Keely at 16

You have quickly arrived at your 16th year baby girl. You are so very beautiful and hilarious, as you always have been. Currently, you have mostly bleached hair with pastel pink and purple tips. Your skin is super pale and you usually only wear dark eyeliner that highlights your pretty eyes. You wear mostly dark clothes and all of your shirts are enormously big and long. You like you big black boots, too. You wear lace choker necklaces and chunky silver chains with large charms on them. You are thinking about re-piercing your ears now also.

Most of your time is spent online still. You love to scroll and read through all the days happenings in the internet world. Earbuds in, you laugh to yourself constantly. Friends in real life are still hard. You chat online with people and hang on with co-op people during class days. You do all of your assignments, even though you don’t really want to. You don’t like having things due, so you tend to rush through them and get them done as soon as you can. You do math with me and Spanish online with a Guatemalan tutor. You aren’t sure what you’re going to do in the future yet. You have mentioned that maybe legal assistant might not be so awful. I think you might like going into the legal field. If you were the academic sort, I know you would be a terrific lawyer. You love to argue and make people see your side of an issue. You can get so passionate about a topic that matters to you.

You got a new laptop for your birthday and you have gotten back into playing Minecraft. Your brothers like that. They love to watch you. Milo likes that you have something in common. He likes to give you building advice. You can’t stand when people watch you play though. Occasionally, you will get out a canvas and paints and do a little painting for your bedroom. I’m glad you do that. You don’t really sing or knit anymore. You do like to make up parodies of current songs and sometimes you make videos for them. We all love them so much. You think it’s no big deal, but I couldn’t come up with the things you do. You have a special musical ability, but you want it to be just for fun. I’m glad you do something with it at least. I hope you can save the songs/videos that you’ve created forever and watch them back when you’re older. They really are awesome and often hilarious.

You still want to be vegan, but we get you to eat a little dairy because you need protein sources in your diet. You do it very reluctantly. You are so upset by how animals are treated in the dairy and poultry industry. I understand. You think I don’t. You have recently become almost obsessed with you size and weight. It was never an issue for you, but now you think you must be stick thin and perfect looking. It makes me so sad. You did start exercising daily, which is a good thing for you-but the reason behind it isn’t. You cry and cover yourself up with clothing. I wish you didn’t feel the way you do. I wish you get see how beautiful you and your body are. It is hard growing up staring at “perfect” people online ad nauseam.

My Keely, I love you so much and I’m sorry life is often hard. I hope we can navigate the rest of your childhood safely together and that you reach adulthood prepared and excited for your future. You’re always my baby girl.

Lucas at 8

Lucas you are eight years old. You are looking more and more like a big kid now. Thankfully, you are happy to cuddle with me and be my baby still. You are a tad short too, so we can get away with acting like you are younger than you are for awhile. Your legs are certainly longer now and most of your pants are a bit too short. You have the cutest freckles across your nose and cheeks and you still talk out of the side of your mouth a lot. You look a lot like Keely and me.

We started at our new co-op this year and you have done great. You are in a mixed class of kindergarteners through third graders. You are a perfect student. You like your class and your teachers. You enjoy playing with the older girls more than the younger boys. Sometimes things get too loud for you and you have to go sit alone to feel better, especially at noisy lunch time. You do a good job of listening and sitting still. At home, you are much more distracted and would rather go and play than sit for work. Still, you are a smart kid and doing just fine. You are still impressive in your math skills.

You still love to play Lego’s, and video games (Minecraft, Roblox). You also enjoy drawing and reading.You’ve been drawing a lot and getting pretty good at it this year. You have a special sketch book and pencil that you like to use. You love reading and fly through the books we give you. You read some of the same books that Milo reads. In the evening, you play with Milo awhile and then you read in your bed until I make you go to sleep. You stay up until 10:30 most nights. You also started writing super tiny, like your dad and brother. I can hardly read what you’ve written.

You like watching Scooby Doo and whatever Keely and Milo pick out. You also like watching them all play on the Nintendo Switch, mostly Zelda. You do not care for violence or battles of any kind. You don’t even like to play battle type games with your brother. You also do not like anything with winners and losers. You do not handle losing well.

