Wizard of Brotherly Love

Drew has been a wonderful, loving, and helpful big brother so far. He is always wanting to hold and feed Allie and constantly wants to sing to her, pray with her, or is telling her that he loves her. We still have to remind him to be gentle with her and try not to get him to grab her head to turn it towards him for a kiss. He is also learning that she cannot play with any toys yet, not even things he considers baby toys. Such as the hand clapper that he tried to put in her hand, then tried to show her how it worked by promptly hitting her in the face with it. She never flinched, although it upset Drew for a few minutes.

I have also been hanging out with him and trying to show him some extra attention. We have been doing "mans things" as he says and he has been so excited that the guys are hanging out and the girls are hanging out. Really it has been more just kid stuff that we are doing. Yesterday I took him to the Children's Museum to see the new Wizard of Oz exhibit. In case you don't remember Drew has been obsessed with the Wizard of Oz since around two years of age or so as you can see in previous postings. His fascination has waned a bit, but it is still one of his favorites. The exhibit was set up with each scene of the movie and something centered around that theme. The black and white scene at the farm was about the crops and how they grew with water and sunlight. Then there was a tornado exhibit. Drew liked Munchkinland the best and had a blast sitting in their house and playing with their stuff. We learned about brains with the Scarecrow and hearts with the Tinman. Drew even had his first physiology lesson when he learned that the heartrate increases with physical activity. Then they had the lion, yellow brick road, the Emerald City, the wizard and so on.

Friday night we took Drew to his first big kid event. He has been taking karate for about a month now and he has really been enjoying it and doing very well. He is in a Little Ninja's class where they learn focus, teamwork, concentration, and things like that in addition to a little karate. It starts at four years old, so he has been the smallest and the youngest one there. Last night they had a lock in type event where they had pizza, a movie, practiced karate, and played games. We were really nervous, but Drew had a blast. When I walked in to pick him up he could have cared less that I was there because he was so busy playing games. I had a big smile and could not have been happier or prouder at that moment.

To top it off though we left Allie in the care of my parents and went to Bellevue to see Soul Mate Live for a couple hours to give Katie a chance to get out of the house. I never imagined that leaving two kids could be so nerve wracking. I could not sit still and kept checking my phone about every two minutes. Fortunately the night went well and we had a good time taking a short break. Allie has been doing well at night for the most part. Katie and I have been splitting the nights and spending about half the time on the couch with her and the other time she is in her crib. Hopefully she will keep giving us good nights!