And speaking of learning, Eve has been
trying out one of Lex’s tantrum moves lately. When he has a
half-hearted tantrum he’ll drop to the floor and put his head
down (butt up, head down, sob, etc.) The past few days when Eve
doesn’t get what she wants she’ll slap the floor and put her
head down :) Cracks me up really. She doesn’t really cry, just
puts her head down for a bit then looks up to see if she’s
getting a reaction. So funny. Probably not the reaction she’s
hoping for.
Monthly Archives: February 2008
Reading
Lex is totally reading these days. It
amazes me. He likes to read the paper with me in the morning
and he sees words, sounds them out, and gets so excited :) He
read “Food Store” yesterday and then asked for help with
“Specials.” We read the comics together and he read “My dad got
a” in Baby Blues, but gave up on “speeding” and asked for help.
The longer words are tougher (obviously) because he can sound
them out, but forgets the beginning by the time he gets to the
end :) Alan says he has that problem too! It’s just amazing to
watch him go. He points out signs to me and even asks questions
about them (“no what?” he says, pointing to a No Parking sign).
My sister bought a bunch of Sunday papers while she was here
and Lex spent Monday with the papers spread all over the living
room floor. He walked around looking at them and pointing out
words. He’s also starting pointing out the page numbers. The
other day he said, “An that’s B5, yeah!” (still very self
congratulatory). I had to ask, “B5? What is B5?” and he pointed
right to the page number. I know I’ve said it before, but it’s
just so cool to watch little brains learn and grow.
A wintery day
Big movies
Lex was dancing to the alphabet song. His
dancing amuses me. He does a lot of dancing these days.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w18oe0zxzhg]
Eve managed to stick her waffle to her head and she was
pretty pleased with herself. I grabbed the camera, but the
waffle fell off before I could get a picture. Here is several
minutes of Eve being silly and me hoping to get a shot of her
with a waffle on her head.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4gv06yjvJg]
How to guarantee no nap…
…put Lex and Eve in their room together.
They sure do have fun, but no one sleeps.
Lovely Saturday
Rosy is in town this weekend, always a
good time. We went to Parrish’s birthday party and had fun
playing in the snow and ate a delicious spread of brunch food.
It was nice. Rosy took some good pictures :) The party was
right during Lex’s nap, so he was silly and exhausted, but he
held up really well! After the party we stuck them in the car
and drove to the Gorge so Rose could take some pictures, but
more so Lex could take a nap :) A successful trip for all. A
successful day for all.
Five kids!
My new motto is “I can do it, yes I can!”
:) Today I had five kids and it went relatively smoothly. I
handled things well anyway. Lex had a bit of a meltdown this
morning when I put our new toddler in his booster seat. Lex
said he didn’t want a snack so I put our new friend in his
chair and Lex came around the corner and lost it. It was rough.
I felt bad for him, but still had to handle four other kids
too. Luckily for me (very luckily!) they were all very sweet
while I dealt with Lex. Tomorrow it’s just us and the baby
again, which I consider a quiet day. I’ll try to do some extra
bonding with Lex. I’ve also been trying to help him assign
words to his feelings and help him understand that it’s ok to
be unhappy about sharing all of his stuff with these new kids,
but we have to come up with different ways to handle those
feelings. Anyway, I’m rambling here but my point is that I DID
IT! :)
Yummy!
Growing up
These two are growing up, for better or for
worse :) We’ve decided that in the past few weeks Lex has
really become a kid. He is speaking in full sentences now,
using extra words like our names, “almost” and lots of
descriptive words. He has also had a physical burst and likes
to jump on one foot, jump off the coffee table, and get into
weird climbing contortions. All great things! On the down side,
the whining is annoying and he has a lot of emotional bursts.
It occurred to me yesterday that the emotional issues may be
age related, but it may also be daycare related. He definitely
doesn’t get the attention he used to and we don’t get out much
:( Our weekly grocery shopping is the highlight of his week.
Eve has decided to join in the emotional party and cries
randomly and for no apparent reason (I blame it on teething,
’cause, well, why not?) She’s also getting a little attitude
and working the manipulative cry. I put her in the high chair
and turn my back and she wails. But when I pull the box of
Cheerios out of the cabinet she’s all smiles. She’s also got
this little “hmff!” with a body nod (hard to explain) action
going on. I think Lex did it for awhile too. Sort of
emphasizing her “gack!” point. “Gack!” is her favorite word and
she uses it for just about everything. That and “gone” which
she uses for food, toys, people, etc. Instead of saying goodbye
to people she just says “gone” and does the matching baby sign.
So funny. Along with her new little attitude though has come a
lot of physical developments too. She can walk around the
kitchen, with just a hand on the cabinet for balance. She can
walk around the house holding on to someone’s finger. And
yesterday she took one tiny step. She was holding a box of
diaper wipes in her hands and she took one step towards me (1/2
step I suppose because only one foot moved) then let go of the
box with one hand and reached out for stabilization. Good first
step though :) She’s getting into reading and pulls books down,
flips through them, says “gack!” as she points to various
pictures, then tosses them aside and reaches for another. She
loves to dance and she’s also very friendly and says hi
whenever people come in. And her and our daycare baby love to
“talk” to each other. All in all they’re growing up pretty good
:)
On that note I should probably go. I
have five kids here tomorrow (my two and three others) and I’m
a little scared. Hopefully it’s not pandemonium! I had some
other thoughts to add to this post, but I can’t remember them
now. Maybe you’ll get a PS later. :)
Mentally motivated
During the 10 minutes I had both kids
napping today I was reading a magazine my mom left behind (no,
not the celebrity gossip rag… I finished that one yesterday!)
The magazine has an article about women entrepreneurs and I
found myself feeling so motivated. Thinking, I could do that!
There must be some skill or talent I have that someone would
pay for. I’m a college educated person, creative at times,
intelligent, etc. Then Lex wakes up, we spend some time
“discussing” the fact that we need to change his diaper so his
diaper rash doesn’t get worse (I also threw in a reminder that
you don’t get diaper rashes if you use the potty ;) ) and then
he needed a few stories and the dishes needed to get done and
the kitchen is still a mess from this morning… and I decided
to blog :) My problem is that I’m chock-full of mental
motivation but have trouble translating that to physical
motivation and actually accomplishing anything. Sigh. It would
be cool if I were an energetic, type-A person though. I can
definitely imagine the things I’d do :)