This is my son, "Cowboy Jiffy". His sister named him that. He likes plastic pickles, swimming with his face in the water,rolling around in piles of clean laundry (an unfortunate clue about my housekeeping), pulling his sister's hair, and wrestling with his Daddy. This week I caught him holding on to the sofa, trying to kick Nick's soccer ball down the length of it. I am having a wonderful time getting to know him. His personality is really emerging. He isn't afraid of much. We had a few weeks of vacuum insecurity, now he is thinking about riding it with his cowboy hat on. He will not eat Cheerios unless they are in a Ziploc bag (he is not "brand" sensitive, he only wants to dig for them himself) nor will he drink water unless it is in a BIG boy cup, that means no lid and no handles. He compromises a lot! But, not with out some drama lately. Samuel and I love sharing fruit. Right now his favorite are peaches; afterward we both need a bath.

Lillian and Samuel are beginning to play together more. This includes but is not limited to, big sister watches movie while little brother gets Dad's stinky sock from laundry and pretends to bath her. Lillian builds a block castle and Samuel knocks over the block castle; Lillian and Samuel wrestle (because he tore her castle down, or because mom has held him too long, or because he so stinkin' cute). I have found him under a pile of sheets and towels with her jumping on top too close to his head and him laughing hysterically.

Lillian is growing up fast! It is hard to believe that she is four and a half. She is becoming aware of the preferential differences between the sex's. For instance "Mom, I don't want to wear that, the boys don't like the color pink". More of me is coming out of her than I expected. She is not the least bit prissy but...she definitely has an opinion. It tickles me to see the Nick/Leah dynamic in her (poor girl?), sober with a dramatic flare, brutally honest but with such sympathy in her voice and a gentle pat on the back. At a soccer game this season she was being bullied by some older children. I decided to observe and learn (although that was not my emotional response!). These older kids took away the large rock she was playing with and tossed it over a very high fence. They towered around her saying smarty pants things and appeared to feel very pleased with them selves and their unified front against the little four year old. Well! Lillian looked appalled for two seconds, put her hands on her hips and within five minuets had those kids crawling under that fence to get her rock back. I was so pleased...but it did not last. She turned around and really dished it out. I actually thought I might need to bully her a little bit, those poor kids had no idea what they had gotten themselves into.

Lillian took this picture of me and Samuel.

Yes! My children are cleaning!