It’s 10:15 pm. Bran is still running wildly around the house, even though we put him to bed at 8pm. This has been the norm ever since last Friday when Bran decided to go on a sleepstrike at bedtime. Needless to say, all the work I plan to get done when the boys are in bed…*sigh*.
A few weeks ago Drew would say “Ahm” (his word for Amen) at the end of our prayers before dinner. He doesn’t do it anymore, but now he and Brandon hold hands. We never encouraged this, but Mike and I hold hands, so I guess they decided they should too! This led to a bright idea…I was looking for something to do with them the other day, so since they’ve been holding hands I decided to see if they would play “Ring Around the Rosy…” And they did it great! We all held hands and at the end fell to the floor. Drew kept asking to play more and more. After awhile I had them play by themselves while I sang the song for them. They kept it up and were having lots of fun! It’s always a good day when I find something new to do that doesn’t lead to fighting over something! 
The boys have been learning the game “duck duck goose.” Only their version goes something like this…Drew walks around tapping (read: hitting) everyone on the head saying duck, duck, duck… In the mean time, Bran is tapping his own head saying duck, duck, duck. And then Drew yells Duck! and runs away, Brandon follows after and we have to chase them both. When it’s our turn, when we get to goose, instead of chasing us, they both run away so we can chase them again!
It’s apparent, though, that I spend too much time on my knees, playing, and mostly cleaning up, because our rousing games of “Ring around the Rosy” ripped the knee right out of my jeans. I’m terribly annoyed because I only have two pair of jeans and I spent extra money on these ones because I was hoping they would last longer. 
My friend Theresa was writing about her girls learning to read and asking lots of questions about how you pronounce words and what they mean. We’ve recently hit the stage of “what’s this?” I actually don’t mind it and enjoy helping them learn. (It’s a whole lot better than yelling at them for getting into trouble, again). But I’ve discovered that my vocabulary has dwindled over the past two years and I forget what some of the words are for the things they are asking. And it’s stupid things like a traffic light verses a street light, or what’s that thing that water comes out of in the bath tub, oh yeah, a faucet. When was the last time I had to use the word faucet! The worst thing is trying to remember what I called that thing earlier in the day so I say the same thing again!
Drew says “bless you” when he sneezes!
Bran has started saying “mine” when he’s playing with his toys.
I’ve been starting to introduce a few things back into the living room at their height. The most recent was a vase of flowers. The first time they did great. The second time they seemed to be doing good so I went on with my vacuuming. When I turned around I saw them splashing in water on the end table. The table was covered in water as was the floor. The vase, which was completely empty of water, and the flowers were exactly where I had left them…I really wish I could have seen what had happened and the looks on their faces as they tried to put everything back.
Yesterday, Bran tackled Drew and stole a pretzel out of his mouth.
We took the boys to the zoo yesterday and they really enjoyed it. We took the stroller, but they walked most of it. They were so excited to finally see a real elephant (their favorite animal). We also got a good close up of a tiger which was both awesome and frightening even to Mike and I (the fear was mostly caused by the fact that the tiger liked to swipe the glass with his paws!). They even hooted with the owls. The funniest part of the day was the little indoor petting zoo they had set up (it is still cold here). They had rabbits, a ferret, a rat, some chickens, a tiny armadillo that was super cool and super fast, and some baby chickens in a cage. They boys squeeled with delight chasing the armadillo and Drew thought it was really fun to put his fingers in the chick cage and get a little peck from them!
The boys have some new favorite books. The first is a Boynton board book, called “Doggies”. Mike has been reading it to them in their room each night. It’s a counting book (counting the dogs) and each dog makes a different dog sound, like “Woof”, “Yap Yap”, etc. Drew has the book almost memorized so that when Mike says “one dog…” Drew follows up with the corresponding “woof.” At 6, it’s “six quiet dogs” and both boys put their finger to their mouth and say “shhh.”
The other morning when I went in to get them they were both sitting between their beds reading books. Drew had the doggie book and was saying “Woof” and “Yap Yap” and Bran was reading the Brown Bear book looking at the yellow duck saying “quack quack.”
