So Says The Bug

A couple of days ago, I was putting Weston in the car and Luke was climbing into his own seat.
Luke: When you come around to buckle me, are you going to say, "Hey, how did you get in here so fast?"
Me: I might. Do you like it when I say that?
Luke: I do. I laugh about it. I laugh AND giggle about it. I even cackle about it sometimes.

Many of his friends have younger siblings, so he seems to be under the impression that EVERYONE needs a baby.
Luke: OtherBaby doesn't have a baby yet. Uh-oh! That must mean he forgot to go to the midwife's office. He needs to go to the midwife to get a baby. I think maybe he'll go this Saturday and get a baby.

Luke seems to have outgrown his afternoon nap (Woe is me! Woooeeeee!) Of course, that means that if we go anywhere in the evening, he promptly falls asleep in the car. One evening, McMoose hung out with Weston while I took Luke to the library and as usual, he fell asleep in the car, so I was carrying him into the building and he had his head resting on my shoulder with his eyes closed.
Me, as I jostled him around a little: Luka-Bear. Hey, Luka. It will be awfully hard to pick out books if you're still asleep.
Luke, with his eyes still closed and head still down: It will be awfully hard to sleep if you keep talking in a loud voice.

His monologues are getting longer and more random of late. The other day, as he was playing, he was talking to himself and this is what I overheard: "Animals are animals. Animals live outside, I think. Do persons live outside? Are persons animals? Yes. Persons ARE animals, I think. But not outside animals because persons live in houses with upstairs and downstairs and garages and back yards. If a troll cries, you can say, 'It's okay, Troll, let's make a compromise and we'll build you a house with a two-car garage and you can give us back our pasture and we'll be best friends.' What's a troll? Like a horse or something?"

Seven!

Didn't I just write the six month post? And here already, Weston is seven months old!

This past month has seen great advances in mobility. He crawls everywhere now and can get across the house pretty quickly. Thus ends the blissful period when I could put him down and trust that he'd stay in relatively the same spot. He goes after computer cords, cats, carpet fuzz, and his brother's toys. Especially his brother's toys. This, of course, is leading to some friction, but Luke is starting to learn that if he wants to be left alone, he either needs to move his toys up where Weston can't reach them or distract Weston with something else. Yesterday, we were outside and I put him down so he could explore the grass and the driveway and when I picked him back up, I realized that he had his first ever rough spots on his feet from being on the driveway--the first, bittersweet sign of all the growing up he's going to be doing soon.

He has pulled up and gotten himself on his feet a couple of times, too, but he gets too ambitious, lets go, and topples over. In fact, toppling over has been a repeated theme around here. His forehead seems to always have a red spot because he bumps into EVERYTHING! Door frame? Check. Bed post? Check. Washing machine? Check. And I cringe to admit this, but earlier this week, he crawled off the bed. Ack! He cried for a minute, tops, and then was fine, but it scared me to death and as a result, a new, cockamamie sleeping plan has been hatched. In addition to our lovely, comfy, king-sized bed AND Weston's crib, there is now a futon mattress on the floor of our room so as to maximize the sleeping options available to us--as you can imagine, our room is getting pretty crowded! But in the end, the fact remains that I have no desire to fight sleep battles. Nope. He'll figure it out eventually and until then, we'll snuggle up on a futon on the floor.

And speaking of sleep, we've reached some major sleep milestones: (1) being able to fall asleep without being nursed or rocked; and (2) being able to STAY asleep without being held. Ok, so I know that many babies reach these milestones earlier than almost-seven-months, but since I had no interest in fighting the aforementioned sleep battles, I decided to go with the flow instead. (It helps that most of the time, there are few things I'd rather do than hold a sleeping baby. Very, very few.) And the flow has led us to a place where I can lie down with him and sing to him and he'll fall asleep. And to a place where I can then pick him up and put him in his crib and leave the room and DO OTHER THINGS. And while I'm off doing these other things, my arms get just the slightest bit twingy for the feel of a sweet-smelling, sleeping baby.

The other fun thing this month has been watching this baby eat. He has yet to meet a food that he doesn't like. (That being said, earlier this afternoon, he was exploring the front yard and tried tasting a sweet gum ball...apparently, that didn't go as well as he had hoped and the sweet gum ball was quickly tossed away in disgust.) Broccoli continues to be his favorite, but really, he's not particular: if it's even remotely food-like, he'll be happy to eat it. He seems to have a rather odd affinity for asparagus. And beets. There's a mango sitting in our fruit bowl, waiting to be discovered by baby hands.

