Woznation

Wil has lost 4 teeth this year (with #5 dropping any day!!).  I’m still the worst tooth fairy on the block.  With the last tooth — I remembered at 6am and tried to sneak in to do the exchange but Wil was already up and sad.  I snuck around the side of his bed and dropped the dollar on the ground and made him ‘look a little bit harder’ for his surprise.  Then had to make up a story about why the tooth fairy sometimes leaves the tooth behind since I obviously couldnt grab that in plain sight.  I swear for the next tooth — I’ll get it right.

I forget how Wil got into magic tricks (probably youtube)– but I finally signed him up for a legit ‘magic class’ through the parks department in May and he was all about it!  He learned a few card tricks and got a few small ‘disappearing’ tricks to take home.  For his birthday, I purchased a few more for him (which was a hilarious exchange — I had to meet the magician at a random location before one of his other gigs, cash only.  It was a weird google reminder.)  Anyway,  he goes back for his second class in August.  He loves doing magic tricks for guests — but cant NOT tell people how its done, haha.  I’ll try to post a video of him soon.  Hes quite the entertainer. But terrible at keeping secrets.

Wil is still the silliest of the bunch.  Throughout the school year we continued to get calls and have meetings about the best way to channel Wil’s energy and how to keep him focused (and not bothering others).  Hes getting better with coping strategies and doing great with academics.  Hes even trying theater this summer to act out his silliness.  I wouldnt change a thing about him — We just need to focus that social excitement!

Wil is so interested in learning these days!!  Its like he unlocked a secret super-power.  He loves doing new things: math, science, building, reading, everything!  Hes reading books by himself (or to Zev).  Hes constantly asking me for math problems to do in the car.  And for his birthday he got a 800-piece Lego set that he put together within days (was really hoping it would last longer as an activity, ha!).  Now we’re onto learning to tie shoes which he is super pumped about.

Wil has also made huge stride in physical activities.  Last year he was terrified of the two-wheeler and swimming but this year he was the most outgoing in his swim class and so-so-close to riding the bike on his own.  We tried a few different sports — but he seems most interested in golf! I love to see him so confident and excited about things.

Wil was obsessed with venus fly traps for like an entire year — but they only sell them a few times a year and missed them last year.  I called around and was so excited when they were finally in stock.  However — I was completely expecting like one tiny little plant — so I even got Evie excited about getting one and thought Id be Mom-of-the-year by taking a trip to the garden store and buying my kids a dinky little plant.  When we got there I learned these plants are very high maintenance.  They need special water and special care and were like $23 a piece!!! Jeez-o-pete. But since I made a big stink about them, we had to buy two and Ive been trying my darndest to keep them alive.  But its not going well. (PS, in the picture below we tried to feed it a dead fly — you’re NOT supposed to do that….oops).

For Wil’s birthday it was just the fam and great weather — so we packed up and went to the Lake Zurich beach in the morning.  Then did presents and cake after nap.  And finished the day at Chuck-E-Cheese!  It was a great day to be 7.

Here is Wil’s yearly birthday questionnaire:

1. What is your favorite color? Teal (unchanged)
2. What is your favorite toy? 3DS
3. What is your favorite food? pizza
4. What is your favorite show? Incredibles
5. What is your favorite thing to wear? Flash shirt
6. What is your favorite animal? Tiger (unchanged)
7. What is your favorite song? tu ra looo ra (unchanged!)
8. What is your favorite book? Avengers book (unchanged)
9. Who is your best friend? Jayke
10. What is your favorite game? Donkey Kong (3DS game)
11. What do you sleep with at night? My Dragon (unchanged)
12. What do you want to be when you grow up? Police officer

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Hooray for warm weather!! (Except spring was actually pretty cold until like May.  I think Phil was still making weekend fires well into April.)  But at least the time changed and it was light enough to get outside a bit more and we had a random hot day here and there.

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Maker:L,Date:2017-9-9,Ver:5,Lens:Kan03,Act:Kan02,E-Y

For spring break we went down to Btown for a few days.  Phil stayed behind to get in some work days.  But I was able to catch up with Leigh Ann, Celia, and Sarah (!!) who overlapped all the way from California.  I don’t see any of those girls enough – so it was super rare and fun.

The kids also had a great time with the grandparents doing wonderlab, easter egg hunts, playing in the snow and dental appointments with uncle Andrew.

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Maker:L,Date:2017-9-9,Ver:5,Lens:Kan03,Act:Kan02,E-Y

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Maker:L,Date:2017-9-9,Ver:5,Lens:Kan03,Act:Kan02,E-Y

We celebrated Easter in LG and even though they are wearing their springy Easter clothes  – it was actually below freezing.  (My kids do a lot of crazy things for an M&M).

Then I turned around and went back to btown for some dental implants.  Fun fun.  But it was first night away from the kids in like over a year, so it was actually kind of great.  After that, we didn’t have any travel planned for a while so we decided to potty train Zev. Oy.  I know the world doesn’t like to hear about potty training, but it’s a big deal and I think most parents can at least appreciate the significance.  So yeah.  We did it. And it caught on pretty easily in the first few weeks.  And we are now diaper free during the day!  I cant say how thankful I am how ‘Easy’ it was (it wasn’t easy. Phil and I just have thick skin and have dealt with it before, so it seemed ‘Easy’ compared to the first time – I’ll spare details of all the ‘Not-so-easy’ moments).

Other than that we had a bunch of random activities – I took the big kids to a children’s musical of the ‘Emperors New Clothes’ in the area (and got pulled over on the way.  Great learning experience.) Lots of friends birthday parties, we hosted lots of friends over here, and even Aunt Wendy visited for a night before a conference!!

