Individuality

(Bearhug in blue, Cuddlebug in red, 23 months old)

When Cuddlebug and Bearhug were born, we rarely dressed them alike. We had a lot of coordinating outfits but the only actual matching outfits we had were gifts. Well, until around age 5 when I started getting all three boys matching outfits for pictures :).

I have to confess - now that they're too old for us to dress them I sometimes wish we had dressed them alike when we had the chance because, well, it's really cute! :)

But the reason we didn't was because we wanted people to see them as unique individuals (and make it easier for others to tell them apart), and as they grew from babies to toddlers to preschoolers, we wanted them to see themselves as unique individuals and not feel like they always had to be just like each other. We figured if they chose to dress alike when they were old enough to choose for themselves, that would be great. And sometimes they do, but it seems to be more that they just happened to each pick the same color shirt that day more than actually trying to dress alike.

So recently I had an interesting conversation with Cuddlebug that made me glad we've tried to foster their individuality. I can't remember how we ended up on that topic, but Cuddlebug told me that sometimes people (at school) expect him and Bearhug to be EXACTLY the same and he doesn't like it.

CB: "I like what I like, and 'Bearhug' likes what he likes. And we're NOT the same."

me: "Of course you're not the same, you're each your own person. If you happen to like the same things, that's great, and if not, that's totally fine too."

(after all, I don't want them to feel like they have to always be different, either).

CB: "Yeah, because if we did things exactly the same, we wouldn't be able to live the happy lives we want to live."

(I love the way he phrases things, he repeated that one several times during the conversation).

Obviously I want each of them to be able to live the happy lives they want to live :). I thought it was great that he was thinking about such things, and that he has a strong sense of himself.




If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.

Read More >>

Snowmageddon, part 2

The snow / ice saga continues...

~~~~~~~~~~~

Still Day 1 (at night!)

Usually snow melts within a day around here so we headed back out in the evening for some more playtime. Figured we should enjoy it while it lasted (ha!).

I was a little surprised that Bitty wanted to go out again after the wet sock incident, but he did. Bearhug decided he'd had enough after just a few minutes so I didn't get any pictures of him that night.


The snow was *really* powdery and not sticking together well so this was about the best we could do for a snowman. As soon as I took a picture it was demolished by the boys.


Yes, he's wearing a jacket under his coat. He insisted on wearing his Thomas windbreaker but given it was something like 15 degrees out, I insisted that he wear his thicker red coat. He refused to take the other one off but he did let me put the red one on top of it :). Compromise!





~~~~~~~~~~~

Day 2 (early evening)

Roads still icy but by the end of the day some of it was slush so we ventured out. We already had cabin fever after being snowbound for two days.


The main roads were a *little* better.


Now that's how you do it right there. We don't have a tractor, but if it's going to keep snowing like this we're going to have to invest in a sled.

I just wish I'd been fast enough to get a picture of the guy we saw walking home from the grocery store, carrying only a case of beer. Seriously? You got all bundled up and WALKED across the treacherous terrain that used to be known as roads and sidewalks, to the grocery store, and the ONLY thing on your list was beer? No offense, just struck me as funny.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Day 3

Prior night's slush refroze, roads once again a sheet of ice. News reported ice on all the roads (even freeways) so we didn't venture out at all that day. Thank goodness for laptops and the internet.


~~~~~~~~~~~

Day 4

What little had melted the previous day (not much) refroze yet AGAIN. The roads suck again. But by 10am I got word from a couple of co-workers that they made it in ok and that the major roads were more or less passable. Did I mention I'd been working from home all week? With three cooped up kids and one cooped up hubby and one lazy cooped up cat? I was about to pull my hair out and decided to take my chances on the road.

Made it to the office, but it took an hour and a half. Had to leave early to beat (some of) the traffic and get home before it got dark and it all froze AGAIN. Almost wasn't worth taking the time to drive back and forth but it was really nice to get OUT.

Had promised dh and the boys we'd all go somewhere when I got home so they could get out too (I had taken dh's car since it has better tires for the icky roads).

Got a migraine that night. Blech.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Day 5

Migraine persisted, had to take a sick day and spent the day in the bed. :(

It finally got above freezing and the ice on the roads started to really melt (mostly anyway).

Dh took Cuddlebug and Bearhug for their checkup. They are now 4'9" and each weigh about 75 lbs. Oh. mah. goodness! I remember when I could hold them both in one arm, and now they are only 5 inches shorter than me. Yeesh.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Day 6

You mean that stuff STILL hasn't melted yet?!

Orion ventured out and left a few paw prints. He wasn't impressed with the snow, and quickly went back inside (yes, you will find his picture next to "wimpy" as well as "lazy" in the dictionary).

We were not about to spend another day in the house. The snow was still there, but the roads were finally clear.


That evening I made a discovery. The formerly powdery snow, although it had been iced over for days, still had some wet snow underneath the icy layer. Heck yeah! Let's try another snowman. Who's with me?

Anyone?

Anyone?

Sigh. So I attempted a snowman by myself. One of the boys' friends in the neighborhood came by to see if they could play, but they didn't want to come outside (too cold) so he offered to help me with the snowman.


Mr. Snowman is dancing (see the arms, think Saturday Night Fever, hehe). And... oh no! He's also wearing his sombrero in a goofy fashion. Watch out for sea bears!!