When nothing is going on at home, you go up to your room and play a song from one of our old cds. You have a favorite for a couple weeks and will only play that one song on repeat for an hour while you play alone. It drives us crazy, but I love that you do it. At least you pick good songs.

Milo and you play together a lot still, almost as much as you fight about playing. You always end up crying because you think Milo has the better toy, the better power, or can do whatever better than you. I wish you would stop feeling like that. It always makes me sad.

The animals are your friends. Midnight and you have a special relationship. He follows you around for love and in the evening he runs up to your room to stay with you while you play and then usually cuddles in your bed, purring, with you. It is so sweet and you love it so very much. He rubs his head all over your face and even licks your hair.

You hug me all day long and tell me that you love me. You still cuddle with me often, even though you’re super wiggly. At around 7:30 each night you yell, “pajama time”. We both run up stairs to put on our p.j.s. No one else participates in this ritual. We usually race to do it.

You are still the picky eater. We’ve only added a few foods to your diet…broccoli, watermelon, celery, and finally peanut butter and peanuts. It’s slow going in the food department. You love to eat a bowl of pretzels with chocolate chips almost every day for a snack. “Can I have trail mix?”

I am so happy that you’re my baby boy. I am proud of the happy, funny, smart, adorable, and sweet boy that you are. Happy 8th birthday, Lucas!

Milo at 11

My sweet Milo at eleven.  You are a wonderful boy. You are sweet, funny, sharp, caring, and observant. You still love to cuddle and expect hugs every morning and every night before bed without exception. You tell me that you love me many times a day. You liked to be tickled and chased. You have a great laugh and the cutest giggle. Your hair is only slightly darker now, still a blonde though. Your eyes just as sparkly blue and maybe a few more freckles. You’re still a bit shorter than most 11 year olds. Blues and greens are still your favorite colors and you know like to wear hooded shirts a lot.  You love candy, bread, and pickles. You think you might want to be an architect or some kind of engineer. Your into “fast” cars lately and spot them wherever we go. You think Teslas are pretty cool too. You love modern design in houses and decor.

You like our Gloucester house’s land. You are so happy to run free and explore there, but you are worried that the house isn’t or can’t be made nice enough and change is scary to you. I don’t know what we are going to settle on doing, but for now we just go up there for day trips. You like that just fine. You love that there are bunnies, groundhogs, deer, and box turtles all around.

We joined our new co-op this year and you can’t stand it.  You complain about it daily because of the amount of homework and assignments.  You detest writing and you cry so much about having to do it.  Math is your best subject. You even like fractions! You seem to have a fine day when we are at classes. You love being with your friends and having lunch together, but you do not like quiz bowl or the homework.  Every afternoon you play online with your friends too. It’s your favorite thing to do. You currently play some Minecraft and some Roblox together.  Lucas sits by your side and joins in too.  All you asked for for your birthday this year is the Nintendo Switch, another gaming device.  You’re hopeful for your own computer some day soon, too. You don’t play with many things anymore. You sometimes build with your Legos, but you don’t really play out stories anymore. You like little hand held gadgets like Rubix cubes, fidget spinners, and laser pointers.  You also read a lot still, mostly before bed.

You and Lucas play together still.  He likes to play out stories or adventures. You like to do challenges and battles. There is usually crying and drama involved. You like chess and battleship too. You are good at games. You do love to win and you like to be the boss in most situations. You are still very sensitive when things don’t go how you want or if a piece of something gets broke or goes missing. You get very upset about it. You like your things to always be intact and in there right places.  You like your room to be an organized mess. You say it looks to sad if it’s all cleaned up.  You do, however, always tuck in chairs,  are sure to not leave things unbalanced or off centered, and always turn off lights. You like things to be “just so”. Me too, son. Me too.

