Mister, Mister

Dear David,

Happy birthday my little four-year-old. Wow, I couldn't be happier about being your mother. I am so proud to be around you. You carry yourself so well. You are kind, courageous, smart and easy. I never worry about how you will act around others, or in public, because you are a charmer and CHOOSE happiness each day. Occassionally,  you will melt down just a little bit but I think we are the only ones who see that and get some fuel, in the form of food, in you and you return immediately to us as your happy self.

You have learned to introduce yourself to others this year and you nail it. You state, while shaking someone's hand and looking them square in the eye, "My name is David Hezekiah "Mister" Thatcher." You are your dad's show pony and he loves seeing you do this and watch how other's light up because of your courtesy and courage.

You are a self-starter. This year, you love picking your own outfits and bring out piles of T-shirts and shorts for me to pick out my favorite one each day for you to wear. As soon as I pick the one I prefer, you will say, "I think I will wear this one.", always indicating a different shirt. Spiderman shirt, underwear and pajamas are a staple, and occasionally, "Dusty" or the Avengers will make the grade. You never forget "Blue Blankie" and drag him everywhere too. You stated a few weeks ago, "I like these shoes. They are super simply great!".

You love golf, riding your bike (which you taught yourself), playing with Logan, flying airplanes with Dad, jumping on the trampoline, and of course being with those two sisters of yours. You have all been sleeping in the same room together all year. First, in the girl's room at the old house and now in your big boy room at the new house. The girls just felt like you would miss them too much and you would. I love to watch you all play. You always choose the boy's toys, but you are also right there with them playing along side.

You are precocious little one and I can often see a little glimmer in your eye. The other day, I told you that you couldn't take your toys and blankie to preschool and you responded, "I don't know any better. Logan told be that I don't know any better." You do not like chores and often skirt them. At the car wash recently I had asked you to help me clean out the car and you dabbled at it for a few minutes and then said "Mom, ask me a question." I asked what question and you said "Do you want to watch or work." Without realizing I was being set up, I asked "Do you want to watch or work?" and David responded, "Watch". Yep, you are that kind of Tom Sawyer-ish.

I tell you all the time that I love your company and I do. This year has probably not been very exciting for you because a lot of the time we are running other kids places and rushing home to get Benj one of his two naps a day, so there hasn't been enough time for a lot of park dates, and library trips and fun outings, but you are happy with what you get and chatter away to me all day long. I like to hear what you say and love having my little sidekick. I'll love you forever, little "Mister".

Mom

Kennedy Turned Six

Dear Kennedy,

This picture just sums you up for me right now. Benjamin was born nine months ago and you have had him at your side ever since. You are his second mom and take this role very seriously. You wake up with him most mornings, although I am never certain who wakes who up. When he was a newborn, I would find you cuddled in his crib with him. Later, you and Claire figured out how to get him out of his crib. You would stand inside the crib and pick him up and them pass him to Claire who would be standing outside his crib. You've now even created a way to get him on your own, where you balance one foot on a shelf and one on the side of the crib, pick him up and then lower him to the ground. We had to swear you off that approach for obvious safety reasons, but I love your tenacity little girl. He loves you for this, smiling for you and giggling when you insist on a foot kiss before nap time.

You watch me with eagle eyes as a mother and sometimes I wonder if you are thinking, "I could do this better." You know what? I think you could too, most of the time. You are also always at my side when I cook. Helping is second nature to you and unlike most six-year-olds, you are really efficient. 

Kennedy, you are a born planner. You particularly like to throw parties and can dream of place settings, meal plans, cake toppers and gift bags all day long. In this way, you are a lot like your Grandma Cheryl. You planned out your own Lego-themed party this year and picked out all of the decorations and party favors, catering each Lego gift to the personality and likes of your cousins.

You started Kindergarten this year and told me you are the smartest kid in the class. I told her teacher this and she said, "Well, she is probably right". You are bright and catch on to things very quickly. I love to hear you reading and watch you do math problems in your head. It is great to see your mind in motion. 

