Little Boy Blue

Tommy is almost 3 and his eyes are still a brilliant blue. He's the only one of the boys (so far) with blue eyes and light colored hair. He likes to sing little boy blue with me--he inserts the words at the end of the phrases and I do the rest--he'll say "horn," "corn," "sheep," "sleep." He still also enjoys singing Hot Cross Buns--the second verse is especially applicable to me "If you have no daughters, give them to your sons..." his words aren't super clear, but the meaning comes through and so does the pitch, for the most part. He loves to sing Twinkle Twinkle as long as not too many people are watching him--if he gets shy he'll say, "You sing it!" and hide his face a bit in my arm. When he sings it it sounds like "Winkoh Winkoh yiddow staw, how I wonnow whatcha awr, uppabuvva wold so high, yike a dimon inna skye..." It's very cute, much cuter than what I can capture, of course. Sometimes he'll just command me to "Sing!" This usually happens when I am pushing him on swings or we are doing dishes...I guess that must be when I usually start singing, maybe. Of course at night when we are cuddling on the chair in his room he will ask for "another one!" He has a cd with a woman singing Muffin Man which he begs for every night and he really gets a kick out of me singing it to him. It makes him laugh, for some reason.


I was thinking today, as I do almost every day, how different Tommy's life is from William and Ryrie's and even Owen's at his age. When the twins were Tommy's age, I was sitting down on the floor with them at predictable times every day. We had a schedule which rarely changed from day to day. We killed time in the afternoons every day it was nice outside--waiting for Daddy to come home and a new face for the kids to see. We never had "play dates" unless the mom of the friend stayed too. It was just a different time. Now I am lucky to grab "floor time" with Tommy alone. We get it with the other kids around, and he gets it with them a lot, but it's so rare that we get to be alone together interacting that HE notices it. Today we were together for about 15 minutes playing, and he just couldn't wipe the grin off his face and was acting a bit show-offy and shy! It's hard not to feel guilty on days like this when it seems like every 30 minutes we are either taking shoes off or putting them on to go somewhere, to get "Bubbers" (brothers) or take them somewhere. He never complains, but sometimes I feel pretty stressed about his little busy life.


Some cute sayings from little T:
"Whoz dat?" he says this whether he means an animate or inanimate object, often when pointing to something in a book or often at a person.
"Momber Dat?" (Remember that) He has little memories of things that have happened and he lets me know he's thinking of them by saying this. We rode past the seminary building and he said, "Momber Dat? Daddy's house." his memories sometimes extend to a week or two before hand.
"I ON-Gee!" (I'm hungry!) He says this many times a day, and with the cutest emphasis. You can't ignore it.
"Ridicudas!"
"Whatcha doin?"
"Cuddle me on chair!"
"I want up!"
"I baby!" (said in a cute whiny voice and followed by: "Waa waa, want Mommy!"
"I Yiyon! Roar!" (or Doggy or cat or T-Rex, followed by appropriate noises and body actions.)
"Yookit!" (look at me)
"Loud noisy!" (that's a loud noise!)
"I anjoh" (I'm an angel)--he says this after climbing into a precarious position atop any high object--like Angel Moroni on the temple, I suppose.
"I scared!" (Accompanied by a trembling voice and scared face). Tommy woke up for quite a few consecutive nights afraid of the dark. He is getting better, but every now and then he gets pretty frightened. He has quite the imagination, and I think that contributes to it.
"You're weh-commm" ( he said this one day when I said "thank you" to him. He then pointed out to me that he had said a new word.)


Thomas is still a little helper everywhere in the house. This is one way he and I really spend time together a lot. He will bring me the dustpan before I even ask for it when I am sweeping, he will readily pull up a chair to help me cook or do the dishes, he loves to water the garden, and he still really loves to cook. He was in a play kitchen at our Stay and Play and was bustling about in a very comfortable way, "filling" a pot with water at the sink, putting the lid on and setting it on the stove, checking to see if it was "ready" and in the meantime giving me a cup and pouring juice for me. James has been building a deck in our back yard and Tommy loves to help him. If he can't find James, he asks, "Daddy building deck?" James had all the kids out helping screw the boards in and Tommy picked up right away that he needed the screws and just took it upon himself to start handing the screws to James. He "sees and does" as we like to say in our family. He delights us every day and James and I are constantly shaking our heads in amazement at how cute Tommy is!