March
2007
The Boys
Reading
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!
Counting
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.
Bath Time
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.
Sharing
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?!
