3 is in fact company

Clara Charlene Moore is here. She's just barely 3 months old and seems to be thriving. Our little family feels, in so many ways, just like the one I grew up in. A rambunctious older brother, a tender middle child, and a perfect baby sister (that was me, I was the perfect baby sister. jokes jokes). Really though, Clara looks like me and was also born in Septmeber so, thus far- we're twinning. Scott and I have adjusted to the new normal being parents of three children but, babies change so much in the first year we know it will continually be an adjustment. The reality is that you're always making adjustments really. New developments. New interests and activities. But adding a new sibling really throws everyone for a while and the boys seem to be doing well. Patrick started 1st grade at Wasatch Charter School. He says he doesn't like school but often excitedly shares details of the activities, games, crafts (mostly frog/finger knitting), and some of what they're learning. He shows interest in numbers and science but HATES being drilled when we do "Khan" math on the computer which, unfortunately, requires quite a bit of reading (word problems like "what number is missing?") and isn't necessarily very "fun". He prefers the computer program "Lexia" but still doesn't even love that. It seems like he's something of a perfectionist and gets frustrated by these computer programs. He says his favorite parts of school are eurythmie and hand crafts and being outside. He loves to chat about numbers. He loves to ask "how many people are there in the world?" He's very curious in general. The other night he asked me where the coldest place in the world is. I guessed Syberia but that question led me on a search for informtaion about the most snowy place in the world which I found out is on an island in Japan that gets an average of 26 feet of snowfall each year. Now I want to travel there. I'm not a perfect parent but I'm very comfortable admitting when I don't know the answers to things and if I have the time, I love to look up the answers to Patrick's questions. We've learned a lot together. Patrick challenges me in other ways too- mostly emotionally. He can get me fired up real quickly but he and I are both learning how to better control our tempers. I am in awe of him. Here's a cute little story: We recently watched some Daniel Tiger (we're trying to prep Maxwell for potty training and they have a cute potty song). There was an episode where something bad happened and they talked about "turning things around". About a week later, I was making a pumpkin spice coffee cake and had a substantial batch of homemade pumpkin pie spice sitting on the counter. Maxwell decided to grab about 1/4 cup full of spice and dump it into the batter. I got really mad and sent him to his room (poor guy, I realized after the fact that he wasn't being naughty and felt bad for punishing him). Patrick said, "I'll taste it mom. It's good! Remember Daniel Tiger talks about turning bad things around". I hugged Patch and told him he was right. I went back into the boy's room and hugged Max and apologized for getting angry and told him he could come out. Being a mother is the absolute most humbling thing I've ever done. It's wild because as a mother this humbling experience happens every. single. day. It's not a one time event. Back to updates on the kids, Maxwell. Sweet Maxwell is growing up so fast. He'll be 3 in just a couple of days. As of her 2 month check up, Clara was almost EXACTLY the size Maxwell was at birth (he was 10 lbs, 2 oz and she was 10 lbs 4 oz). He's always been physically big with a gigantic noggin. He's gotten rather clumsy lately and "bonks" his "noggin" daily. I can often kiss it better and sometimes we call in reinforcements which are often Lolo the stuffed bear or a piece of Halloween candy. Max helps unload the dishwasher almost daily and lately has started to enjoy rinsing the baby bottles. He knows that once he completes this chore he gets to watch "New Octonauts". When Patrick is in school we have our little pattern to the day. We walk "Patchie" to school. Max always wants to have his jacket zipped up when we go outside and believes that nearly every pair of his shoes are "fast". While walking back from the school he likes to stop at the river to throw in leaves or sticks. Once we get home we finish up breakfast, do the dishes, and play with toys. He can usually wrangle me in to joining whatever game. He's developping quite the personality complete with a firey temper. I blame myself that these boys both have hot heads. Love em anyway and thankfully, they seem to love me. When Maxwell watches his shows I run around cleaning. Every day. The cleaning is never done. My friends tease me that when I'm video chatting with them I'm always doing dishes. They're not wrong. When Maxwell finishes his shows we eat lunch and he often wants to go on a ride on the power wheels. Then I read him stories and he goes for his "rest". That kid is an epic napper and will often nap for close to 3 hours and still go to bed at 7:30 PM. Bless his heart for napping so well!!! He's a sweetie. A little story about Max: When we went to Disney with Grandma Bonnie and Grandpa Steve over Thanksgiving Maxwell was excited about every single ride. He rode the Pirates of the Caribbean ride 3 times and did an incredible job patiently waiting in all of the lines. Pirates wound up being one of his favorites. Last week we went to the Hogle Zoo for Purple's holiday party. We were over in the sea life section of the zoo and "A Pirates Life for Me" started playing over the speakers. Max got so excited and stopped in his tracks to listen and when I finally got his attention he ran up to me saying "mom! mom! It's the Pirates of the Caribbean!!!" Then he simply had to share this revelation with his daddy only this time he called it "the carrots of the pirabean". Bahahahahahahaha. Too funny. These 3 little hooligans (as I've grown fond of calling them lately) are the best part of my life. Scott and I feel like we're pretty dang good co-captains and man oh man life is good.