James, as we’re driving away from the birthing center (that’s the front door to it you can see from his window). I would like to note that every time I buckle him in, I put the oval shaped thingy even with his armpits and he wiggles it down to his belly as soon as I close the door. I promise I know where that puppy should be! I’m not a negligent parent!
And here we have the sweetheart, Lowell on the neighborhood playscape.
Both photos courtesy Grandma!
I hope today isn’t a loooong day… been up since James came into our room at 4:45 - “I need you to put my underwears back on. I went potty.”
He’s been getting himself out of bed (he sleeps in a loft bed so it means climbing down a ladder) to go potty for about a week now. This was our first middle of the night visit from him, ever. It was kind of disturbing having our bedroom door open at 4:45 AM… Hopefully he won’t need to visit us once he learns to put his underwear back on!
In addition to the new tires and brake pads, I think we should get some seat covers. James loves to put his feet up on the back of the seat, so I threw a towel over it for the time being.
James is the most excited of all of us to have the “New! White! Minivan!” I think he really likes being able to see everything. I KNOW he likes that the sliding door windows roll down. I’m amazed that both boys can climb up into their carseats on their own. This is a good move for our family. The MPV is a great fit.
Anybody wanna buy a 2000 Saturn LS that needs some work?
We’re headed back out to Sweet Berry Farm again this morning, this time with Daddy.
Here are 3 quick pictures of our trip yesterday morning.
Maybe Little Post
It looks like he was going to sneeze (to me) but, really, he was just singing a song.
We primed one big wall of the garage in preparation to add chalkboard paint to the lower 5 feet of it so the boys could draw on the wall in the garage with their sidewalk chalk. It looks so good, I want to finish priming and painting the rest of the garage!
James is a whiz kid with letters and words and spelling and sounding out what he reads, and we owe it all to They Might Be Giants. Seriously. James goes to bed (and every-other-day nap) with the Here Come the ABC’s CD playing and has the entire thing memorized. He’s constantly singing the songs.
But more than the songs, it has piqued his interest in all things LETTER related (we switch between letters and numbers so the same things goes for the Here Come the 123’s CD as well) and we find letters everywhere. We’ve also reinforced his love of letters by signing them. He can now successfully sign all 26 letters with the ASL fingerspelling signs and he’s beginning to be able to read our singing and tell us what word we spelled “Z-O-O… that’s zoo!”
His favorite word used to be “R-E-D spells red!” but now we’re venturing onto his name and whatever other words are in front of him. He goes potty all by himself and his wipes are “F-L-U-S-H-A-B-L-E what’s that spell, Mommy?” On Friday, David said he spelled S-A-U-C-E and David asked him what word that was, James answered “That’s sauce, Daddy.” without any help. We think he is beginning to understand that the words have meanings. One of our games if we’re waiting anywhere for any amount of time is to find some letters and read them forward and backwards, sometimes even signing them.
After breakfast, when we don’t have anywhere to go (which, you know, is everyday) we’ll pull out the pen and paper and practice drawing letters. David has him 4/5ths of the way able to write his name. I’m stunned. I hadn’t even thought to work on writing his name. H is still his favorite letter, even though that’s not in his name.
Oh, and about the potty… he’s capable of doing everything on his own, but he prefers having someone to put his underwear back on him, and most of the time he forgets to flush and wash his hands. I was stunned to realize one day that I hadn’t had to ask him a single time if he needed to “go” — that he had taken himself to the potty on his own several times that day. He prefers “Mommy Daddy’s potty” since there is a window in our bathroom and doesn’t need to turn on the light, even though we have the light switch extensions on his bathroom’s light switch. If we can just get the flush and wash down, I’m perfectly okay with dressing him afterwards. He is growing up so quickly.
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In other news, Lowell started singing tonight. “Roooh, roooh, rooooh, . . . BOAT!” It was the first time I heard him singing a song. When you ask Lowell what color anything is, he answers, “Blue!” His vocabulary is slowing increasing though he doesn’t talk very much (who needs to with a chatty big brother around?) … we have heard some 2-word phrases though, so we’re not worried about his development. His favorite word is “Mine!” I wonder why… he is just too cute!