Jeremiah and I have been talking a lot about growing up lately. Jeremiah thinks that he will be all grown up when he turns 5, then he will be a man like his Daddy. He says that then they can do things together as "grown up man Banes, and grown up man Dermiah." (Oh, it is so funny, he says his Daddy's name Bames Bamburk, and Mommy is Lela; and of course he has started to call us by these names instead of Mommy and Daddy, as a sign of how grown up he is.)
Jeremiah and I love how grown up Eden is getting. She demonstrates her new maturity by rolling from her back to her tummy and back again, and lately she has been practicing sitting up on her own. She isn't any good at it yet, only staying in a sitting position for 2-10 seconds before toppling over. Every time she does it though, Jeremiah points it out to me with great pride and says, "Look, Baby Eden is growing up so fast."
Isaac has been making leaps and bounds in his language development. He loves repeating sentences back to me, and his pronunciation is so clear. Sometimes he uses words that I had absolutely no idea he even knew, let alone would be able to use correctly in a sentence, well a2 year olds equivalent of a sentence. And his imaginative play is so fun to watch, sometimes he and Jeremiah can sit in the toy room playing with their animals and I will just stay out in the hall listening to the conversations their animals have. But any unexplained noise Isaac hears his imagination automatically translates as a T-Rex, which makes it hard for him to sleep at night with neighbors below, above and behind. He wakes up convinced that a T-Rex is trying to break down his wall and eat him, so he usually ends up in my bed with me.
Jeremiah and I have been having lots of fun talking to each other this last month, really since he became 4 he has grown so much. He will often say to me, "I want to talk to you." Then he will ask me questions such as, "If Joseph Smith was a prophet why did those men do mean things to him?" or "Do Heavenly Father and Jesus live far far far far far far away?" or "Does the Holy Ghost live in a haunted house?" or "Why do we read the Book of Mormon?" But his favorite topic is to ask me why this person or that person is a hero, and also to point out to me how some times in movies the "mean man" can "become a hero" and do something good even though they were bad before. I hope that he will be able to retain this ability to see good in people even when the world would say they don't "deserve" it.
And this one is for you Tovi: Yesterday Jeremiah was in the other room when suddenly I heard him say, "Oh my dog!" I called him to me and asked him what he was talking about. He said, "I said, 'Oh my dog!' that's funny isn't it? Like 'Holy Cow!' chuckle chuckle." I thought it was very funny, but I didn't say so, and of course I sat him down and talked to him about what the phrase 'Oh my dog' actually said and why we, in our family, don't say it. And that anything that we say if it makes us feel bad, like the Holy Ghost isn't making us happy, then we should never say it again, because we always want to feel happy. Then I told him some fun phrases I would allow him to say, that were fun and wouldn't make him feel bad, such as 'krimanitly' or 'good grief' or 'for goodness sake' or 'what on earth'.
They grow up so quickly, like a flash from a camera, by the time your eyes clear from the glaring light they aren't little babies any more, then flash, and they aren't toddlers any more either.
- Here are some pictures of Eden and her very first attempts at sitting up.
