Growth spurts

 Youth is magic. Pure and simple magic. After over 5 years watching Apollo grow from birth until now, and then Orion, I am still fascinated and astounded by how they grow, learn, and develop. Everyday my little ones add a little more shape to the essence that forms who they are. The light in their eyes gets brighter and more vibrant, and I feel the wealth of my existence magnified with each passing moment. I love watching them grow together and as individuals.

  Orion has "it"; that thing that cant be explained that just makes everything he does completely adorable. When he is happy, mad, indifferent, playful, tired...it doesn't matter, he does it with style and cuteness. Dont get me wrong, I was completely smitten with Apollo (and still am) with everything that he did, it is just that Orion has that "new puppy" kind of playful charm to him that is infectious and shows no signs of going away. He is the only person in this household that says "please" and "thank you". and he says them both consistently and for anything and everything that he asks for. And the way that he says them is priceless. Apollo, on the other hand (like his father), still feels that "please", "thank you", and "I'm sorry", are all words that show a sign of weakness, and have to be coaxed or pried out of him.

  Life is interesting around here. There is so much going on all the time. It seems chaotic at best. Life has taught me that there may be no tomorrow...no second chances. Consequently, we try to seize every opportunity that we can to do something with our kids. We run them pretty hard and try to keep them active and stimulated. Apollo and Orion both have a great amount of stamina for their ages. They are often up and ready to go by 7:00 am on weekends. We will take them on long bike rides, swimming, shopping, back home, have a water fight, play in the yard, go on an after dinner walk, read stories, work on writing (with Apollo-thanks Melanie) and they will still be going strong at 10:00 pm. Orion will usually fit in a 40 minute to 1 1/2 hour nap, but not Apollo. We consider ourselves lucky if both kids are asleep by 11:00 pm. The next morning they are up early, much to Melanie's chagrin, and ready to go again. Apollo, Orion, and I are often evicted from the bedroom in the mornings so Melanie can get a few more minutes of sleep.

I dont know if is the sunshine, exercise, fresh fruits and vegetables, or a combination of all of them, but both boys are really in full growth spurt mode. Apollo is learning to write and read, and he is really enjoying it. He has an incredible memory and often surprises me with what he knows and remembers. As an example, we were in a FedEx Kinko's making some copies, and Apollo points to the name of the  machine I was using and says, "Hey dada, that machine has the same name as your camera" (Canon). I didn't even know he had looked at or noticed the name plate on my camera before. His brain is like a sponge at the moment. He will not settle for a child's answer for anything. By this I mean, I cant tell him things like, "That's just the way it is" or "That's just how it was made."  I can't even tell him "I don't know." Apollo will get mad and demand that I explain things to him and in detail. He keeps me in check with this behavior. I cant just brush him off with a simple answer.

  Orion is in high gear physically and mentally. I swear he has grown an inch in the past week. The past 3 weeks has been an explosion in the speech department as well. He will repeat any word he hears. Apollo asks him to say all kinds of words and Orion will repeat them right back. The cool part is that Orion adds many of these words to his vocabulary and has really advanced his ability to communicate his needs and desires. I am completely blown away by how fast his language ability has progressed the past few weeks. "I wan' this one", "I wan' try", "I wan' play", "this one mine", "I wan' go ride car", "Marmi (Remi), go outside!", "Dada! No night-night!","Where mama?"... these are but a small sampling of his regular phrases. The show stopper for me is "help me." It absolutely melts my heart to hear him say, "Dada, help me." He will use this phrase when he is climbing up on something, trying to reach something beyond his reach, or if he cant get a toy to work. "Dada, it not working. Help me." I love this.
  What I was not ready for is that Orion really understands what "help me" means. I must admit that I was choked up at one point. Orion started to get sick today and began to cry and fuss. In the sweetest little weakened voice he said, "Dada, tummy oweee..." as he points helplessly at his stomach, "...help me dada, help me."