Catching up with Mikey

Mikey is doing great. He's a great big brother. He plays with Luke all the time, teaches and helps him with all sorts of things. And no matter what kind of warnings he gets from us about waking up Joey he just can't NOT kiss Joey every 5 minutes. Aside from occasionally waking Joey up, he is very helpful and always doing things like keeping Joey happy by making faces at him for a few minutes, keeping his binky in his mouth and those kind of things. But here are a few of my favorite things about Mikey lately:


The importance of being 4:
I have recently discovered that being 4 is VERY important. When Mikey turned 3, he enjoyed his party and presents and things, but he didn't talk too much about being 3. That is not the case with being 4. The magnitude of this new milestone became more apparent to me this week.

Early in the week we went to the gym so the kids could play at the child center. When we first walked in I noticed Mikey noticing and smiling at another little girl who was waiting around the entrance. I think he knew her a little from the child center. Well I checked in and we finally approached this little girl. As we walked past Mikey was finally close enough to her to greet her. As we walked by he stepped a little closer to her, stopped, smiled and put his hand out in front of her with 4 fingers up and just held it there. No words, he just held out his hand with a big grin on his face. He waited and after a second she did the same thing back--just holding up 4 fingers, kind of like this 4-year-old salute or something. They both just smiled at each other and kind of mumbled, "yeah?" "4?" "yeah." And he walked away smiling. I was dying. It was like their own special "handshake" for the "4-year-old club." It was awesome.

THEN a few days later we were back. This time Mikey was standing next to me as I handed my card to the man at the check in desk. The man looked at Mikey and said, "hey buddy! what's up?!" Mikey can get a little shy at times with strangers and this was one of those moments. He gave a shy smile and put his head down a little and leaned into me. Then after a second he finally looked up at the guy, smiled a little bigger, and then just stuck his hand out...again with 4 fingers up. No words. Just a smile and 4 fingers. If there's one thing you need to know about Mikey it's that he's 4.


Celebrities in the Neighborhood:
Mikey was the first to learn that there are celebrities who live in our neighborhood. We can see their house from our back porch, in fact. Can you see? In the picture below?


So a few days after we moved in, I was lying down and Mikey came inside all excited and whispered to me, "Mom! There is something I have to show you! You have to come see! We can see the Three Little Pigs' house from our porch!" I was a little out of it and didn't know what he was talking about. Anyway, so he pulls me outside and tries to point out the house. I had no idea what he was talking about and was wondering why he thought the Three Little Pigs lived in this big house. But finally I realized he was talking about THIS house.
He continued to talk about the Three Little Pigs for days and wanting to go knock on their door and see them. Luckily he finally let it go, but I still think about the Three Little Pigs when I go out on our porch. The things kids think of.


Big Brother:
Like I said, Mikey is a great big brother. Last Sunday Luke was taking a nap, Joey was asleep in the swing and Mikey was just playing by himself while Lance and I both took naps. (I know, amazing that we were both taking a Sunday nap.) At some point I started to hear Joey fuss. Mikey came in and was talking to me about it, but I was so out of it I don't remember much. When I got up a little later I faintly remembered Mikey saying something about the binky and then found him like this:
He had sat there and helped Joey calm down and get his binky and apparently laid down at some point of taking care of him and fell asleep. I woke to three kids sleeping peacefully. What would I do without Mikey. :)