Perfect Moments Flashback

I also found this in my drafts folder, and I'm not even sure when I originally wrote it - but Valerie was 3, so Gabriel must have been around 1.

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I’ve been very, very tired lately. So I've been trying to pay attention to the small perfect moments with the kids as they come.

Like when Gabriel points at the red circle of light on the ceiling from my headlamp one night and says “sun.” And the way, every morning, he'll step on the floor with his fat little bare feet, sign "cold," and then say "socks." Or the way he throws his arms around my neck, leans back and kisses me, then lunges in again for a surprisingly strong squeeze. And the way he’ll – how can I describe this? – he’ll see something that charms him, and he’ll go into this little crouch with his hands in front of his mouth, squirrel-like, smiling squint-eyed and wrinkled nose, fingers out like little birds’ beaks, and chirp.

Valerie's favorite game is “boing-boing” – she jumps on the bed holding Terry's hands, then he’ll give her a little push and she’ll fall back shrieking in laughter. She also likes to play “try again” – Terry will lie on his side on the bed, and she’ll jump up, kick both her feet into his butt, and then bounce down again. She braces her feet on the window sill while standing on her head on the bed. She mimics the Tigress's kung fu poses from the Kung Fu Panda movie and has started calling herself "Tiger" from time to time. Three year old exuberance!

She has mastered a 100-piece puzzle, and is actually learning to read – around 40 words she knows by sight, and can spell out with blocks. I was astonished the other day to look at her magnetic drawing pad and see that she had written the word “fox,” completely without prompting or guidance whatsoever. When I lie down with her at bedtime she’ll throw an arm around my neck and say “awwww.”

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We have new pets, again! Four parakeets. They are super noisy sometimes, but Val just loves to sit and watch them. Their names are Birdie, Blue, Shine, and Maracuyá (passion fruit).