a few days ago: 53 months

Isaac turned 53 months old a few days ago.

I had been thinking about doing a Q&A with him, but my initial questions all got "I don't know"s.  I did get a few answers to the questions I already knew though:
Q: What's your favorite color?
A: gold

Q: What's your favorite animal?
A: dog

Q: What's your favorite food?
A: Donut

He still has a ton of questions.  Although there is a very specific "Ooohhh." when something clicks in his brain.  It's been fun to listen for it.

I'll be honest, not a ton of things stuck out to me this month.  He's getting bigger (literally) which sometimes makes me do a double take.  He is slowly starting to grasp some slightly more obscure concepts, like rich and poor.  (BTW, we're rich because we have a lot of Duplos.  It isn't a bad way of measuring it.)

He slide down a few medium sized slides this month.  After only going down one last summer (and that was because Ben went down with him) I wasn't sure when he was going to do them again.

Here is his nervous face.  He tends to be a happy/silly boy (with bouts of sadness that are over pretty quickly), but whenever he doesn't feel happy he feels "frustrated/nervous."  He still can't pinpoint the cause of such feelings, but at the same time he bounces back pretty quickly.

He loves me "infinity, infinity, infinity, 100, infinity, billion, infinity, infinity..." much, Pluto 100 much, and Ben 11 much.  Ben and I were talking about this last night and wondering if he's playing a game with Ben that doesn't feel like a game.  Isaac definitely has a preference for me, but enjoys being with Ben too.

Isaac does not like going to the gym.  I probably get more complaints about that than anything else.  He does like going to church.  School is somewhere in the middle...I think it would be better except he doesn't like nap time.

Isaac currently is enjoying books by Arthur Geisert.  (This includes black book.)  Two of the three stories have few to no words, but all of them have interesting machines/contraptions in them.  I expect we'll slowly be renting our way through them.  Ben and I find them interesting too...at least the first ten times we read them.  (Books without words are handy though...you can do them quickly or slowly.)  (Haha, that paragraph just brought me down a rabbit hole where I put two books on reserve, found an old Christmas book that I had thought about this year, and a big list of wordless picture books.)

Joshua knows that Isaac's alternate name is Puppy.

Isaac still likes to play with marbles.  I realized that I don't mention that much, but they get put away every Sunday and after the next quiet time they're out again.  Every week.  Even if the marbleworks pieces aren't out, the marbles are.  He has explored marbles a lot.

Thursday: activity fail

Today we had two activities: dust and dress up in toilet paper.  (It originally said toilet paper mummies, but Isaac wasn't excited.)

We started with dusting.  It went fine.  The boys enjoyed using the step stool to get some of the higher spots.  We got some dust out of the house.  Check.

Then on to dress up with toilet paper.  Isaac was still against it.  Well, ok.  I said he could be the photographer and I'd do it with Joshua.  Yeah, Joshua was against it too.  I made myself a little hat and called it a flop.

And I have my first funny Joshua conversation!  We were praying before dinner.  (Usually Joshua repeats the last word of the phrase that we say.)

Ben: Dear God, Thank  you for today.  Thank you for airplanes
Joshua: airplanes.
Ben: Thank you for this food.
Joshua: airplanes.
Ben: and please bless it to our bodies.
Joshua: airplanes.
Ben: In Jesus name, Amen
Joshua: Amen.

Thursday: work, chores, and swimming lessons

Today I worked from home.  (Yesterday too.)  It was wonderful...I sat on the couch with my legs up and the laptop on my lap.  Sure, a larger screen would have been nice, but the comfort made up for it.  I finished all I needed to today in a few hours, so I had plenty of time for ...chores.

I did lots of things though!  Fertilized.  Put ant poison around the outside of the house.  Did some laundry.  Did the budget.  Ordered some shelves.  Made a phone call that I've been putting off.  Took pictures of some quilts.  ...and I didn't even take a nap.  The to-do list is still a mile long though; hopefully I'll be able to knock out more next week.

