“A portrait of my children once a week, every week, in 2014.”

Lillia: This week you went to the doctor for your annual check up. You are now 5′ 2 & 1/4″ tall! You are only 3/4 of an inch shorter than me now! You are in the 96th percentile for height, and your records show that you grew four and a quarter inches since your last appointment. No wonder why you have terrible growing pains all the time! I wonder how tall you will be when you grow up…You also had to get a vaccine but you were so brave , you didn’t even wince. You wore your sparkly band-aid as a badge of honor for the rest of the day.

Zane: This week you also went to the doctor for a check up. You are 38 inches tall, which puts you in the 46th percentile for height. In other words, you’re not the biggest guy! You were very relieved that you did not have to get any shots, as you described to me in detail how terrible it is to get poked in the thighs (they do vaccines in the thighs for little people because there’s more muscle there). Your development is right on schedule, as we already knew. You also finally made it back to school on Thursday after being gone for weeks. Between holidays, snow days, and illness, you hadn’t been to school since before Thanksgiving (only going twice a week makes it easy to miss a lot of days).

“A portrait of my children once a week, every week, in 2014.”

Lillia: This week you had a holiday concert at your school. I love watching you go through the process of deciding how you will dress because you have very particular ideas about how you want to look. You always like to wear a tie to special events — it’s your “signature style.” After your part of the concert was over, I noticed you were animatedly chatting with your teacher. It makes me so happy that you enjoy school, and that you have such a great relationship with your teacher. As we know from experience, it doesn’t always work out that way. I feel very thankful that the past two years at school have been, by and large, very good ones.

Zane: This week you got to start your advent calendar (we started on the first day of advent, rather than the first day of December). I don’t think anyone has ever been more excited about Christmas than you are this year. I keep reminding you that the big day doesn’t come for several more weeks, but every morning you still ask me, “Is today Christmas?” I kind of wish there was a way to rein in the excitement; Christmas is built up to such a huge degree that it’s inevitably a little disappointing. I do try hard to de-emphasize the gift-getting part of the holiday, but it seems like the whole world is working against me sometimes!

“A portrait of my children once a week, every week, in 2014.”

Lillia: This week you had a “Harry Potter Party” at school. You were so excited about it!!! You and Daddy read all of the Harry Potter books together, and you’ve read them again to yourself several times, including The Prisoner of Azkaban at school with all of your classmates. The party was to celebrate finishing the book, and everyone got to make a wand and dress up as a character. You decided you wanted to go as Nymphadora Tonks, and you insisted that you needed to have colorful hair so you borrowed a wig from your friend. I think you make a pretty endearing Tonks.

Zane: This week it snowed! You were so amazed by it, and you really enjoyed playing in it with your sister. You made snow hills and then tried to slide down them (yes, we got that much snow!). Now you’re big enough to really play in the snow — no more being stuck sitting in a snowbank watching the “big kids” play without you! It’s so fun to watch you experience the change of seasons because this year you seem much more aware of your surroundings. Everything is exciting to you, which makes it exciting to me, too. What a gift to be your mother and see everything fresh and new through your eyes.