You enjoy are hikes and mini adventures still. You don’t complain about walking or getting tired. You like to run and climb and see pretty things. You like to point out scenes or objects for us to admire. You are quick to say how lucky we all are to get to see, or do something.  You love to give us a re-cap of the cool things we saw or did when it’s over.  “Today was fun. I mean we got to walk at that pretty place, the weather was nice, and we got to see those giant trees and made acorn whistles. That was a good day. ”  I love that you do this. I hope you always will try to find the good and count yourself as a lucky one.

You still adore our animals. I wish I could give you a herd of critters to love.  You so love when they choose to give you their attention. You worry about them and love to laugh at their funny antics.  No animal that we pass goes unnoticed by any of you or your siblings. There is always an “Aaaaaaw. Look at that _____.”

At 11, you are just perfect. I hope this year is good to you. I’m so happy to be with you on your journey. I love you always my Miggity-moo.

Keely at 15

Keely, Happy 15th Birthday.  You are a bit taller than me now. You can wear all my shoes and clothes, but you wouldn’t. You are growing out your previously super short haircut and you wear contacts now. You couldn’t stand wearing glasses or how the lenses were always dirty. You look so much older lately.

You are in 9th grade and we started with our new co-op, Norfolk Academic Guild (NAG), this year. You high school group has 14 kids in it and everyone is pretty nice. You have a lot of homework though and two full days of classes. You are also doing an live online Spanish class with Guatemalan speakers twice a week.  You don’t like any of your work, but you are keeping up with it.  You still love your phone. In the late afternoons you plop on the couch, put in your earbuds and scroll and watch everything imaginable. You are often laughing out loud repeatedly.

We are trying to figure out how to make high school work for you and help prepare you for your future. You have no idea what you want to be yet. I’m thinking we’ll at least try for community college and see what happens, unless you come up with a better plan. School is not your thing. I’m hoping you hit your stride as a young adult and things become clearer for you. You don’t really have any hobbies. You stopped singing, ukulele, and painting. On most days you take some time to do make-up looks for fun and you also make song parodies about video games for entertainment. They are usually hilarious.  I hope you have them saved forever so you can enjoy them when you are older.

You have become quite the activist this year. You speak out about every injustice. You argue just about every point that is different from your own. You are angered about sexism, racism, homophobia, Donald Trump, and animal cruelty. You decided to become Vegan about a month ago. That one is pretty hard when you are already a picky eater. I hope you can stay healthy despite the restrictions you’ve placed on yourself.

You love drama and gossip. You want everyone to “spill all the T” when they have any. I can have your full attention if I even hint at having some new information for you about any person. You love to argue and hear people argue.  I don’t get it.  Your closest friends this year are Katie and Sadie. You also talk to some other people online a lot, some you know in real life and a couple only through the magic of the internet. You still have a ton of social anxiety, but you want to be social.  Every invite you get is met with a day’s worth of stress and panic about the event-no matter how big or small it is.  It is hard for you and us. We keep trying.

You always want us to sit by you so that you can gossip or complain. We try to indulge you, but sometimes it can be too much. You get so mad if we aren’t into it. You try to dump it on Milo, but he doesn’t have much to say on those topics. You often come with me to thrift stores now to find clothes that you like. Usually, this involves enormous men’s XXL sweatshirts and sweaters. You are very selective about what you wear. I can rarely tell what you will actually like. You like for us to go out of the house somewhere everyday. It’s best if you get outside, but you resist all forms of “outdooring” and exercise. You do like kayaking though AND you are really good at it. Hopefully, we can do more of that in the future for you.

You are still as funny and witty as ever. Your smile lights up any space and the way your’s eyes brighten up when you are happy lifts my spirit.  I want so much for you, but mostly, I want you to know that you are so loved and you are never alone. I want you to find something to pursue that speaks to your heart and brings you joy. I want you to be around people who lift you up and support you. I want you to have confidence in your self and see your value. I want you to be able to notice the beauty in and around you always.

Lucas at 7 1/2

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Lucas you are as sweet as ever. You are playful and loving. You tell me that you love me all day long and run over to give me hugs often.   You have gotten a bit taller and in profile you are looking older, but your face is still my little baby. Your hair has gotten darker and thicker and you are always twirling the front of it. You have a good amount of freckles sprinkled across your nose and cheeks. You have an adorable smile and the cutest giggle.