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Maker:L,Date:2017-9-9,Ver:5,Lens:Kan03,Act:Kan02,E-Y

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Maker:L,Date:2017-9-9,Ver:5,Lens:Kan03,Act:Kan02,E-Y

Then we had all the end of the year concerts, picnics, and graduations to celebrate before the official kick off of ‘Summer’!! Woo-hoo! Bring it on.

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Maker:L,Date:2017-9-9,Ver:5,Lens:Kan03,Act:Kan02,E-Y

Here are some additional memories:

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Evie is, so far, our most dangerous child (I have a feeling Zev will trump her when he gets older).  But she is much more willing to throw herself into new situations than Wil ever was.  She passed Wil in swim tests this spring and was the first to show Wil how to cross the top of the monkey bars.  She is speeding down our driveway at full-speed on the balance bike and catapults herself into the foam pit at gymnastics without a second thought.

She loves to tell jokes.  Whether they make sense or not.  Here was one of her latest:

evie: why did the fish go to the doctor?

me: i dont know, why?

evie: because he needed more water!

me: LOL, what?

evie: is that funny?

me: i dont know, i dont think so.

evie:  youre laughing – it means its funny

Evie is the best ‘helper’ of all the kids.  She is always the most willing to go run errands – she especially loves going to the grocery store.  And she loves moving everything out of the way in the garage for the lawn mower for dad.

Since she is the best helper — on the weekends whenever we are out and picking up take-out for dinner – we like to have ‘girl dates’.  Which consists of us sitting at a restaurant waiting for food (usually having a ‘special drink’) and having drawing contests.  Kind of like Pictionary but usually with a ‘theme’ of the day. This week it was Mario themed and we drew everything from Mario games and had to guess what each other drew when we were done.

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Evie is still our most sensitive one.  She is easily upset by others and can take a while to calm down.  We are working on ‘Even if someone does something you don’t like, it doesn’t mean they are being mean to you’  But it’s a tough lesson to learn.  She takes things to heart. And needs lots of hugs in the meantime.

Evie loves super heroes  (which she plays with Wil ALL.THE.TIME.  She has no predisposition to princesses over-here!).  For her birthday, she requested a GIANT batman cake.  But of course the grocery store couldnt promise me ‘batman’ since it was copyrighted – but they said they could do a cityscape and I could bring in my own cake toppers.  So I found a bunch of cheap lego super-heroes and it turned out great!!  She was so pumped and so was I.  We also had Busia and Dzia-dzia here for the occasion and went mini-golfing.  It was a great day.  We love you Eva-Diva.

Here is your 5-year questionnaire (which i asked a few weeks late, meaning many answers revolve around Incredibles 2 that came out mid-June.  Shes obsessed!):

1. What is your favorite color? rainbow
2. What is your favorite toy?  Baby Jack-Jack
3. What is your favorite food? cookies and ice cream
4. What is your favorite show? Incredibles 2
5. What is your favorite thing to wear? Flash shirt
6. What is your favorite animal? Deer (we had to come back to this 3 times, she couldnt think of anything)
7. What is your favorite song? Itsy Bitsy Spider (we do this at night with tickles)
8. What is your favorite book? Super Hero Books
9. Who is your best friend? Owen and Hugo (Oh man, this group of 3 was inseparable this year!)
10. What is your favorite game? Cat in the Hat
11. What do you sleep with at night? My animals! (I asked her how many she had — she thinks 71)
12. What do you want to be when you grow up? A Mommy.

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Maker:L,Date:2017-9-9,Ver:5,Lens:Kan03,Act:Kan02,E-Y

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Zev is like a real kid now.  I wish he would have stayed a sweet little baby for awhile longer – but hes a full-on kid.  Hes in a big-boy bed (which he calls his boo-boo- bed, but is really just a mattress on the floor) And hes out of diapers during the day.  How did all this happen so fast??

Along with his big-kid status, he has figured out hes in control of himself and often asserts himself by destroying everything in site.  Anything Evie and Wil are doing, he tries to either take away, or break it, or just hit someone for no reason what-so-ever.  So they arent a huge fan of him (unless they know they are getting brownie points for ‘watching’ him).

Hes also turning into a bit of a ‘runner’.  Like if its ever time to get in the car and go somewhere, he just yells NO and runs away from me in the other room.  But even more troublesome is when I have to let go of his hand in a parking lot in order to unlock or open the door – he will sometimes TAKE OFF.  Its terrifying and Ive practically tackled him in the parking lot to make sure he doesnt make it too far.  But Yeeeesh.  Its been scary.  I might become a ‘leash mom’.  Dont judge.

If you ever try to discipline him, his main come back is yelling ‘poo poo butt’ in your face.  Its as charming as it sounds. Especially in the middle of Target at the top of his lungs.

For whatever reason, he likes telling ‘secrets’ and whispering in ears.  He will sometimes whisper ‘I love you’  But the main things he likes to whisper are ‘Mickey Choo Choo’ and ‘Goofy Hulka-Hulka’.  I think it started with ‘Mickey Choo-choo’ around Christmas when there was a specific clubhouse episode he liked to watch and I would whisper it to get him happy or excited.  Then it branched out to ‘Goofy’ with the ‘Hulka-hulka’ (the sound that Goofy makes when he laughs).

He understands to be quiet when someone is sleeping.  So whenever I tell him to be quiet he says “Someone is sleeping?!”  (I can usually play this off in the grocery store by saying there is a baby ‘over there’).  Then when he wants YOU to be quiet he will say ‘STOP! QUIET! Someone is sleeping!!!’.  But when you ask who, he usually says ‘Uncle Nick’.

Keep being you, Zev.  You’re awesome.

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