Then tonight I had swimming lessons with Joshua.  (Oh, I forgot to mention that this morning Joshua declined to eat breakfast.  He was having none of it.  So I brought his breakfast to day care and they helped him.  I probably would have let him go hungry, but then everyone would have been grumpy.)  Today wasn't a great swimming lesson.  Joshua only wanted to play with the cup.  Near the end one thing we did was pour water over his head with the cup, and after that all he wanted to do was pour  (side note: poor and pour are homophones.  I'm not sure I realized that before.) water over my head.  We took turns for the last seven minutes just pouring water over our heads.  It wasn't bad, and Joshua had a great time, but getting water dumped on your head isn't the most fun thing either.

A while ago: 22 months

Joshua turned 22 months a few days ago.

I used my phone instead of the normal camera and he wasn't as interested.  He just wanted to take timer pictures.

Let's see...sleeping is going well.  Eating isn't going so well; no change there.

Daycare: he still doesn't like being dropped off and is so excited to see me when I come to pick him up.  The staff has been saying he's been having really good days...but that tends to mean hard evenings at home.

Talking: he is now mimicking everything you say...or at least the last word of what you say.  There have been a few short sentences every once in a while and the words that he says (and that we can understand) has grown a ton.  He really likes to point out body parts and say them.  "Mouf" is especially cute.

Lotion: he really likes lotion on his toes when getting his diaper changed.

(He rode the scooter and balance bike today.  He had a few tumbles, but he was wearing a helmet so it was ok.  Ben said that he did some good pushes by himself too, but I didn't see those.)

Up: up is probably his favorite word.  He loves to be carried around and tends to cry when you put him down.  I'm trying to have him walk more, but it's hard

Temperament: this month has been a bit hard.  He gets mad and throws things.  He hit me with something in the little toe once and it really hurt.  He goes into time out a lot for throwing.  That being said, he is also quite cuddly and happy.  All in equal amounts right now.

Listening: Joshua might complain about what you tell him to do, but he's pretty good at listening (unless it involves throwing something.  He doesn't listen about that.)  If you tell him to go in time out he will go.  I told him to stay on a sleeping bag and he did.  He might cry the whole time, but he listens.

Animals: Joshua loves animals, especially birds.  We hear gasps of delight all the time and find out there are starlings on the lawn.

Tuesday: geocaching

Today's errands went quickly.  The activity drawn out of the jar yesterday was not what I expected it to do, and therefore I was hoping it could quietly go away today.  (It did.)  We drove past the cemetery and I realized it was a perfect time to try and find our first geocache again.

We found it!  I'm starting to understand the app a bit better, so I found I could give Isaac the phone to lead us.  I also understood the hint better, along with what we were looking for.  It was just a small one, but exciting nonetheless!  Isaac wanted to find another, so we went to the one by the fire station.

This one was cooler.  It was hidden in a stumpy thing and had some stickers for the boys.  They loved it.  I expect we'll start doing many more.  I just spent 15 minutes looking at some of the ones close to us.

Sunday/Monday: family

Nathan and his family came over for a night this weekend.  It was very, very nice.

Evelyn and Isaac played very well together.  They played a bit Sunday night, but then for a long time on the beach this morning.  I expect they would have played even longer if it wasn't time for lunch.

Joshua really liked Jameson.  Jameson got many Duplos from Joshua.

So it was a nice time.

Saturday: door knob

A bit ago Isaac asked how doorknobs work.  I tried to explain it to him, but words aren't that great.  I asked Dad if he happened to have one...it seemed like the type of thing he might have.  And he did.

So now we have a doorknob floating around the house (until it is returned).  We looked at it for a bit and Isaac looked at it bit on his own.  He put it down rather quickly, but has returned to it a few times too.

You'll notice in the picture that Joshua actually has the latch part.  He's enjoying the door knob too.