My Faith and Joy… and Boys!

I just reached another (dubious) milestone in parenting: I purposely miscounted the number of spaces in a kid’s turn at Chutes and Ladders in order to get that silly game to end!  There was no way I was going to let Susie slide all the way down when she was only a few turns from finishing, especially when it was already past bedtime.  I was just grateful the girls didn’t notice and correct my counting! 

I’m kind of late to the Pinterest party, but I’m officially joining the rest of the world in spending way too much time on that site!  In addition to discovering some great recipes, I’ve found some fun kid crafts and activities.  I combined a few ideas to come up with the following “sight word” learning game:

First, I took some plastic Easter eggs and wrote a “sight word” (words that kids memorize to help them learn to read) on one side and a number on the other. 

Then, I have the girls pick an egg color (to narrow down the options), and I ask them to find the colored egg with a specific word or number.  Once they find the egg, I have them say the number and word on the egg, then toss it to me and I toss it back (to practice the hand-eye coordination that isn’t my girls’ strong suit!), and we proceed with the next one.  Then once all the eggs are done, I have them put the eggs back in the carton in number order. 

We had a lot of fun with this activity until the kids decided they wanted to do an early Easter egg hunt…and they hid the eggs so well we’re still finding them a week later!   

Danny isn’t exactly a good sleeper, either in the day or night.  But he’s just so stinkin’ cute (especially when he IS asleep)!

(I know, I know, he shouldn’t be sleeping on his stomach…but all of our kids have preferred that position.  And he can roll himself either way and he has great head control, so I’m not worried.  And I think it’s so cute to see little baby bums sticking up in the air!)

We were driving home at night, so the interior of the car was dark, and I heard Becky say, “Susie, are you there?”

Susie replied, “No.”

***********

After she had said something funny, I told Susie she was cute.  Susie smiled and said, “Thanks, Mom.  I’m always cute with this blonde hair.”

***********

I had mentioned something to Susie about using her brain, and she looked up in sincere bewilderment and gaped, “I have a BRAIN?”

***********

Susie: “Can I have candy before bed?”

Me: “No.”

Susie: “Why not?”

Me: “Because you could get cavities.”

Susie: “But I LOVE the dentist!”

**********

Susie, pretending to be a pirate: “Shiver me mateys!”

**********

Susie: “I really want my tooth to fall out so I can get a present from God.” 

**********

Me: “Susie, can you help Jimmy into his highchair?”

Susie: “According to my research, I can’t help you.”

Kids’ language acquisition never ceases to amaze me.  As of January, Jimmy’s entire vocabulary consisted only of the words “All done” (pronounced “A-dah”), “Daddy, “Bubba,” “oh dear” (oh-dee), “please” (pee), “bowl” (boh), “stuck” (a gutteral “kah”), “blanket” (bee), “hot” (ha), and occasional “mama.”  We had him evaluated by early intervention specialists, who said we didn’t need to worry because although his expressive speech was delayed, his receptive speech (what he understood) was just fine.  Furthermore, he communicated his needs extremely effectively through pointing and gesticulating (and forcibly moving our faces where he wanted us to look). 

Not one week after that evaluation, Jimmy decided he was done being the strong, silent type.  Within a few days, he added “more” (mo), “boo”, “ball” (ba), “yucky” (gacky), “no,” “boat” (bo), “ice” (i).  And since then, his language exploded.  I can’t even count all his words now!  He still uses a few words to get most of his needs met – notably, “no” and “me” and “ice” (now pronounced “eyesh”) are in heavy rotation.  And he still uses a lot of Jimmy-invented sign language, like pointing to his head to indicate he wants his daddy to fly the remote-control helicopter.  Why, you may ask, would he point to his head?  Don’t all toy helicopters take off from little boys’ noggins?

Here’s a video of Jimmy using a few of his words and being his normal busy little self: