Mom's Best Day Ever

It's not just Xander. Nick has been doing plenty these days, too. He loooooooves the A Child's Celebration of Folk Music CD I borrowed from the library. I like it because the songs are attractive to children but arranged and sung in a "real song" kind of way rather than a cheerful, infant, children's album way. The artists include Pete Seeger, Taj Mahal, Jerry Garcia, Woody Guthrie, and Michelle Shocked.

Nick also seemed to like the "Carl" book I borrowed.

We've been putting together puzzles and erasing dots I draw with dry-erase markers and drawing lines in certain directions and painting and coloring a face while talking about the different body parts. He's been doing lots of pretend run-around play with his brother. We've done the activities in a Dinosaur Train lapbook. I even helped him try out finger knitting when he got interested in a finger knitting video on Youtube.

He listens to the music Xander studies and looks at the art Xander looks at and hears a lot of the same stories, especially the Spanish picture books and chapters from The Hobbit.

Erik is working from home today. He received a text that cousin Bailey got through her surgery this morning and is recovering nicely.

Because Erik is at home, I got to pick up my hold book at the library and grab some other educational books for the kids without bringing them (the kids) with me. The construction at the library has encountered delays (surprise, surprise) so this week's story times are canceled. I just assumed they would be. Has a construction project ever ended on time?

We had a lovely day so far. We:

• read a chapter of The Hobbit
• finished the story of Leif and the Vikings in This Country of Ours
• had Xander draw a picture of something he remembered from the story
• memorized more of "Summer Afternoon"
• had Xander do two more hole-punching cards
• played and read with Nick off and on when we had extra minutes
• saw Xander begin to draw a "book" of extra Vikings drawings
• read "Happiness" by A.A. Milne
• read the Aesop fable "The Crab and Its Mother" and Xander narrated back to me the gist of the story
• read about the Wigglers in Among the Night People, about the life cycles and habits of mosquitoes (in fictional form)
• did a quick clean-up in which both boys (or should I say kittens, because they were meowing the whole time, even when I said they could sing while working) helped me wipe the kitchen counters, sink, the stove, the dining room table, and Nick's booster seat - they truly did a quality job - and cleaned up Nick's floor so we could use the Mint floor cleaner on it
• put Nick down for nap by singing to him and tucking him in
• read the first half of the chapter about Columbus in This Country of Ours
• had Xander nicely write, "They cast their arrows..." underneath his Viking battle picture

Xander is now off playing, but if his recorder arrives today like it should, I will also teach him a quick first lesson on it (basically, how to play the note "B" and how to tongue several quarter notes of  "B" in a row). I will also make sure he knows how to clean it and where to keep it.

Update: Recorder won't be arriving until Monday or Tuesday, at which time Xander is having his tonsillectonomy (and adenoidectomy). I don't think we'll be practicing recorder for another couple of weeks.