Life is full of lessons big and small. For a 4 year old, those everyday lessons feel much bigger. Jaxon learned a valuable lesson this week about taking care of one's most valuable possessions!
Santa brought Jaxon lots of goodies this year but by far his most cherished was a simple stocking stuffer that Santa happened to see lying, misplaced in the wrong toy aisle at Target! That simple stocking stuffer is a rubbery, red-eyed tree frog, Jaxon affectionately calls Froggie! Froggie goes everywhere w/ Jaxon! He sleeps with him, bathes w/ him, takes him to communion at church w/ him! Every morning Froggie eats breakfast w/ us, brushes his teeth w/ us and rides to school w/ us! I am given strict directions daily as to what I need to do for Froggie while Jaxon is at school... Max and I are to play w/ him and make sure that we give him his imaginary fly food!
Daddy & I have never seen this child so attached to any other inanimate object thus far and have been dreading the day Froggie turns up missing... that day came this week!
I can't even begin to tell you how many times we have told Jaxon to leave Froggie at home when we go somewhere or to leave him in the car. If he is allowed to bring Froggie in, he is responsible for him and up until the other day has always done really well w/ keeping track of his rubbery friend.
My niece Alivia, turned one on Tuesday! We wanted to do something special for her so I suggested to Jaxon that we go to town and pick her out a Birthday balloon at the grocery store... we've got slim pickens in our small town! When we arrived at the store, Jaxon, like always, drug Froggie in w/ us. I wasn't paying any attention to what he was bringing in because Mr. Max was busy letting me know he'd like to get out of his car seat!
Jaxon LOVES going to the Linn store because they have shopping carts for kids! He immediately grabbed his cart and headed for the balloon display which is conveniently parked next to the toy section! We picked out our balloon, argued about a recorder he thought he must have from the toy aisle and headed for the checkout.
Later that day, as we were getting ready to leave for Alivia's pizza party, Jaxon began searching for Froggie. We hunt for that dang frog several times a day so I thought nothing of it at first! He wasn't having much luck inside so he asked if he could go out to the car and look. When he came back in w/ no Froggie, we began retracing our steps.
I remembered that when we went into the gas station to drop off a movie we had rented the day before, that Froggie was w/ him; Jaxon had introduced the owner to Froggie! That's when I realised where Froggie must be... the grocery store! Panic swept over me at that point knowing that the store had closed 30 minutes before our discovery! Luckily Jaxon was relatively cool about it and thankfully we had plans to go do something fun so it kept his mind off the matter.
At bedtime Jaxon was lost. More than feeling sorry for himself, he felt tremendous guilt that his friend was sleeping in a dark, scary, unknown place! I promised to stop after dropping him off at school to rescue Froggie and then promised to take extra special care of him while Jaxon was away!
Sure enough, Froggie had spent the night at the store and luckily was found by an employee, not another amphibian-loving little boy! Relief swept over me and at the same time panic... Froggie's arm was missing!!! A few weeks earlier, Froggie had lost his arm in a swinging accident. Jaxon was crushed and begged us to repair him. After several failed attempts at reattaching his severed arm, I managed to fix it and things were back to normal. The only difference was that at bath time, Froggie had to watch from the side of the tub because he couldn't get his Curious George "cast" wet!
I dreaded picking Jaxon up that day from school. I knew he'd be asking about Froggie and wanting to see him the second he got in the car. Daddy and I had discussed that this was a valuable life lesson and that he'd just have to deal w/ the consequences. Surprisingly, he dealt with the missing arm relatively well. He realised that there wasn't much any of us could do to change things and was relieved more than anything to be reacquainted w/ his best friend!
Hopefully he has learned his lesson and will think very clearly before bringing Froggie anywhere else for awhile!
until the clippers gave out that is!
On Saturday Jaxon, Maddox & I went to our town Egg Hunt. Jaxon's favorite part was holding a "green" chick!
On Sunday morning we woke up to a living room full of colored eggs & special surprises for the boys from the Easter Bunny himself!
After church we headed over to Grandma's for Easter dinner! Max wore the outfit that Jaxon wore for his first Easter! They both looked so handsome!
She's quite the little ham... as you can tell!
Opening presents wasn't nearly as much fun as chewing on her cards!
Playing w/ her birthday loot!
I just loved her cake!
And the cupcakes too!
Here she is enjoying her "smash cake"! 
Jaxon thought it was hilarious that Max was trying to get out of his chair during our photo shoot!
Jaxon joined Max for some "tummy time" last week!
Max is starting to try some baby food. He really likes it and has been sitting in his highchair at meal times. Here are the boys eating supper during Max's first Tornado Warning! 
Grandma & Grandpa Meier bought a swing set for the grand kids to enjoy at their house. Here is Jaxon getting ready to go down the slide.