At times, you can be shy and other times extremely bold. I notice when you are with your sister, you are your bravest. When Claire falters at something, you boldly try to succeed with it. Some of this is competitive, but I think down deep you want her to know that you both can do it. I love to see you kick in to high gear in these situations and push yourself. At school, you are shy in social situations but confident in the work. We are working on making new friends and getting more comfortable with new people.

Your little freckles put me over the moon Kennedy. You have a few dotting your checks and nose. I love to stare at them and kiss those soft cheeks. They still smell like pie to me! I had freckles as a little girl and hated them. Seeing you with them, has shown me how beautiful they are. Now I regret every minute I hated my freckles. 

I love my little mama and love watching who you are becoming.

Love,

Mom

Eight is great!

Dear Claire,

You turned eight in November. As if just gaining another year wasn't a big enough milestone, you also chose to become a member of The Christ of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints through baptism. This made your birthday extra sweet and punctuated for me, even more, that you are growing up. I keep asking myself if your years are going by too fast and you know what? They aren't. Right from the beginning I have been distinctly in the moment with you. Maybe because you are my first and I became a mother through you and experienced every year of childhood through you, but your days and years have always been new to me. Nothing seems foggy to me. I feel like I can remember even the smallest moments with you with "Claire"-i-ty.

You are for the most part a text book first child. You are conscientious, respectful of authority, a good student, motivated, hesitant in new situations, self-disciplined and you care about the approval of others. That said, you are never domineering which can also be a first-born trait.

You are a leader without even meaning to be. I think others see your quietly confident, unassuming ways and want to be like you. You have a lot of friends in school and are kind to everyone, but you don't like to be the center of attention. I love to see your growing confidence in social situations and attribute much of your growth in this areas to the wonderful teachers you have had in your life in both Primary and at school. They have loved you and have encouraged you to lead.

I love your eight-year-old mind. You pepper me with significant questions all the time. This year while preparing for your baptism your would ask seeking questions about faith, about the purpose of life and how we can find truth. Your questions sometimes took your dad and I off guard because they were things we didn't even think about until we were in our 20's and 30's. I love that you have a questioning mind and know that this attribute can make your faith stronger and your understanding of God's plan deeper.

You have a strong need to be loved by me right now. I see you watch me and try to read how I feel about everything, but especially you. I hope that I show you how much you mean to me. I have to slow down sometimes and just hold you close to me. You can be sensitive and at times tearful. I hope your dad and I are teaching you how to fill your own bucket, to choose happiness, to understand how important you are down deep and not superficially. These are the things a mother of an eight-year-old thinks of, worries about.

At my core though, I know you are always going to be what you are today, because you were just born good. You were just born peaceful. You were just born kind-hearted. My dear, it is a pleasure to be your mother. I love you through and through.

Mom

Crazy Story From My Trip Here...

I was just cleaning out my inbox and came across this gem from Dave, with the message line "Crazy story from my trip here", dated 1/13/12 and timestamped 2:49am. This took me back immediately to said moment in time. On that particular night, Dave had decided that instead of driving to Las Vegas as he had planned first thing in the morning, he would instead drive that night, starting out around 10pm in a rainstorm and get there sometime late that night. He insisted he had lots of energy and the rain wasn't that bad. I was worried and insisted that he call me along the route to let me know that he had made it safely to Las Vegas. Part of my worry stemmed from the fact that in order to get to Las Vegas, a four hour drive from our house, you have to drive though a barren sweep in the Mojave Desert. This part of the route takes two hours and there are no amenities or cell phone reception, and is prone to total road wash out during rain. Also, did I mention that at night you rarely see a soul on the road. This sounds like a perfect storm brewing, right? Not to Dave, who gingerly left like he was heading out for a Sunday drive.