He is a funny and determined little guy. He has a mind of his own and is quite happy to let you know about it if you don't get with his plan. He shows his love by grabbing onto your face with both hands and biting/sucking on your chin and ckeeks. He has started to recognize my feet, so every time I come into the room, he crawls right to me and headbutts my legs until I pick him up. He frequently likes to hang his head upside down to look at things--apparently, the world looks much more interesting from that angle! All I know is that our lives are certainly more interesting, now that this little one is a part of them.

Water Play

Luke started swim classes this month. I figured it would be fun for him to get to swim in the middle of the winter. In retrospect, I should've just bought us a family pool pass, but still, I figured I should document it.

Anxiously awaiting the start of the class:
And climbing into the pool:
And holding onto McMoose:

And holding onto the intructor:
See? Should've just gotten a family pool pass. Ah, well...live and learn.

The other day, I thought it would be fun to float paper boats in the bathtub. It WAS fun...for about 30 seconds, until it turned to papier-mache. So then, we got out the foam blocks instead. First, Luke pretended that they were green beans, which he "cooked really, really well, so that they wouldn't be too crunchy for me to eat." Soon, they became a tree house:
Of course, every good tree house needs a "ladder"
And a menacing hippopotamus:
Meanwhile, Weston was having some water play of his own.
So focused!
Is it possible for a six-month-old to look mischievous?

January

The signature Weston look:

Luke, modeling a present from my mom
Luke has been giving us this look a lot lately. He says, "Mama, I'm 'cowling at you!" (For those of you who don't speak toddler, that's "scowling.")
Luckily, he follows it up with this look. "Mama, I'm 'miling at you!" (Smiling)
(Baby) Boy and Dog--this was back when the Dog actually allowed Weston to be this close to him, by which I mean that it was back before Weston showed an active interest in pulling the Dog's fur.
This child has a deep and abiding love of broccoli. In fact, the other night, he was eating his broccoli with such obvious enjoyment that even Luke asked for a second helping of the stuff.
He enjoys the occasional bit of banana, as well.
And he is very adept at guarding McMoose's gatorade and keeping it safe from intruders and predators alike.
Although he has trying out solid foods for a couple of months, this was his first experience with being spoon-fed a puree:
Ironic, isn't it, that the same kid who will happily chew on a piece of chicken has no idea how to handle applesauce?
Buddha-Bu strikes again!
I sewed him this cap and he's pretty convinced that the only reason those strings (ie-chinstraps) exist is so that he can chew on them.
He has been sticking his tongue out a whole lot lately.

Any guesses where he might have learned that?

The Lost Chronicles of Christmas, 2011

I know I already posted pictures from December, but as I was transferring more pictures from my camera, I realized that I never posted the few we took on Christmas morning. As usual, we had forgotten to charge up the camera, so we only have a handful, but I guess that just makes them all the more precious.

Here are the stockings I made for us...but where's Luke's?

Ah. Of course.

Weston wasn't quite sure what all the fuss was about.

Oh! A ball!

And another one...
Mmm, and some delicious keys, as well.
And of course, a playmat, which was useful for all of 5 minutes...
...because he then mastered sitting up and playing with toys, which was so much more exciting.
Luckily, big brother was happy to take over with the playmat.
And lest you think poor big brother didn't get any toys of his own, here he is demonstrating his magnetic fishing game.
(He also got a whole lot of other stuff, but of course, the battery died at this point.)

Do As I Do

Tuesday was not a very fun day for Luke. I'm taking a class and it's a kid-friendly class, in that the kids can come with me, but it's a long drive, followed by 3 hours of me being focused on the class material, followed by another long drive. On the one hand, there were other kids there for Luke to play with, so that was nice for him, but on the other hand, one of the older kids kept taking his toys and that annoyed him to no end.

So on Wednesday, I thought it would be nice to have a very Luke-focused day. And what do we do on Luke-focused days? Why, go to the park, of course! I figured he could run and climb and burn off energy, but of course, he had other plans: he built castles in the sand box (a SITTING DOWN activity!) and then ate his weight in cherries (another SITTING DOWN activity!) And because he didn't get the large motor activity he needed, he was whiny and grouchy and just plain contrary. After trying to be patient with him all day, there came a point when Weston was crying to be fed and I was trying to hurry Luke up in the bathroom so I could go take care of his brother and Luke was ranting about some random thing and I said, in a less-than-kind voice, "Luke! Stop it!"

