July 31, 2013

We had our darling friend Carinna over for dinner last night.  Luke got up a little early from his nap, so he watched me make hummus.  He was kind of eyeballing it so I gave him a little spoonful (funny enough, LEVI will hardly use utensils, but Luke is awesome with a spoon, as far as a baby can be awesome with a spoon).  As per usual, this was his initial reaction (I was NOT expecting him to love it whatsoever):

And then:

...and then he ate at least three more spoonfuls!!  Crack me up. You just never know.

Levi about crawled out of his skin with happiness when Carinna came. He was so excited to show her his bed.  Even Luke, who normally eyes people suspiciously and without expression for quite some time, broke into a coy smile when she came.  And he really hasn't seen her since he was a little-little baby.  Obviously she just has that aura about her. :)

Okay, so this picture isn't terribly convincing, but it made me laugh so hard that I had to post it.  I mean, just look at Luke's face.

Rainy morning this morning, break out the Legos.

Levi has some special toys just for 'project time' so he picked his new truck puzzles today to work on.  I was a little surprised, he really wanted to play with those puzzles, and he really grasped the concept of what to do with them.  It's funny what I think he'll love and be really good at, vs what he really does love and what he's good at.

BTW - Dad - that work bench is incredibly multi-purpose - it makes a project bench, puzzle table, desk, you name it!!!  It's the perfect size for everything!!

Genius product: Do a Dot paints!!  He loved them, and no mess.  Worth the $$.

He loves the play doh.  Funny because if you remember, just a few months ago I made play doh and he was laughably NOT into it.  He doesn't really 'make' anything with it, but loves to tear pieces off and serve me "food" in a bowl.

We read about elephants, and I also found an incredible book called "Empty Pot" by Demi.  I don't normally get terribly geeked about kid books, but was really impressed with this one.  It's an old Chinese story and drew very well on the principles of humility and honesty.  I also loved the fact that the illustrations were of ancient China, so it was a fun way to introduce a little bit of history and culture.  So if you're usually on the lookout for a good kid's book, there's my plug du jour.

Luke LOVES Molly.  Levi is not a huge fan of Molly, and the other day I was watching videos of him at Luke's age, and even THEN he delighted in picking on Molly.  :/  Luke makes a word/sound that sounds *somewhat* like he is trying to say "Molly," and I wouldn't be surprised if that was his first word.  I'm not certain if the affection is mutual, but she is SUCH a good dog, she tolerates a lot of being climbed on, having little fingers gouged in her eyes, and ear-pulling, and never comes close to retaliating.

I tried to catch him mid-climb but only caught the descent.

July 30, 2013

Welp, we put the boys together in their room on Sunday night. We got inspired and excited and it was the thing to do.  It was liberating to get up to go to the loo and actually walk on two feet past where Luke has slept for 10+ months.

But.  Luke wakes up at 4:30. And he's loud.  Up in 'his' spot, he can shout it out until 5 (then I feed him and put him back to bed, and he sleeps till about 7ish).  But I just can't do that to Levi right now, make him listen to Luke in stereo for 30-45min.  Levi is a trooper, and he nearly *NEVER* complains, even about a loud little brother waking him up.  But it's just not a good time.  We were keeping Levi up later so that Luke could get to sleep before Levi, and then Luke's waking up Levi at a terrible hour of the morning....so it's just not a good time. I need to get Luke over the hump and at least sleeping until 5 or 5:30. I don't mind getting up at 5. So, *sigh,* back to the army crawl we go.  It's just for a short season, right?  This morning I put Luke back upstairs after feeding him, and Levi ended up sleeping an extra hour beyond when he normally gets up. It's like he was so relieved to just be able to sleep straight through the rest of the morning.

 We love how Luke just loves to play. He's very independent and takes off after his favorite toys.

