Learning

Besides the things we have always done nearly every day, I am starting to have the kids help me more around the house and doing more reading aloud to them. I also pulled up Nick's booster seat closer to the table so he can sit like he is truly part of the family.

Xander is good at doing his own chore cards. Today I also asked him to help me pull off dirty pillowcases and put on clean ones, plump the pillows, place them at the head of the bed, clean the insides of windows, and clear more dishes from the table himself. Nick "helped" me dust and sweep. Most of these chores were done in the master bedroom, so these were not personal chores for them, but I want them to get used to all of the work that's done around the house. This is a great time to do it. Xander willingly did everything I asked him to do. As much as he likes his independent play time, he likes to hang out with me. (I know this is short-lived - another good reason to take advantage of it now!) Nick likes to be with me, too, and going around doing chores is more interesting to him than his same old toys in the same old places. He did protest when I swept the laundry room floor one-handed; I think he felt insecure with only one arm around him and my body leaning away.

I read aloud to both of them more often than I usually do and allowed Xander to build with Legos while I read. We hadn't been doing learning activities very often because I scheduled them for after rest time and he kept falling asleep and passing the time that I had available for them. I changed that to just before rest time and we had a great time. I am honestly amazed at what he has learned since the last time I tried certain things with him. He can make careful closed circles around objects. When there was a longer object he wanted to circle, he asked me if he could make an oval instead. We talked about things that change from color to color like ripening fruits and chameleons. He listened intently to a longer picture book called Little Red Riding Hood: A New-Fangled Prairie Tale and followed the story with comprehension. (I stopped and made comments or asked him questions throughout.) He sang with me (which didn't used to be his strong point) and found rectangles around the room. We had a ruler out at one point and he used it to measure things that he was building.

I know he's no dummy, it's just that he's been slower to verbalize everything and reluctant to do writing and workbook activities. Now he does those things well and happily.

We have not had the TV on yet today. He is perfectly content to do chores, play, listen to books, do learning activities, go to the library, and draw lines in a workbook. (This by itself is enough to make it a wonderful day, but another fantastic part of it was that I got more chores done since I had them help me rather than waiting until they napped to start my cleaning work.)

Oh, and we got his first library card today and put it into his first wallet.

He also says that he is going to save up for a kid's computer. By this he means a real computer with Internet, because he wants to "look for Little Einsteins things."

Nick is smiling and "talking" to us. He is so good at imitating. I told him I was sweeping cobwebs and he said, "Cob bledehlaalll." He's beginning to clap on his own. He already learned to stamp his feet to music. I realized the other day that he doesn't touch the top shelf books on his bookcase even though he can reach them. I had spent about ten minutes on telling him no to those books and yes to the ones on the bottom shelf. He looks at me before he tries to touch our DVD player or drop food on the floor. He knows.

A Xander Milestone

Xander got his first allowance on Monday night, fifty cents. He put part of it in his piggy bank and part in his sharing jar. He wanted to put the bigger coins in his piggy bank. Since his allowance came in nickels and dimes, his sharing jar actually got the larger amount of money.

He does not quite understand the whole process yet, but he has bought two items for himself with his own money: a used dragon book and an awesome pirate ship we found at Goodwill for a dollar.

After happily reading/listening to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Xander and I have started a few more chapter books. We finished Sir Pants and Sir Reddy and the dragon chapter book. We got halfway through The Mouse and the Motorcycle but Xander lost interest in that. I started the Boxcar Children's The Pizza Mystery but he doesn't want to go back to it after reading only one chapter.

We went to the Chronicles of Narnia exhibition at the Museum of Science and History last weekend, which Xander loved, and which prompted him to want to watch Prince Caspian again. Last night we read the first chapter of Prince Caspian and he is really excited about it.

I'm not sure if it's because I love those books too that he is so good at listening to them, or because he knows the movies from them, or because they're well written, or because they include talking animals... I think we're going to have to stick to the somewhat supernatural themes for now. Talking animals, dragons, knights and battles, witches and bad guys. I'll have to see if Stuart Little fits the bill or if the farm setting is too nonviolent for him. I'm not saying farms are nonviolent (from the animals' points of view) but nobody goes around wearing swords, charging their enemies, or shouting, "For Narnia!"

More Nick Milestones

Just now I gave Nick his first half-sippy-cup of all whole cow's milk. He is eleven and a half months old and we just finished a canister of formula. Erik and I are both comfortable with going to cow's milk now. Xander was on all cow's milk at around eleven months. His pediatrician at that time approved and he did well with it. Nick's been having milk mixed in with his formula for two months now with no problems.

So that's another one-year milestone down.

He's been focusing a lot on talking. He mimics words and copies signs very well now and has lots of fun with it. Too much fun. They don't necessarily mean anything because he has fun saying or signing them over and over.

Nick has been really clingy today. I keep thinking it's a tooth but I also just found a little sore between his two front teeth, like a canker sore. Hmmm.

New Words

This afternoon, Nick showed me a couple of new words! Of course, when Daddy came home and I wanted to show him, Nick just smiled a big-ol' silent smile instead of blabbing the word like he had been doing.

