Thursday: this morning

This morning I heard Isaac wake up.  Surprisingly, he didn't come say hi...I think he went to look at the Christmas tree.  Then he saw Flurry, and decided she had done something worthy of treats.  So he gave her a few of those.  (One daily chore that is actually enforced is feeding Flurry.  Therefore, he also gets to give her treats.  Usually the number is zero, two, or five.  She usually gets treats for not eating his yogurt.)  After that I didn't hear him anymore, but figured he was playing in his room.  Ben's alarm went off, so I got dressed and went to say good morning to him.

I looked in his bedroom: not there.  I looked in the toy room: not there.  I looked at the front door: still locked.  I looked at the basement stairs: the gate was closed and lights off, so it was doubtful he was down there.  I puzzled.  Then I saw it on the couch - a quilt covered lump.  It was Isaac!  This is the second time he has hid well and quietly from me.

He also can read the word Meijer.  He read it on a prescription bottle and then at the actual store.  I haven't tried it in a different font, but was still excited.

Tuesday: 47 months

Isaac turned 47 months yesterday!

(Joshua knows that quilts on the floor mean picture time, so he went from his quilt to Isaac's quilt.)

Attitude: Isaac's been pretty happy and more or less with it lately.  We haven't had a lot of behavior issues this month.  Isaac's been really nice to Joshua these last few days too.  Overall, he's pretty silly and full of energy.

Sleeping: we recently took out Isaac's nap and it seems to be working really well.  He's very ready to go to sleep at bed time (we sometimes put him to bed a tad early even) and he sleeps all night until about 7/7:30.  If he naps he stays awake for hours.  (Case in point - he took a nap at school today and is still awake at 11pm.  I might need to talk to them...)  During quiet time he has a drawer with activities that are just for quiet time....white board markers, assorted craft items (pipe cleaners, yarn, glue stick, trash pieces of Styrofoam, scissors, toothpicks), a few toys that he hasn't played with much, and some sticker books.  I'll have to be proactive about changing things out though.  He has been good about putting the items away at the end of quiet time.

Imagination: Isaac has started being a gate again after a few months of not being a gate.  He is also a puppy dog and also calls me mama dog all the time.  He loves his ball.  He still likes playing Castle and is always animating things.  Sometimes I think I talk more to toys throughout the day than I do to Isaac.

Color: His favorite color is still black, hands down.

Random things: Isaac has started sounding out syllables for words when we don't understand what he's saying.  It doesn't always help.  He was talking about someone at school (which is also a new thing) and I said, "his name is roman?" "No.  Ro-"  "ro"  "ing"  "ing?"  "Yes."  Ok, great.  He has a friend named Rowing.  It turns out the name is Rowen, so I was pretty close.  We talk a lot about what letter starts assorted words.  He can often give me the sound and sometimes correlate that to an actual letter.

Monday: 16 months

Joshua turned 16 months a few days ago.

Talking: Joshua still doesn't have many words, but mama, da, more, ni-ni, and ba (ball) are ones that are commonly used.  There is also a sign for "all done", but he frequently uses it only to put more food in his mouth immediately afterwards.  We've been trying to work on a sign for please, but he is resisting.  Often he will even resist us making the sign with his hand.

Ideas: Joshua has his own ideas of what should happen and isn't afraid to let us know if our ideas are different from his.  Case in point, I left one of the car toys in the car today.  He wanted to bring it in the house and cried for several minutes after finding out that wasn't going to happen.  Now that he is walking better, Joshua has also found more independence.  He is more happy to go into the child care place at the gym if he can freely walk in by himself.

Sleep: not many changes from last month: still sleeping about eleven to twelve hours at night and waking once to nurse.  He naps poorly at daycare and sometimes ok at home.  He is still a light sleeper and wakes up several times at night but will go back to sleep without my having to get out of bed.

Eating: Joshua is nursing two to three times a day.  He (and Isaac) enjoy spinach smoothies, so I've actually been able to get some vegetables into him...and good ones at that.  I need to remember to give him a snack in the late afternoon so that he remains happy until dinner.

People: Joshua is still rather serious around non-family members.  But it is possible to get him to laugh on command a bit more.  Isaac remains the funniest person.

Playing: Joshua likes to be chased.  He plays peek-a-boo while getting his diaper changed.  It's really rather cute.  He covers his eyes, I say, "Where's Joshua?", and then he uncovers his eyes.  He likes balls and going down the slide and sometimes reading.  He likes the Ipad, but doesn't always have a very long attention span for it.

Sunday: church and evening

We had communion today in church, and this time everyone walked to the front to receive it.  I was sitting in the back row and noticed that all most all of the men let their wives and possibly children go ahead of them.  I know that Ben often does it, but I didn't realize how common it actually is.

This evening Joshua was fussy so I went to pick him up; it was a mom day today.  He proceeded to say "ni-ni" to Ben and pointed very clearly to his bedroom.  When we were in his bedroom he pointed to his crib.  Really?  It was a bit surprising, but if he was tired and knew it than I wasn't going to argue.  It was only about an hour early, so still a reasonable time to go to bed.  I'm glad that night-night is one of the few words he knows...it's come in rather handy a few times.

It worked pretty well...we put ornaments on the tree and it was probably easier to do without Joshua.

The mouse got his normal place near the bottom. :)

Saturday: another Thanksgiving meal

Today's Thanksgiving meal was with the other side of Ben's family.  It was nice as always.

Joshua playing with the balls.

Isaac playing with the black (of course) play-doh.

Playing "Where's my water" on the I-pad.  It isn't really a multi-person game, but they were doing really well with it.  On Wednesday one of my "chores" was to get more ducks to unlock the next meta-level so Isaac would have more levels to play. :)

Friday: lego day

Today was Lego day.  It went pretty well...Isaac enjoyed playing with the treasure chests and a spring loaded grabber thingy.  Joshua didn't play with the legos much.  At one point he just went back and forth between Ben and I for kisses (we were happy to oblige) and he worked on his sliding.


Ben is working on a flying boat and I'm building a robot army.  This is what it looked like at lunch.

We also started Christmas decorating this year.  We got some new lights...LED rope lights.  It makes the tree look different, but not bad.  We'll put up ornaments later...baby steps as always in this house.

Thursday: Happy Thanksgiving

First of all, there are so many things to give thanks to God for.  Ironically, I find that Thanksgiving tends to be so busy that I don't think about them much on this day.  But I am very aware of them.

It was also Ben's birthday.  ...I didn't do much for him today.  I didn't even give him his present.  This could either win me bad wife of the year award (because it is in my closet) or shows you how busy the day felt.

After our Thanksgiving meal we started our Lego weekend.

So far Joshua's been doing ok.  We're still watching him closely though.  Oh...he can also go down our slide by himself now!  We did it in nursery this morning and then he did it all by himself tonight.

The end of the first hour.  It is getting messier faster this year, partly because we have four people and partly because Ben dumped one of the buckets out.

 We ended up watching part of a movie for the last half hour before bed.  Isaac didn't manage to go to sleep until 11:15pm last night and has a bad cold.  He was exhausted.  I kept checking to see if he had a fever because he was rather flushed, but his temp was fine.