You have been reading like crazy lately. You finished the whole series of Magic Treehouse books on your own.  You can read so many words all of the sudden. You are good at math too. You love time. You always run to watch the digital clocks switch to an interesting time like, 1:23 or 3:33…all.day.long.  It drives some of us a bit nuts. When your yelling out times and numbers repeatedly.  You are very much into video games. You like Minecraft and now Roblox. You look forward to your afternoon screen time every day and are so sad if you don’t get it.  Sometimes you play online with Milo and sometimes you play alone.

You build with Legos still and you like to come up with your own games with combinations of random toys.  Building forts and wearing capes are happening still too. You are still the pickiest of eaters. Cracker and cheese are your favorite foods currently. You’d eat it for every meal I think. You certainly have a sweet tooth. You like cupcakes, brownies, cookies, root beer, and ice cream.

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You don’t like anything scary still and you don’t like to play anything that has battles.  You don’t do so well at board games either. You fall apart if you don’t win. You like Scooby Doo, a lot. You like to use my phone camera to take pictures, usually of the animals doing something cute. You are also very helpful. You always put your dishes away and help me put away things. You clean up our living room and put the dog toys away when he scatters them all over. You also clean your room all on your own and proudly come and tell me to come see the surprise. You do a really good job.

Staying up late is still your thing. I can’t believe how long you can stay awake in your bed at night. You also like to sleep in late. I usually have to go wake you up or you’ll never go to sleep that night! Perhaps you are a night owl like your dad.  You still sleep with your Twilight Turtle on and your room looks so cozy at night. You used to take all your clothes off before you went to sleep, but now you’re into wearing pajamas. You and I have “pajama time” every night at 7:30 and we run upstairs to get out of regular clothes and run back stairs as quick as we can. You usually tell me when it’s time in the evening and that I’d better hurry.

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I still call you, “bear” and you still call me, “mama”. Just as we should. Your little boy days are flying by and I am happy to spend them with you. You are a light in all of my days. I love you my bear-bear.

 

Lucas at 7

lucas7cLucas you’ve decided that you would like to stay 4. You wished you could stay little forever. Me too. Thankfully, you’re still small enough that we can pretend you are younger than 7. At 7, you are doing first grade work but you are reading way ahead of your age. You like reading and doing your work. You are a wiggle worm through it all, but you manage to do a good job still.  You are taking one class at co-op this semester and doing fine there too. You still are initially nervous about going. At home, I switch through all of you doing schoolwork and during your breaks you play alone or with Milo if he isn’t busy. You two scream and fight a lot, but you also laugh hysterically at each other and call to each other when you aren’t in the same room after a few minutes. You love to play Minecraft together on the Kindles currently. I think you both would do that all day if I let you.

You are small. Your hair grows fast and we have to cut it constantly. Your nails are always dirty. You have a few freckles across your nose and cheeks. You still look like a little boy. You have lost a few teeth. You do not like your head to get wet. You do not like socks. We have a hard time finding shoes that don’t bother you. You don’t like tags in clothing. You are particular about which clothes you will wear. Only loose, soft, comfortable items that aren’t at all too big or too small. You are a still a picky eater. I’m always worried that you don’t get enough protein. I hope 7 is the year your palette becomes adventurous.

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You only play with Lego’s now.  All your other toys sit unloved, but I can’t bring myself to get rid of them yet. I’m not ready for you to not be the baby, I guess. In the evening, Milo and you go into your room and make up crazy games to play before bed. There is currently a giant slide off your bed made from your Nugget cushions. You two laugh so hard I don’t know how you breathe.  I usually let you keep playing way too late, because I’m so happy you have each other and I want you to enjoy this time of your life together.  I’m pretty sure you shouldn’t be leaping off of things wildly at 10:30 at night though.

