding the energy to keep them happy for 4 long weeks! And for putting up with me, when I was tired and grumpy, too 🙂

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