~~~~~~~~~~~

Day... what day is this again?!

Oh yeah, Day 7.

Only one hour of church due to half the parking lot being still covered in snow and ice (and not enough room to have more than one congregation there at the same time as we normally do). Apparently this side of the building doesn't get much sun.


Dh asked me for the 19382037th time why the boys would not be going to school the next day (it was a scheduled day off for MLK, Jr. Day and not one of the designated "make-up" days although we have already gone over our allotted number of make-up days so we're probably looking at extending the school year now). Maybe he hoped that if he kept asking the answer might change to "of course they have school tomorrow!" haha

After an entire week off, I can't blame him, but seriously I was about to make a sign and hold it up whenever he asked.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Everyone is back to school now. Cuddlebug and Bearhug are glad, they were ready to go back to school after about 2-3 days out. Unfortunately, we're now going through the same lovely "transition" phase with Bitty where he goes into meltdown mode every morning. Nice. It usually gets a smidgen better every day though, so I'm hopeful.

And I'm ready for spring now.



If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.

Read More >>

Snowmageddon, part 1

(I wonder if my Alaska family is snickering a little that 6 inches of snow could inspire a title like that, hehe. Once you see part 2 though, you'll see why)

This post contains lots of pictures. LOTS.

You have been warned ;).

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Day 1

This is the scene we woke up to. Snow day! The boys were excited as you can imagine, although Bitty was confused as he was *just* starting to get back into the routine after the holidays, where he knows which days of the week he has school. So he repeated ALL day long, "No schoo' on Monday. You not go schoo' on Monday. No schoo' today. No work on Monday. Mama not go work today. Work at da house on Monday. No work in da car on Monday."



It was actually still snowing a bit so I asked Bearhug if he wanted to wait until it stopped snowing and then go outside. He answered, "No, Mom, I think it builds character." LOL. He was being serious too (but didn't realize he TOTALLY opened the door for me to use that one on a regular basis now, hehe). So we headed out.

Our sidewalk is under there somewhere... you can barely see those little bushes under all the snow!


Snow deep enough to walk and still not be able to see the grass underneath!


We measured the snow at 6 inches...


...it was over 9 inches in some spots!


Mr. Bitty ready to play in the snow :).


Cuddlebug getting ready for a snowball fight...


...as was Bearhug :)


Cuddlebug figured out you can throw your snowballs further if you fling them with a shovel (yes, we made sure he kept a safe distance from everyone else).


View of the street



Bitty didn't realize you can't ride bikes in the snow. This is as far as he got. After this he decided to go inside, because "my sock hab WET on it!"


And just as I was telling him that, I looked over and saw that Bearhug had tried it too. He discovered that not only can you NOT ride a bike in the snow, but it is hard work trying to roll it in the snow too...


...but he looked really cute with his bike helmet over his hood :).


To be fair, my boys have only seen snow a handful of times in their entire lives, and some of those times there was so little snow that you *could* actually ride your bike if you were so inclined.

Meanwhile Cuddlebug was back to making snowballs.




Hey, wait a minute. I think I see where this is going...


...AAAHHHHHH!!!!!


