The Smith Family Adventures

When I was a little girl, I was endlessly annoyed by one of my brothers. Now I think he’s pretty much awesome…but back then? I usually didn’t want much to do with him. There were the occasional times where he would play barbies with me or let me boss him around, choreographing dance moves or making up “house” plots. But mostly he just knew how to push all my buttons.

I used to think my mom was so unfair because I always thought she sided with him. “He just wants to play with you,” she’d say. I remember wailing, “Mom, you just don’t understand what it’s like to have him as a brother!”

I wish I could take it all back. I wish I could go back and play together more. I wish I would have realized that our time to live with our siblings is just so short. Now we love each other and see each other relatively often…but it’s not the same.

Now that I am a parent of two boys, I find myself reminiscing a lot about the old days with my siblings. I even found myself telling my elder son, “Simon just wants to play with you,” when he complained that Simon was messing up his block tower. Oh how the tables have turned.

For the past month or two since Simon has really started to be able to play with Elias, I’ve always sided with Simon. I’ve been trying to get Elias to play with Simon, or to help Simon, or to be patient with Simon. But recently, I’ve realized that Elias is going through some of the same frustrations I went through as a young girl. I need to “side” with him sometimes too.

Yesterday evening, we were playing together, and I captured in a series of pictures Simon’s typical behavior. He loves Elias and wants to do whatever Elias is doing. But it is quite comical how much poor Elias has to put up with. I took this series of pictures, and then removed Simon from the area to give Elias some peace.

So here you go…The Tale Of The Two Brothers:

Elias is playing happily with a pretend cell phone. Simon sees, and excitedly crawls up to him. Simon sits pretty much on Elias, and tries to take said phone.

Simon eventually pries the phone from Elias’ fingers. Elias reaches for the plastic container which usually holds his dinosaur magnets, and entertains himself with that instead. Simon sees this, tosses the phone, and goes after the plastic container.

They wrestle around for awhile, playing tug of war with the container. Elias gets up and moves across the room with it. Simon follows and more tug of war ensues.

Simon wins. Elias sees the previously discarded play phone, and gets up to go get it. He plays with it for about 1 or 2 seconds before Simon sees and has zeroed in on his new target.

The plastic container is forgotten. A new game of tug of war ensues over the phone.

Mommy finally sets aside the camera and intervenes.

Simon gets into everything. I mean everything. He tried to eat a pencil eraser off the floor during Elias’ swim lessons this evening. He’s fast too. He’s really giving me a run for my money these last few days.

His favorite new past time is unpacking drawers. His two favorites are the kitchen oven mitt/potholder drawer, and his dresser drawer with all of the shirts.

Earlier this evening, as I was making some peach baby food, I heard Elias yell (with a lot of frustration) “That’s enough, Simon!” I decided I had better investigate, and found that while setting the table, Elias had left the place mat drawer open. He had chosen the three we needed, and headed to the table to set them out, forgetting to shut the drawer behind him. Simon had taken advantage of that opportunity, and was taking all of the place mats out of the drawer. Elias was desperately trying to hold all of the place mats in the drawer, while Simon was pulling them out. It was a bit comical watching the brotherly struggle.

It’s just a stage and I actually think it is pretty cute. But cleaning up piles of things that have been tossed out of drawers is starting to wear on me. He’s a mischief maker. What will he be into next?

Elias has been swimming a lot in his three years. We’ve done baby and me many times, and toddler and me a lot as well. This evening, however, he had his first real swimming lessons. He got in the pool without me or Nathan. We were prepared for both screaming and crying the whole time, refusing to get in the pool, and for him having a blast. What we got was somewhere in the middle.

Elias was super excited, but when he realized that he was the only one getting in he was a bit hesitant. Once Nathan got him in the pool, though, he was fine. He didn’t really do anything his teacher told him to do except for hold on to the wall. He just watched the other kids and watched the teacher. She sort of forced him into a few kicks and back floats. He looked pretty nervous.