I went to bed around midnight with no call, then I slept on egg shells waiting for him to call to tell me he had arrived. I woke up around 2am and tried to call him and it went straight to voicemail. I was worried but I heard a ting about 45 minutes later from my inbox and then I found this email:

Tara didn't want me to drive. Meeting mom and Sam. Raining really hard as I hit 29 Palms. Jamming and fell asleep coming around corner and a coyote sitting in the middle of road. I am half a sleep, slam on breaks. Go off the road a little and blow tire. Middle of nowhere. What little light my head lights are throwing off is casting shadows on Joshua trees. It is cold and raining hard. I decide to wait it out. I dose off to the rythum of the sound of a good rain on the roof. 3:30am I wake up, dead asleep to wide awake like when you...tap, tap, tap, tap, at first I think it is the last bits of rain falling from an over hanging joshua tree, but the moon is out. Bright. No more rain. Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. I wasn't worried about it, but now I am. I look in front, side to side, then in my rearview mirror, and then I see it. A shadow, a large shadow. And almost a red glow. Tapping on my back window is a decrepit, bearded old man. His eyes focused on me is tapping on the window. Our eyes meet and he stops tapping. But his hand stays on the window and he starts to walk toward the drivers side of the car. I am panicking trying to think of what to do if he breaks my window. As he walks he starts to tap again on the window. He comes face to face with me, he is dirty but his beard is bright red I can now see. His eyes piercing mine. Tap, tap, tap. It feels like he has been tapping on my forehead in a Chinese torture chamber for the last hour. I have not said a word. I don't even know if I am breathing. His finger nails are long, dirty and thick. He lifts them and begins to walk away. Then he points to an animal sitting in the middle of the road. Sitting there is the coyote that I had swerved to miss a couple hours ago, before I stopped to take a nap. The man whistled twice and they walked under the nearby railroad bridge. I started the car and decided to get the heck out of there, flat or not I would ride that tire to the rim. I spun out and started over the small hill and then I saw something I could not believe. In front of me the road was completely washed out with at least three feet of deep water still running down it. I got out and looked at the flash flood area. Had I not been stopped by the coyote, I would have hit the ditch at 80 miles an hour. I then hear whistling, then louder whistling. I heard the same two whistles from before. Now off to my right, I see the old man and his coyote standing above me on the train tracks. His teeth laced with gold and dirt, his smile ear to ear. He tipped his hat and walked away. 

Sent from my 0iPhoneapping

After I read the text, I laid in bed for the next few hours trying to contact Dave and find out if he was indeed out of the desert. By his own account he was a few hours behind and had a blown out tire on drenched, flooded out roads with a coyote and a yellow fingered old guy wandering around. I never reached him that night and finally got in touch with him the next morning. At that point, I was freaking out over what had happened and how he got to Vegas. Dave didn't seem to understand why I was having a heart attack. I then reminded him of his email in the middle of the night and he stated laughing and said, "Oh that, that was just a ghost story I thought of in the middle of the desert and wrote it down so I could remember it to tell the kids."

Which begs me to ask the question, what kind of exotic creature are men? No really, who are these people. A woman would NEVER do this to another woman, or man for that matter. Dave keeps me on my toes, that is for sure and there is definitely never a dull moment. By the way, it took me until basically today to be able to laugh at this.

Our Song

A few years ago, I wrote a post about my pregnancy songs that spontaneously come to my mind when I thought about each of my unborn children. I wondered whether one would come to me for Benjamin too and it did and it's a beauty, the whole thing. It called All of Me by John Legend. The lyrics are so perfect for my Benjamin, my pregnancy and the insanity of having a fourth child. Here are some of my favorite lyrics:

My head's under water

But I'm breathing fine

You're crazy and I'm out of my mind

'Cause all of me

Loves all of you

Love your curves and all your edges

All your perfect imperfections

Give your all to me

I'll give my all to you

You're my end and my beginning

Even when I lose I'm winning

'Cause I give you all of me

And you give me all of you

How many times do I have to tell you

Even when you're crying you're beautiful too

The world is beating you down, I'm around through every mood

You're my downfall, you're my muse

My worst distraction, my rhythm and blues

I can't stop singing, it's ringing, in my head for you

Give me all of you

Cards on the table, we're both showing hearts

Risking it all, though it's hard

A few months after Benjamin was born, we were driving to Utah and he started crying. We had a long road trip ahead of us and I quickly tried all the things I could think of to try to soothe him. Nothing worked and Dave and I were both starting to worry about the fact that we had over ten driving hours left. Then I remembered Benjamin's song and told Dave to play it on the radio. He did and to our surprise Benjamin quieted down immediately and fell right to sleep. We were shocked and even more shocked when three other times during the same road trip the same scenario repeated itself—Benjamin getting fussy and the song calming him immediately. It seems he approves of his song as well.