 

This week is the letter "e" and a food theme.  I'm trying something new after breakfast to hopefully quell some of the hyperventilating over sharing toys: putting out random things for the boys to fiddle around with.  Yesterday I put out plastic easter eggs in a bowl with a ladle, an egg carton with little pom poms and a teaspoon and tongs to transfer them, and a pile of kitchen objects.  Levi LOVED pretending to serve hot dogs at 8th St. Grille.  It was a huge success. Both boys loved playing with something new.

I set them up to finger paint some letter E worksheets, even Luke. Yes, without a smock. I live on the edge.

Levi's foam letter elephant that we glued together.

True story: Levi LOVES to run.  Matt runs most mornings, so Levi has picked up on that and talks about going on a two mile run every day.  Any chance we get, he runs around the block. I push Luke in the stroller and follow him.  He sets a pretty good pace!

This morning we played with play-doe and strung beads on pipe cleaners.  He memorized Proverbs 20:11 ("Even a child is known by his deeds").  We checked out a bunch of books from the library and learned about emperor penguins today.

Yes, you are seeing this correctly.  Luke LOVES the "jeep."  He sits on it and holds the handlebars and waits for me to come and push the button so it'll go.  He holds on perfectly while I steer him around the yard.  It is THE funniest thing to behold.  He skipped the whole baby stage of life and is running pell-mell into being a little boy.

He actually prefers to stand while he drives, LOL.

July 24, 2013

Our Glory Baby would have been three today.  Wow.  How the time has flown.

We met with friends at the park today - one of my friends moved away a few years ago when I was pregnant with Levi, and she was in town today with her baby.  In the past three years we all went from no kids, several miscarriages between the handful of us, to a fairly nice pile of babies/kids (eight! and one on the way!) all around.  

Luke and Elliot (oh my word Erinn, I can't ever remember if it's one 't' or two, sorry).  Luke's got a signature scrunchy-nose look.

 

Levi played with his buddy Jack like it was his job (well, technically I suppose it IS his job), and when we got home he bolted from the car to his bed and pretty much swan-dove into it.  Luke was pretty close behind.

This morning Levi was watching our resident bunny in the back yard.  Luke was a little frustrated that he couldn't see out the window. I checked on them again and Luke had solved his problem.

I got Levi hooked on Bob the Builder - I'm trying to steer him away from Thomas the Tank Engine from time to time because honestly, those engines are crabby, rude, and full of themselves!  So he watched Bob for a bit while I packed our picnic.  Then we sat down and worked on a 'help the loader find the Legos' maze (he wanted to watch me do it and I had him direct me where to go).  I did a quick little lesson on lines while we did our maze.  Then he wanted to cut with scissors a little bit (he does a two-handed technique, oh well).  Finally we played a game with his bath letters, blocks, and dump trucks where the 'boss' was giving orders for the building site for certain colors, shapes, and letters.  He LOVED playing it and got really into it. :)

Playing with our maze

Dumping letters on our building site

 

July 23, 2013

We were supposed to go to Mary's today so the two of us could work on our Bible study together, but our sitter fell through.  We've had that happen before, and at those times we've watched our video while they boys played, but it was more like watch for one minute, pause and break up an argument....watch for another minute, pause and break up an argument...watch for one minute, pause and figure out who is harassing the other......you get the point.  Not terribly productive.  We decided not to try it again today, neither boy was in the mood for it.  

Thankfully, Nana was already on her way (Luke stays here with her on Tuesdays while we go to Mary's, that way he takes a nice nap in his own bed, and he and Nana get some face time together), so I was able to get out to the library, AND I went out for coffee and to catch up on my Bible study.  I feel so, so spoiled.  Mary Poppins lives ten minutes away.  I can't thank her enough!!

