You're the best

If I do anything remotely fun for Jack, his response is, "Thanks, mom, you're the best." He always calls me mommy or mama, mostly mommy. But that statement always brings out mom. Today, we were cleaning up before Travis came home, and he kept saying, "Mommy, thanks so much for your help" or "Whew, this is wearing me out." He's picking up phrases and cracking me up.

He's been helping me cook a lot lately. We made banana whole wheat pancakes yesterday morning and made a total mess. We had a blast. Tonight we made whole wheat biscuits, and he helped me measure out everything, stir it all together, knead the dough, and, his favorite part, cut out the biscuits using a cup. With the leftover dough, he insisted we make Charlie a biscuit that looked like a snake. He rolled it out as long as it could be without breaking, and we threw it on the sheet with the other biscuits. Charlie enjoyed his snake biscuit.

Charlie is at the stage when he sticks his tongue out or shakes his head "no" throughout the entire meal. I've just begun putting his food out on the tray and letting him go for it. He eats better when he does it himself, even though half of his food ends up on the floor. Jack has started getting the dust buster and cleaning after meals, so it's actually ok. Charlie's learning to feed himself. Jack's learning to clean. Win-win. I mean, now that we don't have dogs to eagerly clean up the morsels, this works.

It's been storming a good bit here lately, and every time it does I try to tell myself, "More flowers!" Although getting out this morning with the boys in all that rain was quite a site. I had Charlie on my left hip, Jack as my backpack, and I trudged through our flooded sidewalk in my rain boots as it poured. My neighbor laughed and offered help, but when Charlie cried just looking at him, we agreed to leave well enough alone. Tonight, I walked to get my library card and something sweet for Trav. It started pouring as I was coming out of the bakery, and I looked like a drowned rat when I got home.

And the last story of this disjointed post: yesterday, Jack was talking about his teacher back home, Ms. Mallory, and how much he missed her and his friends. We sent her a message telling her. Not much later, she had sent back a message of his friends saying, "Hey, Jack! We love and miss you!" He was smiling so big. I cried so hard. How sweet! It made our day.