Seeing as I am writing these entries 4 months after the fact, I need to jot down some things I've wanted to remember with Marek at the age of 2, and Ellison at the age of 6, even though some of the comments were made MONTHS ago...
Both of our kids love singing. Ellison informed me, "Mom, I think I know what my special talent is. It's singing." She loves singing songs she knows, but my favorite is when she just sings on the fly, making it up as she goes along. One of Ellison's first favorite Christian songs was "Our God is Greater" by Chris Tomlin. Mare-Mare has followed in her footsteps. It was his, too. It's so cute to hear him sing it - he was doing it the very week that he turned 2 years old (and I've probably already mentioned it, but don't remember). He and Ellison also love, "The Great I Am" - their daddy got them hooked on it. I love hearing Marek sing the lyrics, especially when they come to the part that the crowd is singing a verse a capella - he whispers that part. :-) He loves to sing the Alphabet Song, and just about anything else, too.
Marek started "reading" books. It cracks us up. He'll open a book and say, "Says......(etc, etc)", then turn the page and say again, "Says....". So cute. The other day, Ellison read Marek, "Cookie's Week" about a cat that gets into trouble each day of the week. Well Marek was fixated on Cookie being naughty, especially when Cookie fell in the toilet (that page had to be repeated a few times per his request). A while later, Marek picked up the book and found that particular page, and began to read, "On Tuesday, Cookie fell in the toilet," then turned to another page and read, "On Friday, Cookie tipped over the plants on the windshield [windowsill]," then ended the story, "Cookie's gonna rest." Marek hit a stage where he has loved being read to. I am so glad! His favorites are the little tiny Winnie the Pooh board books, "Diggers" (about contruction machines), "Elmo Goes to the Doctor", "Peek a Zoo", and the Cheerios book. But if he's interested in the pictures and story, he will sit still as can be listening, and as soon as your done, if he likes that book he'll ask you to read it again. And it's so cool now that Ellison can read to him. She has turned into a great little reader! She does the intonation, the expressions, the varied voices, etc.
Marek is still completely fixated on his "Daddy's car". He will wake out of a dead sleep, can barely make a coherent phrase, and mutter, "I wanna go in Daddy's car." He talks about Daddy's caaaar (he drags out the word) morning, noon, and night. Daddy can barely make it in the door when he gets home from work, as Marek runs to him shouting excitedly, "I wanna go in Daddy's car!!!". He was also fascinated with "Daddy's bike", and still his backpack blower, shed, and the lawnmower. I am so glad, because Brotha likes to wear him some of Sissy's pink shoes and other girly accessories (earrings, bracelets, necklaces, fancy shoes, purses). Thank God he has varied interests. ;-) And being "outside" is at the top of his list. This summer, Marek has REALLY gotten into matchbox cars. He could play with them all day long, every day. He's always asking, "Mommy (or Daddy or Sissy) play cars with you." He makes great sound effects, loves parking them. Recently Marek got a couple of those heavy, larger, model cars to play with. He is completely enraptured. Asks to take them to bed all the time, into the shower, to the store...
Marek's food obsession is a "Ba-kowk". That's what he calls breakfast bars, even though he can say "breakfast bar" perfectly well. But he would eat 5 a day if we let him. I've resorted to hiding the stash in the garage pantry to avoid tantrums. The other food obsession would be "candy" (which are actually those little fruit snacks). He does enjoy eating a couple of healthy things, but he is definitely a picky eater!!! Ugh. He judges food by it's looks. He can look at something and start gagging. Very, very, very frustrating.
Ellison, our creative girl, is all about animals and her little "creations". She's constantly taking different materials and making something out of them. And she would much rather play with animal critters than dolls any day. For the last couple of years, she has loved dolphins like her cousin, but lately she's so into horses. She dreams of a future with them, gets into conversations with me about why can't we have one ("but you can room them at someone else's stable if you don't have a place for them..."), is currently overindulged in the Netflix series "Horseland" (I have the theme song on repeat play in my head as I write this), and loves to play with horses. Her favorites are especially white ones.
Ellison is definitely a movie/TV girl, much like her father. She'd be content sitting in front of the tube all day long. She has other interests, but if the TV is on, girlfriend is watchin'. The only disappointment I have this summer is that she no longer thinks it's fun to do those school workbooks for fun. I was taken aback and my heart sunk a little when she was not excited about me working with her. And honestly, we haven't done much work together like that this summer. I think a huge part of that has been because of swim team that had been every day. Ellison joined the Green Valley Gators on the actual team this year, and really enjoyed it. And she really progressed, too! It was frustrating the first week or two when I'd see her at one end of the pool completely dry, while the other teammates her age where at the opposite end, having just swam across the pool. And I wasn't exactly thrilled when I'd watch her do her laps, and she take a couple of strokes, then would hang on to the rope and look around for a minute, and continue on that way the entire time. Last year she had been doing far better. So I finally had a conversation with her that was something along the lines of, "I think we're going to go ahead and pull you off the team. This is a huge time commitment, and frankly you are not trying your best at all, and you just don't seem that into it." What followed was a great deal of begging, "No, no, please! I'll try my best tomorrow!" And, she took it seriously. She ended up improving so much and doing great for the season! Each meet she swam in she would knock off significant time from her previous ones. It was great to watch her finally fight through something and really try her best. We are so proud of her and her hard work!