The words are "ball" and "quack-quack"! Very exciting! I know that watching a Baby Einstein video last week helped him get "ball" down because they had a segment on balls that he watched carefully. So today I rolled balls back and forth with him saying the word and he said it almost every time except when Daddy came home! His version is "bah" of course.

The quack won't be recognizable for a while. It's more my tone and register of voice that he mimics when we see a picture of a duck. It's kind of a "gwah-gwah" but most of the resemblance is just in the imitation of my voice. Need I say it's darling?

Molly's Visit Begins

Molly's here! She came in last night and will be driving to Charleston tomorrow but then she'll be back with us on Tuesday, for another five days. Today she played cars with the boys and learned all about dragons with Xander. After lunch we went to Tree Hill Nature Center which was calming and pretty as usual, but Xander really got into it! Every showcase was "amazing!" and "great!" Of course the goats, tortoise, rooster, hens, possum, and owl were big hits. Also the tadpoles in the pond. Nick was very mellow in his stroller but responded to the hens. He got to hear the real-live, unmusical sound of goats bleating.

Downtown Field Trip

Today pest control came and we had to leave the house for four and a half hours. It turned out to be a great day, although tiring. First Erik and I had to get everything up off the floor that wasn't furniture and vacuum the carpeted rooms. What with packing lunches for all of us on top of the rearranging, this took all morning!

I had to (sadly) wake Nick up after only a half-hour morning nap when the guy came. He was really happy to be up and on the go at first, but tired quickly. We got snacks from the grocery store, dropped off things at Goodwill, and went to the big downtown library for Preschool Storytime. Parents and younger siblings are allowed in this one, so we all went in and Nick loved the place. There were some great toys around the room for someone his age. Xander's friends JT and Izelle were both there. After stories and an activity where everyone put up pictures of different flowers on a display board, they had free play time. Then clean-up, a song, and bye-bye time. Nick had a great time flirting with the adults in the room but drove away some preschoolers when he wanted to "play" cars with them. The bright spot was he got the big colorful carpet and a bin of cars and trucks all to himself. Elvia very nicely offered to bring both Xander and Izelle to the art time after story time while Nick and I refilled our parking meter. Then we had picnic lunch in the courtyard with JT and his mom, Cheri, and two other around-4-year-olds and their moms. It was nice, but a good thing we had all eaten a bit in the car earlier, because I mainly helped Nick move around in the courtyard and didn't eat a thing. Xander and the boys ran around for a while after eating. They were pretty hyper and a little bit loud, but it was genuine little-boy outdoor activity and good for them.

Then we browsed the children's library, Xander and the boys played a game of Memory, Nick fussed a bit and looked around with me, and we went for a walk to kill more time before heading home. We browsed two used book stores and Xander made his first purchase ever with his own money: a short chapter book on dragons for $1.00. Nick was kind of fussy throughout and had had his fill of food and drinks, so we went back to the car and drove home. We got home only five minutes before the allotted four hours post-pest-spray, and everyone was ready for a nap, so I went ahead in with them. Windows were cracked open, Nick went straight to sleep, I fell asleep on the couch, and from the dead silence in Xander's room I assume he's been sleeping, too. (He started rest time with me reading him the first dragon chapter and him going through the book on his own afterward.)

It was a last-minute plan to go to the library (because it was a last-minute scheduling of pest control) but it was so neatly perfect. Xander got to do art time with Izelle and her mom, who's an artist, and later got to run around and yell with JT and the other boys, which is what they're good at doing together.

Molly comes in tonight. Another exciting event. Unfortunately, I won't have a main dish ready for dinner. Forgot to thaw the meat. So hopefully Erik will bring home a rotisserie chicken to go with boiled dill potatoes, green beans, and caramel biscuits.

At the library, we borrowed a video and an art-filled picture book for Nick ("Signing Time: Happy Birthday to You!" and Baby Loves from the Metropolitan Museum of Art), board books for both kids because I know Xander will enjoy them, too (A Little Kitty and Who Are They?), an I Can Read book (Spider-Man Versus The Vulture) for guess who, and a Boxcar Children chapter book The Pizza Mystery in case Xander likes it. I have such fond memories of my second-grade teacher reading the Boxcar Children books to us.

Mother's Day 2010

Wonderful Mother's Day yesterday. Couldn't have been better. Erik got up with the kids and I slept in until - gasp - 11:00! Then Erik prepared a fresh waffle, eggs, bacon, and coffee for me. We played with the kids outside for a while and then it was naptime. Got to lounge and read and take a bath. After naptime, we decided to go to the zoo for the evening! It was a gorgeous, cool (for Florida) day, animals were stirring, and the crowds were leaving as we entered. The kids got to eat dinner at the zoo and Erik picked up take-out for us while I got the kids ready for bed. More lounging and reading! Not much cleaning up! It was wonderful.

I forgot to mention Erik had taken the boys to the store in the morning and brought me a beautiful flower bouquet and a singing card from Toy Story 2.