Of course Bearhug thought it was hilarious!



~~~~~~~~~~~~

To be continued...



If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.

Read More >>

Blog Gems: An event to remember

It's time for Blog Gems again :). This week's topic is to share something about an event (any event) from our archives.

I decided to share a post about a spontaneous event that is one of my happy memories :). Here's the link:

He said it!!! (tears of joy)



If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.

Read More >>

School celebrations

I had a chance to visit each of the boys' classrooms for their end-of-year parties.

I was looking forward to meeting "A", the little girl that Bitty talks about all. the. time. When he was invited to a birthday party, he wanted to get a present for A, even though it wasn't her party. Sometimes, when he is especially cranky in the morning, I can remind him that he'll get to see A at school and he perks up :).

His teachers told me that whenever he goes through the line in the cafeteria and they ask for his name, instead of giving his first name, he says "Mr. 'Circles'" (not actually "Circles" but his last name). They also told me there's a little girl in his class who gives her name as "Mrs. 'Circles'" Oh my. lol

Little Bitty Santa :)



Little Bitty making an ice-cream cone Christmas tree :)



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next day was Cuddlebug and Bearhug's party. They are still rather unaware of girls (yay! hehe) although as we've come to notice over the last few months, girls are not so unaware of them (ack! but that's a whole other post).

Bearhug and Cuddlebug working on Christmas ornaments


The 4th and 5th graders in the ASD program have been working to earn "dollars" and the teachers donated items they could spend them on to buy gifts for their families. The boys pooled their resources :) to buy a special present for dh and I, and they were SOOO excited to show it to us. They had it all wrapped up but they were pinging off the walls with excitement so we asked if they'd like us to go ahead and open it up that day instead of waiting for Christmas, and they said yes so we did :).

They got us a foot massager, the "best piece of furniture ever" :). They are so sweet! We filled it up with water to try it out right away, and everyone took a turn. Here's Cuddlebug testing it out :).


Even Little Bitty gave it a try :).


It was an especially great present because they put so much effort into being able to earn it and then choosing just the right item they wanted to give us. Such sweet boys!



If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.

Read More >>

SEW & WW: Brotherly love

From this year's Christmas pictures, this is one of my favorites (of course they weren't all so loving, remember the outtakes? lol).



Cuddlebug told me recently, "Mom, me and Bearhug were MADE for each other!"

Totally out of the blue. How sweet is that?


Click here for more Special Exposure Wednesday.



If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.

Read More >>

Blog Gems: 25 Things, Autism Style

Jen over at The King and Eye has a great idea called "Blog Gems" in which bloggers can link up to share posts from our archives.

The current topic is to share a post that tells something about ourselves. So here's one from Feb 2009 that I think is a good introduction to me and my family, and my perspective on things :).

25 Things, Autism Style




If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.

Read More >>

At the tree farm

I love Bearhug's expression, lol :)



If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.

Read More >>

We interrupt this blog...

...to let readers know that I've reinstalled the comment system at Everyday Adventures in response to several notes about not being able to leave comments.

I love reading your comments! So, I'm hoping this will fix the problem.

If you still have issues, please send me a note at 3runningincircles [at] gmail [dot] com and I'll see if I can figure out what else to try.

Thanks!

Read More >>

Copyrights and other dates

Bearhug sat with me in my class at church, as he didn't want to go to his own class.

The teacher wrote two dates on the chalkboard.

As soon as he saw the dates on the board, Bearhug perked up. He leaned over to me and whispered, "what are those dates, Mom?"

(It occurs to me that perhaps if I suggest that his teacher incorporate some kind of dates or timeline into their lessons that he might be more inclined to go to his own class, lol.)

I whispered back what the teacher had just explained - that one of the dates was her birthday and the other was the day she was baptized.

He mulled that over and then whispered back to me, "Mom, she was born the year after Bill Watterson."

me: "Who's Bill Watterson?"

BH: "The creator of Calvin and Hobbes. He's 52 years old."

me: "Wow, I didn't know that. You know a lot of things."

BH: "Yeah, I do."

:)

He went on to comment on the teacher's age and how old she was when she was baptized (didn't take him long to do the math in his head).

He and Cuddlebug continue to amaze me with their knowledge of and memory for dates.

They insist on knowing the copyright year for every show we watch (we must watch to the very end so they can see the copyright date), every book they read, every game they play (board games, video games, card games, etc.).

Not only that, they've been studying the history of their favorites and can tell you:

- the beginning and ending year of pretty much every cartoon that has aired on Nicktoons since the early 1990's

- the release year of every version of every Pokemon game (seriously, they can recite the ENTIRE history of Pokemon), including when they were released in Japan and in the U.S.

- same for every Mario game, and most of the rest of the Nintendo lineup

- speaking of Nintendo, they can tell you the history of the various game systems - NES, N64, DS, etc., including when each was released and when they stopped making it (if they have), and when each game above was published for each system

The list goes on, and I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but you get the idea.

It's pretty impressive stuff, but oh. my. goodness. they keep asking me about all the video games and cartoons from when I was younger and I am clueless.

"Hey Mom, what was your favorite Nicktoons cartoon between the years of 1996 and 2000?"

"umm... which ones were running during those years?"

So they list them all, and repeat the question. Which was my favorite? They don't take "I don't remember" as an answer, so I pick one. But then they want to know what I liked best about it. Help!

"Hey Mom, which Nintendo 64 games were your favorite in the 1990's?"

"Mom, did you watch The Angry Beavers in 1999?"

"Mom, what year did you first read Calvin and Hobbes?"

"Mom, aren't you glad you were already born when the Nintendo Entertainment System was first invented?"

"Hey Mom, what's the longest running TV show?"

(we looked that one up, it's "Meet the Press" which apparently has been on the air since 1947. I had no idea).

"Hey Mom, when was UNO created?"

Told them if they'd clean up the living room I'd look it up. They did.

It was 1971.

"Wow, that's not as old as I thought. It's not as old as 'Meet the Press'. Hey, UNO is the same age as Dad! When was the creator born?"

And so it goes. They're certainly keeping me on my toes! :)



If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.

Read More >>

Christmas train & Christmas morning

We found a "Christmas train" on sale so we decided to get it to put around the bottom of the tree. The boys LOVED it!! Of course, to avoid having it broken too quickly, we told them it would only be out for Christmas. We've put it away with the rest of the decorations and will bring it out again next year. I think it's called the Smoky Express but Bitty kept calling it the "Spunky Express" lol.

There was some dispute about where the caboose should go. Cuddlebug wanted it at the end (which makes sense, right?) but Bitty insisted that it should go in the middle, just like Driver Dan's Story Train (sure enough the middle car in the train from Driver Dan looks a lot like a caboose).



They called a truce and took turns...


...but mostly it stayed in the middle.




