Resolutions!

New Year's Resolutions:

Andy:  

For God's sake, please be kind to your brother.  Please.  Please stop picking on him and teasing him and pinching him and pushing him down and taunting him and psychologically warping him.  Just leave him alone.  I can't stress how your actions towards Alex create 95% of the stress and unhappiness in this household.  I would yell so much less if you could just stop ... interacting with him altogether.  If you feel like you need to be mean to somebody, go outside and punch a tree.  And while you're out there, shovel the driveway.  It's an embarrassment.  The other 5% of the stress in this household, if you're wondering, comes mostly from two categories: Carpet Imperfections and Hiding From The Schwan's Delivery Man Every Two Weeks.  How DO I get off his sales list??

Also, please stop peeing the bed.  I know it's developmentally normal for you to still occasionally do this, but we have a real problem when you pee YOUR bed at 3 in the morning and then come into my room and proceed to pee MY bed at 6.  This is not okay.  I've gone through enough in my life, what with birthing three children and subsequently weaseling my way out of jury duty.  Sleeping in somebody else's pee is just adding insult to injury.

Please continue to do the following for the New Year:  Keep up with being a good student.  Keeping being a good big brother to Emily (although you can actually tone that one down a little).  Thank you for your undying devotion to me.  Thank you for being an honest, responsible kid that I am so tremendously proud of.  Thank you for growing into somebody I not only love but actually like. 

Alex:

Somebody has to teach this kid to take no for an answer.  Perhaps you've been a tad bit spoiled, but for the New Year, we have to work on No Means No, not No Means Immediately Start Crying and Then Just Do What You Wanted To Do In The First Place.  Also, you're kind of a liar.  You have lied to my face on many an occasion, but the lies are always so dumb and ill thought out.  Save your lies for the big things, Alex.  Lie about not sneaking out with the car when you're a teenager, not whether or not you flushed the toilet.  Come on, man.  Let's think this through.

Also, stop bumbling so much.  You're such a little pinball on the loose; it's shocking to all of us that you've only been to the ER once.  Don't jump off high things or fling yourself down the stairs or run with feet you've freshly buttered for some reason.  Pay attention.  Or maybe just sit still.  At the neighbor's house.  I'll come pick you up when it's time for bed.

But I have to say- these past few months, something special has happened to our relationship.  I think that something special is, to put it bluntly, Andy going off to kindergarten for the day.  Just spending the day with you (and Emily) is downright delightful and has allowed me to give you the focus that maybe was lacking before.  You make me laugh, you're so much fun, and I'm just so thrilled with the unique and crazy and sweet little individual you are.  Thanks for hanging out with me.  I like you.

Emily:

Oh, Emily.  I look forward to this next year with you, even as I lament how big of a girl you're becoming.  There are going to be so many firsts for you in 2016!  Crawling is soon on the horizon, and then walking, and then running.  You're eating so many solids already (I'm glad you liked my pork tenderloin the other night), and I swear I've heard you try to sound out the word "Mom."  Or maybe Mormon or Money or Montana, who can really tell. I have no resolutions for you; the resolutions for you are for me.  I will read to you more (I mean, I will start reading to you, sigh), we will work on your napping, we will continue to erode at all of your excema, I will keep you in gender specific clothing and items (Girl stuff.  Girl stuff.  Need more girl stuff.), and I will try to soak up every minute of your babyness, because it goes by so fast.

You are such a sweet, happy baby with a great giggle.  You give me huge smiles when you see me, and you like to cuddle.  Let's not change for the New Year.  In fact, let's never change.  You are perfect now. Of course, one day you will bumble, not listen, not hear the word no, pee your bed, and be mean to a sibling/ parent/ friend.  But even then you will be perfect.  

Just like Andy and Alex.