No one has ever shouted from the rooftops, "I LOVE LIVING WITH A TODDLER!!!!"  Have they????  Because we are in a really difficult season right now.  Babies, while they rob you of sleep, are really fairly easy, especially when they are immobile.  Bouncy seats and swings by and large occupy them nicely.  Luke is now in one of our favorite stages (10+ months), buuuuutttttt......the things that make us cheer him on are the very things that Levi is trying to do to get the same attention now.  And what makes you cheer and giggle with a baby (blowing raspberries, happy shrieks and squeals, etc) don't translate into very cute toddler behavior.  So we've never up to this point dealt with any regression behavior in Levi since Luke was born.  But now we're getting it in spades.  It has not been easy to get across to Levi that Luke can do certain things that Levi's not allowed to do, because he's too little to know better, or he doesn't have words so that's his only way to communicate.  In addition to the fact that Luke wants to play with Levi's toys, and this creates pandemonium.  I spend most of my morning spinning around Levi's meltdowns over Luke even looking at whatever toy Levi is playing with.  I can't describe it adequately, but it really burns your fuse fast.  In some ways, I don't blame Levi for being frustrated, but at the same time it's like, seriously, get a grip kiddo.  I feel guilty because I'm spending so much time dealing with Levi's behavior or teaching him a solution to whatever perceived tragedy is at hand, in addition to just regular house/food/life maintenance, I don't have much time left to just be with Luke. He gets hefted on my hip and carried around where I'm going if he starts to fuss, he gets played with or knocked around by Levi (which, thankfully, makes him laugh), or he just takes off and plays on his own.  I  know this is only a season, and everyone goes through it.  Sometimes I forget that Levi is only two, because the way he speaks is often much more mature than most two year olds.  But he IS only two, and his emotional maturity is like any other two year old.  Luke is entering toddler season too.  He is much more assertive and loud than Levi ever was.  Suffice to say, I think we are entering an intensely busy and mentally/emotionally exhausting season pretty soon!!

Anyway, enough about that.  I'm not trying to use this as a forum to complain. More just to say, hey, if your children are making you tear your hair out, mine are too, we are all in this together!!

Levi wanted to put his leaf stickers on an L page today. :)

Guess who figured out the open-the-drawer-throw-clothes-on-the-floor trick?

 

July 22, 2013

If you ever need to hire someone to stealthily rob a house in the middle of the night, I'm your girl.  Luke wakes up to coo for about a half hour once each night, and invariably it's right when I wake up with an exploding bladder.  Masterfully, I can army crawl past his crib and down the stairs, and I have memorized exactly where all of the squeaky spots are.  

It was a banner weekend - this almost never happens on ANY Saturday: I was not working. I was not on call. Matt was not working. We were not going anywhere.  The dog did not have to go to the vet (we take her every few weeks to take care of something that would embarrass her for me to explain).  We had no plans.  No plans had us. I was on call on Friday evening and was not called in.  THESE THINGS NEVER HAPPEN ON SATURDAYS FOR US.

Matt spent the morning playing with Levi, who was in heaven.

Apparently this is what Luke thinks about being hot.  Clearly he inherited my turn-bright-red-when-hot gene.

 We even made last minute dinner plans for Saturday night (THANK YOU NANA!!!!) and celebrated Matt's (46th!!!!!!!) birthday at City Vu Bistro downtown.

Yesterday morning before church Levi was stacking blocks, when out of the blue he said, "I'm building the Tower of Heaven."  I asked if he meant the Tower of Babel, and reminded him of that story, how the people were so proud of themselves that they tried to build a tower reaching to heaven to show how great they were, but God destroyed it and scattered them and confused their language so they wouldn't become so prideful again.  Then he socked me with, "How DO you get to heaven?" (or how do you get to God, something like that).  I explained that the Bible tells us that Jesus came from heaven to earth to take all of the consequences for all of the bad things we've ever done, and if we believe that and believe that he died and rose from the dead, we can go to heaven.  I know that's a whole ball of concepts that he will not understand for quite some time, but I also know that our job is to sow the seeds, and the Lord will pursue his heart and turn them into something that makes sense.  We talk a lot while we discipline about how we can't be good people on our own, that's why even Mama and Papa need a Savior.  Anyway, after that we were building a house of blocks together and I told him that Jesus tells us that he has a mansion and special room in it just for us...maybe Levi's room is decorated with trucks. ;)  Levi asked, "What does Jesus' room look like?"  I told him Jesus might not have a room; He never needs to sleep.  But He sits on a throne and is bigger and more beautiful than anything we've ever, ever seen, and He loves Levi because He made him, and He even knows how many hairs are on his head.

