Anders - the late night show

Myann and Shane are in bed sleeping and we are letting Anders play. He is just having so much fun, how could we possibly put him to bed. Plus he has so much to say and laugh about. He happens to think he is pretty funny. This side of him is overshadowed by Myann and Shane all day. So I love to see him in his own siblingless world for just a few hours. Because he would miss his siblings. He LOVES Shane and Myann. Last week when we dropped Shane off at his classroom, Anders kept running up to Shane and giving him a kiss and a hug. We would get halfway down the hall and then Anders would run back to Shane's classroom and hug and kiss him again. It was pretty sweet and melting the hearts of Shane's teachers watching the display. Anders also loves to console Myann when she cries. Since she is all about the drama these days, Anders is hugging and kissing her many times per day. Really the sweetest boy ever. His vocabulary are tripled in just the past 2 weeks. He knows so many words and repeats about anything I say, at least he will try to say it. He loves to say "I did it!" He is a proud one.

Then there is the matter of his hair. Anders' hair is getting long, quite long and I keep saying that I will get it cut the next time we go for Shane and Myann. Which would be in another 2 weeks or so. But I am rethinking that decision. He has beautiful thick hair with those gorgeous ringlets at the end. I know that when we cut them off, those curls are gone forever, it happened to Shane's and I did not appreciate them long enough. Brian wants his hair cut. Last week Anders brought me Myann's hair stuff and insisted I do his hair. He even tried to spray detangler, comb it and stick a ponytail in his hair. He was so precise and determined, that I had to do it for him. So I put his hair in a ponytail and it was adorable. So, so, so cute. Brian was out of town, that is the only way I pulled it off. Ooops, except I then took him to the mall and took pictures, so daddy found out. The picture is terrible because he would not slow down, but you get the point. So now I am thinking of letting it grow long, as long as we can manage without it getting too messy. And I may just have to put in a few pony tails this summer.



Other feats Anders has discovered this week. Climbing on to the couch with something to assist him. He can use a pillow, toy giraffe, or just about anything that gives him an extra few inches of height. He also learned how to climb into his high chair and does so whenever he wants to eat. Now if only he could learn how to attach the tray to the high chair and get his own food, now that would be helpful.

Oh my goodness and the wrestle mania that goes on in our house nightly. We could be our own pay per view special. The only problem is that Anders does not realize that wrestling is not a sport that all 19 month olds engage in. We started music class together 2 weeks ago. This is a full on toddler music class at a real music school and he is still getting used to it and the fellow classmates are patiently waiting for him to get into the rhythm of the class. Well last week, Anders and another boy his age were chasing each other around the circle of moms. All fine until Anders gave the boy a full on hug and body slammed him to the ground. I mean he grabbed the kid, threw him to the ground and then jumped on top, just to horrify the boy all the more. It was devastating for me to watch and he was smiling and squealing with delight. The boy's grandmother was calm, but equally horrified and quickly tried to console her grandson who was crying with full on huge tears. Obviously he had never been bodyslammed before. I did my mortified apology, trying to act like this was unusual behavior. I guess I may need to approach the right time and place thing with Anders.

Dinner - Kids choice

I went upstairs today to look for Myann, surprised she had not gotten up from her nap. I found her watching tv in the play room. I asked her why she did not come get me when she woke up and her response, "I woke up cranky and came in here." She was a mess and looked cranky, so I turned and walked out. Felt it was safer to let her be. But seriously, if my 3 year recognizes she woke up cranky and hides out, what am I going to do when she is 12 and hormones are involved.

As for dinner, Shane asked if he could pick his own dinner tonight. Daddy was gone, so I thought sure, but I told him I had veto power. I did not need it. Myann of course had to get the same food.


If you can't tell from the picture, they had yogurt, 2 boiled eggs, raw broccoli, and mini oranges. My kids are freaks. These really are some of their favorite foods. Shane of course had to coat his eggs with lemon pepper, yuck. But don't let me mislead you that my kids are total health nuts, they still sneak candy any chance they get, so we still lock the pantry door every night. I quit using the bike chain on the refrigerator/freezer, but then again we do not buy ice cream any more, so there is nothing worth sneaking.