Two other favorite books are picture books on colors and first words. Every day the boys want you to sit down with them and look at the pictures. Very quickly we stopped them from pointing to all of the pictures and asking “what’s this?” by asking the boys, “where’s the… boots? firetruck? balloon?” Now we’re also asking them, “what’s this?” Sometimes they can answer. Over the weekend Mike was asking them where something was that wasn’t on that exact page and they would look through the book to find it. They know what it is if you tell them to look for it, but getting the actual word out is still a bit difficult at times. They’re pretty good with truck, car, tree, banana, apple…for animals, they like to give the sound instead of the name. It’s amazing how much they love these books! Just wait Grandmas, they’ll be coming home with us!
The boys like to count. They will count to three and then run from one end of the house to the other or one side of the yard to the other. It usually sounds like, blah, two, two! They’re starting to say three now sometimes but they never say one.
Mike has been playing hide and seek with them. We’ve set up a huge process for their counting or there would be no time to hide. They have to sit on the floor in the hallway with their feet touching the spare bedroom door. They have to count to five which sounds something like this, “one, two, blah, blah, BLAH!” and then they come running out. Usually unless someone is helping them to count, they’re walking down the hallway as they count, which makes it hard to hide in time. But they’re getting better. Bran is really good at finding. Mike has played this game with Noah (without the counting)… and they boys are already much better seekers.
Bran has started floating in the bathtub, with his ears all the way under. He loves it! The only problem is that he gets so excited that he starts kicking, and Drewie being on the other end of the kicks isn’t too happy. It’s made washing his hair a breeze. Drew doesn’t want any part of floating though. He just wants to stay in the tub as long as possible. When Bran’s done, he’s done and will ask to get out. Drew on the hand could probably stay in the tub all night. So now we’ve been pulling the plug and he can stay in until the water empties out of the tub. He seems content with that.
I’ve been emptying out the spare bedroom for the boys to use as a play room. One of the first things I did was bring down two chairs for them, one is a stuffed tiger and one is a bouncer seat turned toddler rocker. I thought they would fight over sitting in the tiger chair. Nope, it’s the rocker they both want. Yesterday I heard them screaming so I went in and found Bran climbing up the back of the rocker with his pants halfway down his legs. Drew was on the other end trying to pull him and his pants off of the rocker. It was really hard not to laugh at them. It’s just another opportunity to learn about sharing, right?!
So last night’s episode didn’t surpass last week’s, but it was pretty good. I guess I was wrong on a few things. Simone didn’t really come back to life, Suresh isn’t quite as much of an idiot as I thought, or is he? Is it worse not to recognize Sylar, or to recognize him and try to contain him yourself? I was also wrong about the identity of Linderman, but Mike and I guessed that the other person in Claire’s life had to be Nathan’s mom. Mr. Bennet’s new “partner” turned out to have crazy powers! I wonder who will help him out in the end? And what… will Peter do to escape Sylar? Any ideas about the significance of that building they are always on top of?
Unfortunately we have to wait until April 23rd to find out more! I can’t believe that when the show first aired I wasn’t interested. I told Mike it could be his show, I wasn’t watching. Ha! At least I have a vacation to plan in the meantime…
I’m anxiously awaiting tonight’s airing of Heroes. Last week was so awesome! Hero’s dad, what!? Besides Hero, I think my other favorite character is the Haitian. And who is this other person in Claire’s life the Haitain said he was answering to? Based on previews it seems that tonight’s show is going to be equally as intense. Will we really find out who Linderman is? I have an idea who he is, so I’m curious to find out if I’m right. I called Nathan as being Claire’s dad, so maybe I’ll get this one right too. The storyline with Sylar and Suresh is really creeping me out though. I find myself wanting to yell at Suresh and tell him what an idiot he is.
Unfortunately I do know that Simone lives. I knew that she had some power because when Peter has his dreams about blowing up, the only other people in the scene are other Heroes. But I don’t really like her so I was kind of hoping after last week that would be the end of her. Maybe my opinion will change as the show goes on.
If you don’t know about the graphic novels, NBC puts out an online graphic novel that gives back story between the episodes and it’s been really interesting. We always “catch up” before we watch on Monday night. If you’re a Heroes fan, I highly recommend it. NOTE: Some aren’t as good as others depending on who’s writing and drawing them.
Here’s the link: http://www.nbc.com/Heroes/novels/
Happy Watching!
You are currently browsing the Picking Food Up Off The Floor weblog archives for March, 2007.