We moved on after that conversation, but I wanted to write it down and save those very first questions. He's asked a couple more questions about God in the past day or so.  His memory verse ends with "...that they may glorify your father in heaven."  Levi insists that it's "your PAPA in heaven."  He calls Matt 'papa' (something he came up with when he was first talking, we always referred to Matt as 'daddy' but Levi kept calling him 'papa').  I just find that intriguing.

Anyway, I'll keep focusing on the letter L this week since we only did a couple days last week.  If I tell him it's project time, he becomes obtuse and says he doesn't want to do it and it's not fun.  Okay.  I had set out his bin with an art project, the level from Matt's tool box, some books, and the Android tablet (planned on looking at pictures of lobsters, llamas, and lemurs).  He wanted to read the books.  So we read the story about his memory verse, the Little Blue Truck, Let's Count, and The Tawny Scrawny Lion.  He didn't want to glue the pictures of things that start with L on the L sheet, but he did want to LOOK at the pictures, so we looked at them while he named them.  He didn't want to do anything else, so we played with Legos and loaders. ;)  And then we log-rolled each other around the living room, which he thought was hysterical.

Luke woke up and joined us.  Clearly it took a few minutes to wake up.

 

......and then we went to the park. :)

 

July 19, 2013

Levi was not terribly interested in project time today; he wanted to watch a video.  So I let him watch one episode of Mighty Machines while I caught up on some house work.  He gets video time every day, which is my opportunity to knock things off my list.  It's what works.  Afterward I had his project stuff out just in case he was interested.  He said no.  So we read the books I had picked out for the letter L (Little Critter, and a Lightning McQueen story called "Lights Out").  I asked him again if he wanted to do a project. No.  I left the room for half a second, and came back to see him poking through the project stuff.  I had pre-cut some craft foam to make the letter L look like a lion.  I asked if he wanted to see what it would look like if it were put together. No.  I did it anyway. He giggled.  He loves to watch me do things. So I glued the lion together.  He laughed some more and wanted his picture taken with it.  I asked if he wanted to do some cutting and taping. No.  Next thing I know he's playing with the scissors. So I held the paper and he hacked at it, then wanted to put a couple pieces of tape on it (it was his memory verse, you cut it into a strip and tape it together to make one long sentence).  So hey, he got some experience with cutting and taping, we talked about the letter L, he counted some things in his books (of his own accord), and then I started reciting the first few words of his verse, and he rolled out with the rest of it nearly word for word!!!!  Blew me away!!  Well there you go.  Some things do stick in their heads.  Then he wanted to paint, which he never asks to do, so I set him up with some paints for a few minutes.

With his letter "L" craft

Painting :)

And of course playing trains afterward.  We bought the dog insert a while back.

New afternoon favorite: being sprayed with the hose. I have one of those wands with several different settings, so he gets blasted with a variety of sprays.

Dressed and ready to head outside after nap.

Luke!!! Oh, how this baby loves the water.  I am DRENCHED after every bath time. He LOVES to splash.

What. The. Heck.  The little baby is mowing the lawn now.  We think he's going to skip walking and go straight to running.  He motored up the stairs the other day when I wasn't looking. I thought he was giggling in Levi's room, and then realized he was giggling in OUR room.

Crazy garden update: watermelons!!!  Several little babies and two of these big guys sitting on the trellis!

A fuzzy little baby. Isn't he cute?