That doesn't seem so bad, does it? I mean, telling a kid who is in the middle of a tantrum to stop? It's a perfectly normal (if completely ineffectual) response, right? For goodness sakes, I didn't even really raise my voice at him--it was just an expression of my frustration. Totally justified. Except that then, about an hour later, when Weston made some little baby growly noise, Luke marched over to him, looked very sternly at him, and in the very same, less-than-kind voice I had used earlier, said, "Weston! Stop it!"

And somehow, when that face and that voice and those words came from my sweet child and were aimed at my other sweet child, they sounded so. much. worse. So I said, "Luke, let's use a kind voice when talking to Weston. It hurts his feelings if you talk to him in a mean voice."

And do you know what that child of mine said? "Mama...do you remember this morning, in the bathroom? You said, 'Luke! Stop it!' That was not a nice voice."

Ah, yes. I remember. It's humbling apologizing to a two-year-old, admitting you were wrong, explaining that even though you were frustrated, you had no right to treat him with disrespect. Part of me rebels against it because I feel that as his parent, I have the authority, maybe even the duty, to talk to him that way. After all, he has to learn, doesn't he? The problem is that I thought I was teaching him to quit whining at me and instead, I taught him to yell and be impatient with someone smaller than him, someone whom he had, in the past, treated only with kindness.

Every day, these children teach me something new. But oh, what hard lessons these are to learn.

A Love of Learning

I was recently talking to an acquaintance who suggested that perhaps it's time for Luke to attend pre-school so that he can "learn things." When I worked in the daycare, part of my job was to come up with weekly lesson plans and progress reports, in which I documented our activities and what the children were learning as a result of those activities. They generally looked something like this:

• Activity: read book about family. Learning objective: communication, pre-reading skills, focused listening, reflect about family, draw parallels between story and real life.
• Activity: Paint with the color red. Learning objective: Identify the color red, sensory input from paint, small motor skills, hand-eye coordination, self-care skills resulting from cleaning up after painting.
• Activity: playground time. Learning objective: Large motor skills, interpersonal skills (sharing equipment, taking turns), nature study (discuss weather.)
  

...you get the idea.

If I had made up a similar plan for today, it would have looked like this:

• Activity: Choosing breakfast. Learning objectives: negotiation skills (the oatmeal vs. cookie debate,) nutrition (discussion about healthy eating, discussion of how the digestive system works,) drawing comparisons between human digestion and a vehicle's consumption of fuel, discussion of how fuel is transported to gas stations, basic consumer education (discussion of why we pay for gas and how debit cards are used.)
• Activity: Reading a book about a sea serpent. Learning objectives: vocabulary (sea serpent, island,) animal study (discussion of real snakes, both ones that live in water and on land,) more animal study (discussion of how the sea serpent in the book had a mane, much like a lion or a horse,) critical thinking (are island-sized sea serpents real or pretend?)
• Activity: Reading a Curious George book. Learning objectives: vocabulary (curious,) exploration of personal characteristics (can one be curious AND a boy at the same time? Can one be a Dada and a boy? A baby Weston and a boy? A monkey and a boy?) Pronouns (what's the difference between he and she?)
• Activity: Eating a snack and playing quietly while Weston naps. Learning objectives: interpersonal skills (showing consideration for his brother,) self-care (cleaning up after snack,) learning how to wait patiently.
  
• Activity: Doing a jigsaw puzzle. Learning objectives: small motor skills, spatial reasoning, animal study (discussion of reptiles, special focus on chameleons,) food chain (discussion of what snakes and crocodiles eat.)
• Activity: Putting a CD in the CD player. Learning objectives: small motor skills, discussion of how electricity works, sequences (how to open the player, put in a CD, turn it on, wait while it loads, and push play,) shapes (triangle, square,) pre-reading skills (understanding that symbols have meaning attached to them...in this case, triangle = play, two triangles = fast forward, square = stop.)

...And this was all before 11 am. There have been times, especially recently, that I've worried that by staying home with the kids, we're missing out on x, y, or z, but you know what I don't really worry about? Whether Luke is learning things.