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Lucas, are so sweet, caring, and loving. You don’t like me to go out anywhere without you because you said, “Home just feels better to me when you are here.” Could you be any sweeter, baby? When I do go out, you spend some of that time looking out a window or sitting on the porch waiting to see our car return. Then you run to greet me. I love you, Lucas.  You give us all hugs at dinner every night and tell us that you love us. You hug anyone who is crying or feeling sad.  You always tried to fix whatever is wrong for them if you can. Your feelings get hurt easily too. When someone snaps at you or criticizes something you are doing, you run off crying and sit alone sobbing.  I have to come and love on you for awhile until you are past it.  You still scream loudly when you get mad and you cry very easily when things just aren’t going your way. You forget you have words to use.

lucas7dYou have your desk by our backyard window because you like to see outside. You always tell me when there is something out there of interest…a bird, butterfly, or pretty cloud. You like to go places and check out new sights. You like animals, especially ours. You cry if you do not get the first licks or cuddles when we come home from being out. You still like music more than your siblings did or do.  There are always a few favorite songs out that we are not allowed to change the channel on. At night, you play CDs in your bedroom.  You have a whole stack of them to choose from now.

Everyone loves you and looks out for you. You know you are protected by us all.

Milo at 10

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Milo you are a decade old. You’ve made ten whole trips around the sun. I keep telling you to not be so old. I just can’t stand how fast you are growing up. You don’t listen though. You look older and you’re a bit taller, but you’re just as cute as ever. Some kids at our our co-op decided to vote on who the cutest kid was and almost all of them voted for you!

This year you’ve been really into astronomy. You love reading just about anything to do with space. You are fascinated with black holes and you also love space rovers and satellites. We go to our beach every time their is a launch from Wallops Island hoping to see something. We also try and spot the space station when there are fly overs. We go to the bay to see the full moon risings, especially the super moons. You wanted a telescope this summer, so we got you one. You figured it all out and set it up by your window. You love studying the moon and Jupiter when their within view.

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You also still love Lego’s and Minecraft. You build some very detailed creations and tell us every single thing about them and how they work. You want to get into coding now too. You also enjoy reading and you fly through all the books we give you. You read for at least an hour before bed most nights. You still stay up way too late.

You’re doing fine in school although you are easily distracted and I have a hard time getting you to just focus and finish your work. You hardly ever will just sit in a chair and get it done. You cry about having to write things still, although you are a great writer with a wonderful vocabulary. You also get very upset about math, although you are able to understand it pretty easily. You enjoy science and reading the most. Sometimes you like to draw too. You are a perfectionist and get frustrated when your creations are as you think they should be.

milo10bMilo you are a sensitive boy. This summer you gained a new compassion for every living creature, especially ants and beetles. You have to rescue every bug that is in the path of danger. Taking a neighborhood walks became quite tedious. You love your pets and want them to cuddle you at all times. You do get really mad at Cooper for eating your lego’s, but you quickly forgive him and go back to loving on him.

You are still sweet and cuddly yourself. You like to wrap up in blankets and sit near me on the couch. You tell me you love me many times a day. You are protective of your family and like to be with us and explore places together. You do not like to go to stores, unless their are Lego’s. Lucas and you play together most of the day. You two fight a lot too, but mostly their is friendship. Each night while we are downstairs watching a show, you go into Lucas’s room and hang out with him for awhile before going to your own space. You guys usually get loud and crazy, but we let you for awhile because it’s so nice that you two want to be together.

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We still go to co-op two days a week. You are taking 3 class right now and have your core group of friends there that you talk to and run around with at lunch break. You all are very opinionated, so you seem to just yell over top of each other to get your ideas across. You guys eventually settle on some sort of tag game and run screaming wildly through the grounds chasing each other.

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Happy ten years my Miggity moo. You are sweet, cute, intelligent, funny, and driven. I wonder will the next year will take you. I love you baby.