~~~~~~~~~

By Christmas morning, the train was covered in bows which Bitty had plastered all over it. It was also being driven by lego Bob the Builder (who we found sitting in the back of the engine, right where the engineer should be of course, although unfortunately I didn't get a picture).

Bitty was apparently quite busy under the tree because we had some interesting mix-ups when we realized he had switched the tags on a lot of the presents. So Bearhug would open something that said it was for him, only to find something that was clearly for Bitty, and vice versa. But the boys really don't pay that much attention to that anyway so it wasn't a big deal.

We had a lot of presents in boxes so they wouldn't be able to tell what they were (especially books and Pokemon cards, which are easy to tell by the shape / feel) and I had to laugh when I kept finding unwrapped but unopened boxes in front of me. They'd unwrap it but then instead of opening the box to see what was inside, they'd move on to unwrap the next box, lol. So I went through opening the actual boxes and then showing them what they got.

I have to say, given all the excitement for Christmas morning (and it was *really* cool that Bitty was excited along with his brothers!) I was impressed that they let us sleep until about 8am. My parents are a bit jealous, because my brother and I never let them sleep past about 6am when we were kids, hehe. I have sworn them to secrecy though (wouldn't want the boys to find out about that! lol). ;) Then again, my parents never let us open a present on Christmas Eve so maybe if they had, we would've let them sleep in a little...

Ok, no we wouldn't have :). heehee



If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.

Read More >>

Magic Marker Monday: He said what?!

Little Bitty brought home a packet of his daily writing papers from school.

I love reading through them to see what he chose to write about each day, as well as to see the progress with his handwriting.

This one literally made me laugh out loud. I have absolutely no idea what he meant by this (and haven't been able to get him to elaborate) but it seriously cracks me up. Huh?!

"My mom is a girl. This is a big problem."

Here are a few of my other favorites (click to enlarge):

"The marble is a spaere [sphere]."

"The levs [leaves] fall down."

"Dad is a '-ad' word."

"I play outside and swing."
I think the black line going everywhere may be intended to be the motion of him swinging.


Visit 5 Minutes for Special Needs to see more Magic Marker Monday.



If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.

Read More >>