Anders is verbally following Myann's cue. Not a whole lot of talking before 18 months old, but now he is taking off. As soon as I started blogging his words, he felt the need to show me that he could talk far more than I realized. Tonight he even tried to say blackberry. It sounded like "b-berry" but a good try. He also has mastered outside, I sit, cheese, candy, and more that I forget.

Opening Day in the Majors

An outsider might have thought it was opening day for the majors and that Shane was the starting pitcher. That is the fanfare we were making out of Shane's first day of Teeball in Little League. Grandpa Jo even asked Brian for a play by play of Shane's 3 "big" plays in his 30 minute expo game. Yes, it was not even a real game and every kid was able to run in to home plate and I do not think there were any outs. So it was soooo not a real game, seriously, it was a meet and greet with the coach and team. But we were beyond excited. In our excitement to get Shane dressed, I did not take any pictures of him alone. I did get some team pics though.





Shane and James are on the team together and Myann and Bree are the unofficial ball girls. They are much more interested in catching balls than being cheerleaders. Anders just wants to be in the mix. Brian is going to be the unofficial assistant coach. The boys have a female coach who played softball for 14 years, so Brian is pretty excited to have someone who knows about the game. Of course Shane introduced Brian to his coach as, "My daddy used to make moms cry." We have no clue what that meant, but we assume it was meant to imply Brian was a good ball player in his youth, and he was. Shane also told his new coach that his daddy was the best coach ever, very sweet, but not so nice to say to your coach who you met like 30 minutes ago, and is volunteering her time to coach a team of 5 year olds.

This morning, Brian told Shane that he should practice with mom for the week. Shane's reply, "I am the best one on the team, so I don't need to practice. " Wow do we have our work cut out for us, and for the record, Shane is NOT the best on the team, not even close. Some of those boys can catch and throw really well, much better than Shane. So we must kindly explain that he is not the best and needs to practice, without discouraging him because he apparently has a false sense of his skill level. Gotta love the confidence of the Johansen men, they certainly do hold themselves in high esteem.

For the baseball fans, we still do not know if Shane is a righty or lefty. He is batting both. We thought he was right handed and bought him the glove, but he has been wanting to throw with his left, so we may have to get another glove. Also, Shane is number 3 and his team is the Mariners.

Anders' stats

Today was Anders' 18 month appt, though it was 3 weeks late.
Weight 30 lbs 11 oz (95%)
Height 34 in (90%)
Head circ 90%

This was coming off of 5 days of tummy problems, so he probably was over 31 lbs. To think I actually thought he was slimming down. Oh how I love my big boy. He does not say a lot that we understand, but he talks often, and he seems to think we all understand him prefectly. These are the words that we understand: momma, dadda, shoes, Katie, doggie, puppy, cereal, milk, mine, Shane, up, and NO! I am sure there are more, but that is all my brain can remember at this late hour.

More words he can say: cookie, please (though he has to be coerced into saying it), thank you, poop (he points at the toilet and says pooped), of course ball (how could I forget ball since he screams it with delight about 50 times per day).

Even more words: Yesterday Anders dropped an almond and picked it up handed it to me and said, "Dirty". So add dirty to the list. Booboo - he points to any mark on my body and calls it a booboo.

Happy 5th Birthday Shane

Happy Birthday to my amazing 5 year old. It takes all the restraint I have to not call you my baby boy, because you are still my baby, but when I look at you, so little of the baby is left. You have matured and grown into a school kid, and you will finally be in elementary school in 5 short months. You are still my lovable snuggler, still my buddy, still my eloquent chatterbox, but this year you have become a wonderful big brother and a child with wisdom well beyond his years.

Unlike most kids, you know being a child is the prize. After all, when dad asked you what you wanted to be when you grew up, you said you did not want to grow up, you wanted to be a kid forever. Then you added that maybe you would be Spiderman. Every time you outgrow anything, you stash it away for Anders. When I told you to give away toys, you wanted to give them to your best friend James. I thought you were being sweet. Sandra wisely pointed out that you were just keeping them in close proximity. You outsmart your dad and I almost daily and that scares us both. But, at the end of the day, what I value most in you is your heart. You have a good heart and you love Jesus; I think you are on the right track for a 5 year old. I love you and am so excited about what this next year holds for you.