It’s quiet in my house right now. It’s a
beautiful day and we spent much of it outside. I brought out a
picnic lunch and Lex helped our neighbor weed her garden while
her son Parrish helped Lex eat his lunch :) Then everyone
played in the sandbox and now Eve is sleeping happily and Alan
and Lex are over playing at Parrish’s house. I am enjoying the
quiet. I was going to read the newspaper, but I can’t resist
the computer’s devilish lure.

I’ve been meaning to post for a few
days about Lex’s newfound attention to emotions. It’s an
interesting development. He will frequently check in to find
out how I’m doing. “Hi mommy. Are you ok? Are you happy?” or
sad or angry or tired or whatever. He does his best to guess
the appropriate emotion. Then he asks if you need a hug.
Regardless of how you’re feeling (“Yes Lex, I’m very happy.”)
he’ll end by saying “Do you need a hug?” then a kiss :) He has
become very lovey lately. The other night I was not happy,
tired mostly, and hungry. He wanted me to lay down with him at
bedtime and it quickly became a snuggle fest. He would roll
over and ask if I was happy, I’d say I’m
tired/hungry/cranky/whatever and he’d say “do you want a hug?”
so he’d hug me. And the kiss, then cuddle, and laugh and by the
end he was not asleep but I was MUCH happier. He’s gotten so
empathetic lately. It’s a pretty cool development.

He’s also starting to recognize and verbalize
his own emotions. Most days he wears PJs all day (yup, I’m that
kind of mom), but on Friday I wanted him to get dressed. He
threw a fit and I put him upstairs with the gate closed. He
screamed. Then settled himself down and asked me to come talk
to him and I did and he started crying again about pajamas, so
I left. This went on for about 15 minutes before he finally
settled himself down enough and picked out some clothes. When
we came down he sat on my lap and said “I was angry mommy. I
needed to get the tears out of my eyes. I am all better now.” I
said “Do you need a hug?” and he said “yes!” I was impressed
that he was able to name his feelings and realize that
sometimes you just need to “get the tears out” so you can feel
better again. He’s a very mature boy (for someone still in
diapers!)

Eve has hit her own little mischievous
milestone. She’s a very playful girl and has started learning
ways to get little digs in at her big brother. Her current
favorite is to sit in his chair and eat his food. It always
makes him yell “Eve, that’s MY chair!” She giggles and jumps up
and runs back to her seat. So silly. He made them both a snack
on Friday, put them both on the little table in the living
room, but decided that he wanted to save his for the WW
meeting. Every time he turned around she was in his seat eating
his snack! She ate almost all of both of their snacks! I told
him if he didn’t want her to eat his snack then he needed to
put it out of her reach, but he didn’t so I stayed out of it.
It was their own little sibling game. I suspect we’ll see a lot
more of that in the years to come. :)

Happy
siblings

Kisses
for daddy