Keely at 14

Keely you are now 14. You are funny, witty, sarcastic, beautiful, loving, and highly-opinionated. You are as tall as me now (5’4). You’re skinny and your feet are still smaller than mine. This past year your love for make-up has grown. Actually, your love for high-end make-up. You won’t even look at cheap stuff. Sephora is your favorite stop now. All you really wanted for your birthday was make-up and money for make-up. Anytime we ask you where you want to go, the answer is the mall. You love to go to Sephora (and ask for a sample) then you swing into Lush (and ask for a sample) and then you stop by Teavana (and snag another sample). It’s pretty funny and you are pleased with your free shopping when you don’t have any money to spend.

You spend almost all of your free time still staring at your phone. Hours and hours a day are spend scrolling away. You love memes. You save all your favorites and revisit them to share them and laugh at the funny ones. You’ve deemed yourself Meme Lord. You watch videos, make-up tutorials, and you tubers. You text friends too. You’ve had a lot of friend drama this year. You have friends a co-op and you talk to old school friends through texting and Facebook, but your two closest friends are Isis and Katie still. Their lives are much different then yours and you are so jealous of some of their freedoms. It has caused our family a lot of drama, sadly. I hope you understand when your older that we are just trying to do what we think is best for YOU, our daughter.

You don’t enjoy any aspect of learning or school or anything that resembles work. You are not academic. We’ve decided that we aren’t going to start high school this year and instead practice some skills that you need for high school classes and let you mature a bit more. You started kindergarten when you were really young, so you’ll still graduate at 18. Hopefully, it works out for you. You are taking a few co-op classes and a self-defense class this semester. This summer you and your dad made a deal that if you practice the ukelele you could get Instagram on your birthday. So, you did-but you still have to keep practicing that. You didn’t want lessons, so you are learning it yourself using things you find online and you’re doing really good. I hope you can see that you CAN learn anything that you put some effort into. When you are motivated, you are perfectly capable.

Your brothers love you to pieces and are always looking out for you. They are also always watching, so when you get more of something or have a freedom they don’t- they love to call it out and whine. You get so mad. They always want to see what your looking at online and you lose your mind because they are over your shoulder being nosey. You do watch out for them though and love them fiercely. No one will mess with your brothers. Milo loves when you include him in your world.

Cooper is your buddy now. You love when he comes to lay with you or wants you to pet him. You also really like when he gets all excited and bites/plays with you rough…until he gets too rough and then you scream like crazy. He’s confused. You’ve been good about walking him with us every day. He needs to get outside and move and so do you.

I hope this year brings you brings you peace and closer to knowing yourself and how to take care of yourself. I hope we can be understanding of your wants and make the best choices for you. I hope you will know how much we love you (even when we are upset). I hope you can find a new friend that will be a good match for you and will help bring out your best qualities. We love you always Keely. Happy 14th birthday!

Lucas at 6 1/2

My sweet Lucas is now 6 1/2 years old. You are definitely still my baby though. You call me, “mama”, one million times a day. You say, “I love you.” to us all throughout the day and run over and give us hugs. We all love those moments with you. You are funny and wiggly and full of life. Our home would be so dull without you.

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We finished up kindergarten this summer. You did great with your first year of school and you can read really well already. You love to look at books on your own and try to figure them out. You love figuring out time and everything about every kind of clock. You always tell us what the time is and how long it is before we have to do something or go somewhere. You are interested in the calendar too and how much things cost.

You still love music. We bought you a little cd player for your bedroom. I gave you some of our old music and you go through them all and pick out your favorites. You play them very loud and drive your siblings bonkers. I love to peek in at you and see you jamming out while building Lego’s. Sometimes I’ll even catch you singing just a little bit. I hope you want to play an instrument one day. I think you would be so good at it.

You ask a lot of questions. Just about every time we speak, we know you are going to ask, “why?”, or “how come?” or for us to further explain. You have a great vocabulary for a six year old. I think you picked them up from your internet videos. “We should use the proper method to fix this.”

During your free screen time in the afternoon you currently watch: Thomas the Train, Bob the Builder, Backyardigans, or some Minecraft gamer. You still play Minecraft with Milo sometimes. You play Lego’s, construction trucks, matchbox cars, and playmobil. Outside you love to ride your bike and your scooter as fast as possible. You like to play with your trucks in the gravel too. Our neighbor, Jackson, is still your friend. You two yell a “woo-ooo” sound over the fence when you come outside so that the other person will come out and talk.