July 18, 2013

Well, we started dabbling in homeschooling activities this week.  I'm still trying to wrap my mind around putting together a preschool "curriculum" (for lack of a better word) and figuring out what will interest Levi, challenge him but not push him, fit it into our routine and get him in the groove.  He's never been a kid who is much interested in doing art projects or coloring activities or anything like that.  But I bought some glue and scissors and a few odds and ends for activities, and when I brought them home Levi went bananas begging me to use them or show him how to use them.  The next day I went to Hobby Lobby and bought a few more things, and both of the boys were excited to play with it all when I got home.

I'm not really planning on starting an official routine until this fall, but since he's shown some interest I thought I'd throw a few things at him this week and see what he is interested in doing.  This morning for "special project time" (we started with "special book time" at the beginning of the week - mostly a very focused reading time where I was more intentional than usual about having him count, name colors, focus on a specific letter, etc) I gave him a scripture printable from my favorite site with some crayons and craft supplies. I plan to focus first on teaching him the letters of his name, so for the next couple of weeks (while I ease into this) we'll work on the letter L.  I read the verse aloud, and then he colored it (as you can see, he's not much into coloring.  He uses like two swipes of a crayon and says he's done), and glued the googly eyes and sequins on (he's very into googly eyes) - I gave him a q-tip and a little pool of glue and showed him how to dab a little glue onto his sheet.  Then we sat and read the corresponding story in his new scripture memory book, talked briefly about what it looks like to let your light shine.............and that was that.  Total time spent on said activity: eight minutes.  Hey man, he's still a few months away from turning three.  I'm surprised he sat down and spent any time at all. It was a start.

He was VERY excited about his new desk.  There is an area in our house that I look forward to making our school space, but a diaper changing table sitting there is cramping our style.  So for now it'll be a lap desk and a shower caddy.

GREAT verse book.  Each letter has a corresponding verse and a story to apply it.

His finished project. LOL

Fun with all the cool new stuff I bought the other day. :)

Found a little baggie of wooden blocks and pegs that can link together at Hobby Lobby for about $2 or $3.  Much cheaper than any Melissa and Doug toy. :)  Levi dove in and started constructing.  

When Luke dumps his morning nap (I figure between Christmas and Easter sometime) I'll incorporate him into what we're doing too with some Montessori-style sensory activities.  I'm not super into Montessori, but I want to include him with some intentional playtime that does not include his regular toys.  I have odds and ends that will give him some fun playtime with sorting, pouring, shaking, etc.  If he's not interested in it, enh.  No biggie.  But at least he'll get used to the swing of things and be exposed to some fun stuff alongside Levi.

Okay, that was a lot more writing than I normally do.  I want to be intentional about saying that home schooling is something Matt and I started talking about well before we had kids.  At first I was very resistant to the thought, but over the past few years the Lord has grown in me a desire and passion to at least try.  It's something we will be constantly evaluating if it's a good fit for both boys.  One may thrive in a home school setting, and the other may prefer and need to be in a traditional classroom setting.  Or both may.  Who knows.  This is where the Lord is leading our family for this season, and in no way do we believe that it is THE way.  We are SO fortunate to be surrounded by incredible public and charter schools, and several private Christian schools.  Home schooling fits our goals as a family, and is something that we have the time and resources to at least attempt. 

**I can't recommend highly enough the site 1plus1plus1equals1.net.  A friend introduced me to it and I've been combing through it for a number of months now.  It is an INCREDIBLE resource and the lady who writes the blog blows my mind away, and therefore it's very overwhelming too.  It's like being in a fascinating maze, where every door you open leads to several more equally fascinating doors.  So it's a lot to bite off and chew, but I kept visiting it on and off until I could start to figure out what I wanted to take away from it.  Anyway, even if you don't plan to home school but you're one of those moms who likes to do projects and super-educational things with their kids (oddly, I'm not), it has tons of great ideas and free resources that I'm sure your child's future kindergarten teacher would thank you for at least exposing them to. :)