Snapshot: Wesley

Kyla and Piper have been down at Gramma and Papa’s since Wednesday. I’ve actually been trying to blog since Tuesday, but that day got away, Wednesday was full until about 9pm, Thursday was my work/clean/organize day (taking advantage of having only one kid—and one who takes 2 naps). Friday was going to be my fun day, except I started the day by vomiting.  By the time I felt better at the end of the day, Wesley was vomiting.  The pediatrician said there’s a bug going around.  I’m willing to believe it.

I’ve been wanting to blog about each of the kids individually so I focus on the things I Will Always Remember, except that I don’t.

Like for instance, Wesley has completely mastered the stairs crawling up and down that he doesn’t even like to do them much anymore, unless he’s holding one hand in Mama’s (and only one, so he can suck the fingers on his other hand—can’t you just picture it) so that he can walk down like a big person. 

Except last Tuesday.  He actually fell down stairs three times that day.  Oddly, he only got two new head bumps.

It’s really rare to have Wesley without the girls around. After his morning nap on Wednesday, I put shoes on him intending to take him on a walk around the island in front of our house.  If you know the area, this is a very short walk.  We eventually made it one driveway over, but it was so fun just following his footsteps.  Mostly he chased Smokey, who is so neglected since she’s been downgraded to an Outside Cat, that she did figure-eights around our legs.  He stumbled up and down our neighbor’s driveway and occasionally sitting in a mud puddle and splashing his hands in it.  Right before sucking his fingers again.

Like his sisters, he’s already trying to use the curbs as a balance beam.  He did it several times before he fell and bonked his head for a 3rd new bruise in two days.

I noticed after several minutes that our neighbor has a surveillance camera on that driveway.  I hope he got good pictures!

Wesley probably misses his sisters, generally his best source of entertainment, but he is reveling in extra Mama and Daddy time.  He loves playing downstairs and has mastered the slide--climbing up the steps and sliding down on his tummy and his bottom.  He also loves the roller coaster and has figured out how to back it up to the starting point again so Mama can sit him on top of the car and push him down.  We can do that over and over and over and over again.  (When Piper is here, she sits in the car then helps Wesley get in front of her and pushes off.  It’s a tight fit, but they are both grinning from ear to ear during the short ride!)

Not a surprise, but Wesley is an active, adventurous child who always tries to take on height first.  He’s keeping up more and more with his sisters, and the more he can do, the more they slow down to let him join them.

In his first 14 months of life, Wesley has only liked one book enough to allow me to read the whole thing and then ask for it again and again.  The cover of Peek-A-Who is held together with tape and the spine won’t be able to stand up to one more kid.  All other books, he reaches for the last page to close the book and then throws it on the ground.  I remember Kyla didn’t like books until she was 18 months old.

He will let me do anything to him (change a diaper, suck out the snot, etc.) as long as I play peek-a-boo with him or put something silly, like his pants, on my head.  Odd, I don’t have any pictures of me doing that…

This little guy is my happiness, even if I can’t take him to the library until he is passed his “ALL books must come off the shelf” phase.  Even if I can only cook by allowing him to dump out the bottom two shelves of the pantry, the baking goods, and all the pans and half the Tupperware.  Even though he learned to throw things (not garbage, but things, like Mama’s underwear) in garbage cans long before we picked up that he could do that.  Even though this blue-eyed wonder did vomit on my pillow early this morning.  Because this boy’s the male version of his sisters, which means he’s ridiculously lovable, thoroughly delightful, and full of potential and a lot of dreams.