“A portrait of my children once a week, every week, in 2015.”

Lillia: This week you have been terribly sick. Unlike your brother, you’ve enjoyed relatively good health this year up until this point. It’s nice when you’ve had enough illnesses to actually have an immune system, isn’t it? On Friday you were doing really poorly in the morning — you said your head hurt terribly, and felt heavy, and your tummy hurt. Unfortunately, you had already been out of school one day earlier in the week, and I really felt you should at least try to make it through the day. Your father was much more concerned about you, though, fetching you Tylenol, water, and whatever else you demanded. Our dynamic is interesting — you’re definitely a daddy’s girl, which I think is very sweet (though I do get mildly frustrated that I always have to be bad cop!). I’m so happy that you have such a great relationship with your dad, and I hope it always stays that way.

Zane: This week you are scheduled to go on your first ever sleepover at Nanny and Papa’s house (my parents). Originally, you were supposed to go last night, but the snowstorm postponed it until tonight. The whole thing is actually killing me. You see, you and I have never spent a night apart in your whole life; that’s 3 years, 5 months, and 23 days that we’ve been sleeping side by side. You are so excited about spending the night at their house, but I can’t help feeling completely gutted because we won’t ever be able to go back to a time when we had never spent a night apart. There might be some parents reading this who think I am being melodramatic, but for me this is really hard! Zane, you are my baby and, barring some miracle, my last baby. I know from having watched your sister grow up that once you let go of the baby stage, it’s over. Time moves faster and faster, and pretty soon your babies are tweens. Tweens certainly have their charms, too, but this whole growing up and leaving thing? I’m so not a fan.

“A portrait of my children once a week, every week, in 2015.”

Lillia: This week you played at your friend Anya’s house after school. I feel terrible because I am not very good at arranging for you to play with other kids. You’re kind of beyond the “playdate” stage of life, but I think that your introverted nature and your need for lots of down time, in combination with my absent-mindedness in this area makes it so that you don’t spend as much time with other kids as you should. That’s one of the drawbacks of living in a rural town, I guess. When I was a kid I lived in a big neighborhood and there were always lots of other children to play with — playdates just happened organically. I will try to be better about arranging for playtime with your friends, and hopefully you will also remind me!

Zane: In the last couple of weeks we’ve gotten a lot of snow so we finally got to build our snowman! You have been waiting all winter for this, and he turned out very cute (here’s a pic). I hope you won’t mind my sharing this, but I had to chuckle when you insisted that, in addition to eyes and a mouth, your snowman needed a bum and boy parts. Well, we can see what stage of life you’re at (potty training clearly having an impact on your psyche)! It has been very cold, so your snowman did not melt but he has, sadly, been completely covered up by the additional foot of snow we got this week. We’ll have to dig him out!

“A portrait of my children once a week, every week, in 2015.”

Lillia: This week you were desperately rummaging around in our dress-up clothes for something you could wear for “Princess Day” (just for the record, I’m not sure I love this concept). The whole exercise was made more difficult by the fact that you are now the size a full-grown person — most of our dress-up clothes are made to fit child-sized people. We lucked out and found an old Halloween costume that I wore many, many years ago. It was a little large, but overall it fit better than the tiny things we were trying to squeeze you into before we found it. I think it’s interesting, and sweet, that you were determined to participate in Princess Day. As you said, “This may be the only time people see me in a dress.” While that may be an exaggeration, you do have a penchant for more masculine formal wear, and I think you look just perfect in a bowtie! Never be someone you’re not just to make others happy.

Zane: This week you actually went to school! Snow days, illnesses and delays have kept you out of school so many days this year, and this month is no exception. When I came to pick you up I was amused to see all of the little preschoolers sliding down a small hill on their bottoms. Because of the order of weather events — snow, then rain, then cold temperatures — the schoolyard now has quite the slick sliding hill! Of course, your teachers were trying to keep you all off the REALLY slippery part, but the second they looked away you booked it for the top and went straight to the prohibited area, happily zooming down the icy hill at high speed. You are an imp! I have a feeling that many calls home from the school are in my future…

“A portrait of my children once a week, every week, in 2015.”

Lillia: This week you participated in your school spelling bee. It was a bit of a letdown for you because you accidentally spelled your first word — VISIT — wrong (you left out the second ‘i’). Everyone knows that you can spell the word ‘visit’ so those of us in the audience were a bit confused. At first I thought you might have made the mistake on purpose so that you could get out of the spelling bee (not unheard of in this household…), but now I am thinking that your mouth just got ahead of your mind. C’est la vie! There’s always next year! And, I am very proud of you for getting as far as you did.

Zane: My favorite memory of you from this past week was when you decided you were hungry and so you made some Tofurky hot dogs all by yourself! I was in the bedroom folding laundry and I heard: “Beep, beep, beep, vrrmmmmm.” I came out to see what you were doing, and found you standing on a stool in front of the microwave with a huge grin on your face. You said, “You weren’t out here to help me.” I had only once shown you how to do this, and you must have remembered because you had the exact right time entered. The best part was when you pulled out the plate to see if they were ready, inspected them, and then decided to give them another ten seconds. There is such a big person inside that tiny body of yours!

“A portrait of my children once a week, every week, in 2015.”

Lillia: This week you are getting ready for your school spelling bee (which happens next Thursday). There are two kids from each class participating. You are really excited about it, and I hope that you have a good time. You’re an excellent speller and I know you will do well. I’m so impressed that you are not nervous about being in front of all of those people — when I was your age I made it into my school’s spelling bee and then intentionally spelled my first word wrong so I could get off the stage ASAP (I don’t recommend doing that). Good luck and study hard!

Zane: This week we spent some time on the trails out behind our house. We haven’t been out there much this winter due to the weather being absolutely frigid. We tried to go on our normal path, but couldn’t make it up the hill because it was so icy! So, we decided to check out the pond instead. You were amazed that we could walk on the water (which was frozen, of course). Instead of having to go all the way around to get to the other side, we just went right across the middle! I love re-discovering the wonders of nature with you.