Stream of Consciousness

My three-year-old David has the most amazing gift for gab. He can rattle on for hours with little to no response. When he gets up from his nap, he is particularly conversational, so yesterday, I wrote down everything he said in a three minute window. I didn't do any prompting for this conversation, outside of just saying "uh-huh" and "umm". Here he is, verbatim.

"Mommy, Spider-man has a dad." 

"How did Jesus make our belly button?" (while examining his belly button). 

"Mommy, I'm feeling your hand" (while giving me a hand massage). 

David coughs, "Bless you, that was a bless you". 

Drives fake car down my hair "Vroom, vroooooom, vroom".  

"Mommy, it would be fun to go down a rainbow." 

"Benji is asleep. His hands are asleep." 

"Mommy, why do we have these kingles?"(pointing to his knuckles). 

"Mommy, where is dad?" 

Waving to Benjamin, "I need Benji to shut his eyes". 

"Mommy, do you know what is in San Diego? Those heroes. Those pilots. It might be noisy." (Referring to the air show Dave told him about last summer and hasn't mentioned since). 

"Mommy, did Jesus make your phone?" 

"Eeww was that Benji (who had just passed gas). Does he do big farts?" 

"Have you noticed that Ripslinger has got those? (pointing at his airplanes vents). He is green and he is a Mustang." 

"Skipper is nice." 

"Let me get my blue blankie then I can snuggle up." 

"Mommy, I love it when you sit by me."

I could listen to him all day, oops, I do.

Benjamin's Baby Blessing

Yesterday, on Easter Sunday, Benjamin received his baby blessing at church. The fact that it was Easter made it very special, but even more special was the fact that three years ago on Easter Sunday David received his blessing. I love to see this connection between brothers and hope that Easter will be a unique time for them to reminisce on who they are and their relationship to their Savior. Dave and two of his brothers, Mark and Brent, were invited to be in the circle. In addition, our dear friend, Barrett, was there are well. Mck held the microphone. It was wonderful to see these amazing men surrounding my little one while he watched them open eyed. I know he will continue to look up to them throughout his life.

Dave gave our boy a name and a blessing and declared that the name by which he shall be known throughout his life is Benjamin Liam Thatcher.

Dave WELCOMED Benjamin into this world with great gratitude in our hearts.

He wanted him to know how much he is LOVED.

He blessed him with a thirst for KNOWLEDGE and RIGHTEOUSNESS.

He blessed our baby with a particular KNOWLEDGE OF THE SCRIPTURES as he studies them with his family.

He blessed his body that it would grow properly and that he will be HEALTHY and STRONG.

He blessed him that he will be able to DEPEND ON HIS FAMILY as they are there for him. 

He blessed him to KNOW HE HAS EXTENDED FAMILY WHO SURROUND HIM & LOVE HIM—aunts, uncles, a brother and sisters. 

He blessed him to know that he is PART OF THEM and that they are part of him. 

He blessed Benjamin to RECOGNIZE HIS SAVIOR and to know that he is perfect.

Finally, he blessed him to know his HEAVENLY FATHER LOVES HIM PERFECTLY and to know that even though his family may not be perfect that he will be assured of the great love that they have him.

My favorite part? The fact that Dave blessed Benjamin with a knowledge of his families flawed, yet enduring love for him. It's so nice and reassuring to me to know that this little guy will grow to know that he is surrounded by those who love him and support him. And amazingly enough that this is a blessing that was foretold when he was just five weeks old and couldn't fathom the impact the understanding of familial love will have on his life.