We Were There {September} | Blog Circle 2014

Alex has had a word explosion!  He’s been chatting for a while now, but around the third week of September the smattering of words became actual conversation.  And suddenly it’s not just a handful of words, either.  It’s like he learned English over night.  His favourite phrase at the moment is “Help me!”  All day (and some nights), it’s “Help!  Help me, mom!  Help me!”  Equal parts adorable and exhausting.  Other favourites are “My turn.”  “Thank you.”  “Cookie!”  “Drink, please.”  “Where’s dad?” and “Love you too.”

The three older boys are all back in school now.  Nathan goes full days for senior kindergarten.  Already I’ve had phone calls home to let me know that he’s cut himself with scissors or he fell while running with his hands in his pockets.  Luckily, he has the same teacher as last year, so she is familiar with his clumsiness.

Jacob has been anxious about having to learn to swim as part of his curriculum in grade three.  I’ll have to take him to the pool so that we can practice together.  He’s a worrier, and it breaks my heart when he is so nervous about things that it keeps him up at night.  I see so much of myself in him.  I wish that I knew how to encourage his confidence some more, but at the same time I’m not sure if I should just accept that he’s content to stay on the sidelines and not push him to try to be someone that he’s not comfortable being.

Ben is getting older all of the time.  He seems more like a teenager every day.  I wanted to take him to Canada’s Wonderland this summer, but the season got away from us.  I’m hoping that things feel less chaotic as Alex gets older, so that I can get a grip on the days and not have them slide by in great swaths like they seem to.

We took some photos for the start of the school year again.  I actually still have to do Nathan’s (and I’ll do Alex’s too, so he’s not left out).  I wonder how long the boys will let me keep doing this before they start protesting.  I’m going to milk it as long as I can.

Sean has spent the bulk of this month working out of town.  I feel like I haven’t seen him in ages.  I hate when he is away.  He’s overworked this month, and feeling it.  We need a weekend away together, but that probably won’t be a possibility until at least Spring.  It’s getting harder to maintain the commitment to get these photos done every month with the kids so busy with school and Sean so busy with work.  I’ve been picking up the odd photography session, so there never seems to be a moment when everyone is free.  Still, we tried.

I drove to the Bay with the kids to visit my grandma this month.  She turned 96 on September 24th.  What an amazing lady.  I hope to be half as awesome at that age.  I’m not even half that awesome yet, so I’ve got some work to do.  I wish that we lived closer to our extended family.  I miss all of my aunts and uncles and cousins too.

But I’m supposed to be in front of the camera for our family photo this month.  And so, without further ado … we were there.  Check out Michele’s entry here.

We Were There September