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You play with Milo half of the day and scream and fight with him for the other half of the day. I guess that’s normal, but it makes for a loud house. You love each other and are bored not playing together, but together you spend so much time planning your game that by the time you are going to play you are on each other’s nerves and the fighting begins.

You love us all so much. You are worried when something is wrong. If one of us is sad, you will give us love or bring us a cup of water or something that you think will cheer us up. You are still so generous too. You will always share or give up something of yours if one of us doesn’t have any. I love that about your heart.

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You like to go places as long as it’s not too far away. You still get motion sick. You wear seabands in the car and they help a lot, but you still don’t feel great. You can’t look at books or out the side windows and sometimes just staring straight makes you feel bad, so car trips are not fun for you.

We try to go to lots of places around here to expose you to interesting things without having to travel far. Recently, we’ve been to: traveling art shows at the Hermitage, the Chrysler Museum, historical sites, fairs, state parks, a few beaches, fossil hunting, rocket launches, the zoo, The Jefferson Lab, the boardwalk, Pungo for strawberry picking, Mariner’s Museum, fireworks, ODU, planetariums, and the aquarium. You seem to have fun on all of our adventures.

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We have a little bit of summer left and it’s been 100 degrees, so we’ll get in some more pool time and lazy days before it’s on to first grade and the busy-ness of our normal routine. I love you little Lucas. I’m so glad to be your mama.

Milo at 9 1/2

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It is spring time of your ninth year and you are growing taller and filling out a bigger body. I still see my sweet little boy in your face though. This winter was filled with school, co op, mine craft, our dogs, and still looking at houses.  You’ve become close friends with Eli and hang out with him in classes and then in the afternoon you play Minecraft online with him and sometimes with other friends too.  At classes, you are happy to be trailing around with your group-playing games, chasing each other, and discussing important gaming matters.  At home, you still don’t enjoy school work.  Writing is still agony for you.  You are really quick with math. You get how numbers work. You also love to read. You would spend your whole school day reading if I let you.

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You love battles.  Battles in video games, reenacting battles in your viking class, battles with Lucas, battles with toys. You also can’t stand for a single creature to be hurt, displaced, or inconvenienced because of humans.  If there is an ant in the house, you freak out and arrange a rescue mission for him to be  taken outside.  You have a big, gentle heart.  You love the puppies and want them to just lay all over you at all times.  They do not often cooperate.  When they do, your are blissed out.

milo9.5d

You are still my cleanest child.  You like things to be in their place and will sometimes even clean up after others. You always put your dishes away or pick pillows up off the floor.  Thank you my son. Strangely, your room and Lego’s are not kept very tidy.  Also, your Lego’s aren’t getting much play time lately.  I hope you come back around to them soon.  You have thousands of dollars worth of them to get use out of and your mom needs you to not be done with toys yet.  Stay little longer.

You and your sister were in choir together this semester and you wanted to do a solo for your concerts.  I was and still am shocked. You have never sung out loud before. Ever.  You were so cute and brave at your coffee shop gig. I was  proud of you.

milo9.5c

In the winter time, we went to Adventure Park and got to walk on obstacles hanging through the trees…tight ropes, webs, ziplines, and the like.  You didn’t have a second thought about going.  You tried everything and had no fear. We also finally went kayaking this month. You and I rode together.  You weren’t scared at all to get in the bay or the boat.  We worked together really well, yelling left! right! to get our paddling in sync.  You were so happy that we were the fastest boat and that daddy said we looked like we were seasoned kayakers with our rowing.  It was nice working together with you.

milo9.5e

You are both a big kid and my little guy still.  You still love to cuddle with me.  You give me hugs and tell me that you love me all through the day.  You are funny, sarcastic, smart, loving, gentle and you still have the cutest face (and feet).  I am always telling you how cute your feet are and you think I’m crazy.  I love you moo.