At the end he didn’t want to jump. I was a bit sad about that because he usually loves jumps so much when we go swimming with him. But when he realized it was time to leave, he was quite upset about it. Elias cried

Simon wanted to be included as usual.

pretty much the entire car ride home, saying he wanted to stay a little longer in the pool. Telling him that we are going back in a couple of days did not help.

Overall, we are very pleased. I’ll probably be watching a lot of swimming lessons over the years. We’ve had a good start!

Tonight was the big night for all the kiddos out there. But before we get to that…we also had a lot of fun at our church Halloween party last Sunday evening. There were games, cookie decorating, a costume parade, and even a hayride. Then we followed up all the fun with a good old church potluck. Here are some pictures:

Elias and Daddy playing the cup stacking game.

Simon and Daddy having fun

A family pic while riding on the hayride. Elias still talks about it and says, “John drove us!”

This evening we had a lot of fun as well. I kept having Elias “practice” trick-or-treating all morning, but it didn’t do a whole lot of good. One of these years he’ll be an old pro. We started off the evening by opening some mail from Nana.

Then we got into costume. Elias was very excited by this time.

Elias didn’t really know what to think of trick-or-treating at first. At the first house we went to, he kept trying to step inside. He kept ringing the doorbells of houses, and saying “trick-or-treat” immediately after. The door wasn’t even open yet! About halfway through, he got the hang of it, though, and after fifteen minutes or so, he was running from door to door and having a blast.

We had a very excited pirate!

After about 30 minutes, Elias stated, “We’ve got enough candy.” Nathan and I looked at each other and smiled inwardly…then we all started on our way home. Even though it was late, we had to let Elias enjoy a few of his spoils. He chose a lollipop…took about four licks, and then chose some M&M’s. Good man. It was a positive experience for him overall. What fun!

Simon is 8 months old now. It is going by so fast. Too fast. Here is what he’s up to:

– Simon is beginning to actually enjoy eating solid foods. For awhile there he wasn’t too sure about the business of eating. His favorites seem to be pears, sweet potatoes, and carrots, although he also enjoys playing with green beans and spaghetti as he tries to get them in his mouth.

– Simon pulls up on everything! He is developing some balance while standing, but isn’t cruising along furniture yet. Just standing and standing and more standing.

– He eats everything he finds on the floor! It’s a bit scary. He choked on something yesterday, and it eventually made it down before we could sweep it out of his mouth. This morning it reappeared in his diaper…a huge 3D sticker of a construction vehicle that Elias had left on the floor! He also has eaten food that Elias has dropped on the floor, thread from my craft projects, paper, part of a luggage tag, and more. I really have to watch him because he is so fast! Elias put a lot of stuff in his mouth at this age…but didn’t try to eat it…so this is new.

– Simon has three teeth, with a fourth only hours away from breaking through.

– He crawls around everywhere, following Elias and I around all day. He gets behind the couch, into the drawers, under the table, and today he crawled up his first step!

– Simon will play with pretty much any toy, but has two birthday horns/noise makers that he really likes right now. He also loves balls and whatever Elias is trying to play with. Mostly whatever Elias is trying to play with.

– Simon loves to be tickled and wrestled…especially by big brother Elias. Parenting him is going to be so different from the first time around. Today at play group Simon got into tug-of-wars a couple of time with toys…something Elias has not done even to this day pretty much. He sat on one of his friends. He wants to be in the middle of everything.

– He is becoming more and more vocal. He imitates sounds that Elias makes. He “contributes” to our conversations. He makes sounds to get our attention. He says “mama” when he is upset. On a related note…he seems like he may be waving as well…but I’m not sure about that one.

– I will admit it…Simon has brown eyes. He is still mostly bald, but the hair seems to be growing in at a slightly faster rate now.

We are so blessed to have this boy in our lives.