One thing we cannot get Ellison back on board with is riding her bike. As I've mentioned before, she learned to ride without training wheels right before she turned 6. She has fought doing it ever since! No amount of encouragement or reasoning can change her mind. She just doesn't want to do it. Ellison and I were talking about it the other day in the car - that she'll get good practice in Michigan when we go - and she was telling me of a conversation she had with Jonathan the day before. "Daddy said he's going to just sell my bike soon since I'm not using it. The seat just feels too high, though! And I told Daddy, 'God just has other plans for me, Dad,' so maybe God just doesn't want me to do it." Well, all creative thinking was forced out of me at that point! But it made me laugh! God love her!
Ellison has been really sweet with Marek, and wants so badly for him to just go with her agenda. Well, Marek has his own. He resists her so often, and it just crushes Elli. We've really had to try to work the two of them through it. She is such a little mamacita to him, but he usually won't have it. But then you get those beautiful moments where they have the best fun with each other, or those spontaneous moments where Marek wants his Sissy to hold him or rock him. Evening times their inner beasts come out, and they have the most fun giggling and wrestling and doing crazy things. It's so cute!
Our summer in a nutshell thus far (and it's past halfway over) has been really difficult. Yes, I know we can count our blessings and our lives are far better than what many people are going through, but it has been really disheartening. Ellison has been so completely emotional and weepy this summer, chores have been a struggle, disobedience and disrespect has been a struggle... Marek has been very sassy and full of tantrums... 3 of my great friends (my fave RNs to work with) all got layed off, so work has been really sad and frustrating on so many levels... the one fun thing of getting a brand new vehicle turned into THREE trips to the body shop (with the hassle of having a rental each time, switching out [read: wrestling with] carseats while trying to keep an eye on Marek's whining, wandering self)... finding out Papi had a stroke via Facebook... Ellison coming down with strep, then a week later Marek coming down with strep, then 5 days later coming down with pneumonia (and we discovered he is NOT a happy sick kid)... Jonathan's work load becoming insane again... BUT we are hoping for a fun ending with our upcoming road trip. The first ever Soto Family Road Trip. Potential for some disaster here, but praying for the best. :-) Stay tuned on that one...
OK, things overheard in the Soto household over the past several months:
-- Marek hollering from the top of the stairs to me in the kitchen: "What's for dinner?"
-- "I feel like a stranger. Somebody you don't know, but I look like me. You don't understand me today." (Little Miss. :-( )
-- "You just don't understand me!!!" (Stated in exasperation several times a day, most of the summer by our eldest)
--"It feels like the bones in my leg are driving all around inside my body, but I look down and they're not." (Ellison trying to describe some leg sensations she was having)
-- Marek found by his father with a pink bow headband on his head: "I'm goin' a ma-cital." (When asked what he was doing)
-- "That's pretty amazing." (Said by Marek when Daddy was explaining the coffee filter.)
-- "Yup." (Marek's way of stating the affirmative now).
-- "What color is this?" (I am always asking this to Marek, so now he does it back to me a lot.)
-- "I do it by myself." (Bubba at the pool, and now other places, too.)
-- "Let's do it!" (Marek)
--Conversation I had with Marek while I was upstairs and he was down, so it involved yelling to each other, which made it more cute in my eyes: "Marek..." "What?"... you?"You're not drinking Sissy's juice, are you?"... "No, it's mine. I'm drinking my milk... I'll be up there in a little bit..."
"Caillou" gets a particular little person jumping up and down when the theme song starts playing. Marek LOVES Caillou, and thankfully Ellison still enjoys it, too. Before school got out for the summer, Marek loved it when many days for lunch I'd spread out a blanket in the living room just in time for 2 back-to-back episodes of Caillou. He'd sprawl out on his stomach with his little leg cocked in a 90-degree angle (that's how he plays with his cars, too), eating his lunch, watching Caillou. As soon as the first one would get over, he'd make sure I'd let him watch the second one, too - "I wanna watch Caillou again." Yes, Buddy, I know. :-)
Another little Marek-ism worth noting for the books is his pancake gathering. Excuse me, "panny-cake" gathering. I'll be cooking dinner, and Marek will come out of the pantry carrying syrup, then open the freezer drawer and grab out the bag of frozen pancakes and start demanding, "I want pancakes." This can happen anywhere from 1-4 times a day, at various times of the day. Then he'll tell me or Jonathan, "I want the lady syrup (Mrs. Butterworth)," or "I want Daddy's special syrup (the white corn syrup)."
Marek now loves to work on the computer doing Starfall, and works the mouse just fine. He reminds me of Sissy at this age. He's also been pedaling a bike (with training wheels, of course) for a long time now.
So, Ellison's trying to figure out what activities she'd like to be involved in for fall. She keeps switching back and forth, but the list she's trying to figure out involves ballet, gymnastics, horseback riding lessons, and violin lessons. Ha! Then she also mentioned she'd like to take sewing classes.
Ellison has really come into her own when conversing with adults lately. It has been so sweet to see! She always used to be shy in that sense, but a couple of different adults in the last month have said, "Who is this kid? She's a totally different person!" I love it, it brings a smile to my face to watch her be so talkative and animated.
For the love of Mike, I cannot write anymore. That'll teach me to not keep up with our goings-on!
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