Another Year
Today is Jan 1st 2010! So what are the kids doing now?
Frank is still sings Jingle Bells and 12 days of christmas. He likes to play camping with me. He uses the picnic set to cook me breakfast and coffee. Now even Timmy says coffee. Timmy like to sit with a plate and knife and fork and pretend to cut and eat. Then we pretend to boat on our blanket. Then eventually we go nite nite on the floor with the blankets and Frank turns off the light. Sometimes Timmy protests then Frank shines the flashlight so Timmy can see.
This year we had a Lego Christmas. Uncle Al gave Frank a 5 gallon drum filled to the top of Lego from his and Nat’s childhood. And a bag of instructions. So for many days after that Nat and I have been sorting them. Grouping them with the instructions and finding inventories for sets without. Making lists of missing pieces and putting it all in ziploc bags. So far Frank is playing with a motorcycle, a motorboat, a canoe and a ferry boat Nat made out of 2×4 bricks on a large plate. He really likes the mailboxes and uses the handcart to load the ferry. And 2 long strings to tie the canoe and the motorboat to the ferryboat.
At the dock house Frank and Timmy collected pinecones to throw. Timmy says “throw, ocean.” I asked “throw Timmy in the ocean?” Frank says “but we love him. Don’t throw him in.”
Frank is on the star system. He gets stars for doing homework and being extra good. Then when he gets 5 stars he can pick a prize. So far all his prizes have been candy. He loves to do homework and sometimes refuse to go out to play. It has been very cold and wet but I hope we go ride bikes soon. Frank has a hard time writing 5. And when he doesn’t practice for awhile he forgets some of his letters. I make boxes for him and that helps him keep his letters consistent size and next to each other. He does not like to be told what to do. And claims he can do everything. He wants to grow up.
Frank draws from Ed Emerly’s book and we take turns picking what to draw. He puts them in the plastic bags that comes with our newspaper and talks about saving them to send to Akamai.
When you ask him why he often answers “Because I want to” or “I just do/don’t”. Frank often says “Mommy, can I show you something cool?”
Timmy is doing pretend play. He pretends to eat from the picnic set. In the car he started to say “hit’. I thought Frank was hitting him. Then he told me “yaya hit”. So I turned around and he was taking yaya’s arm and beating it over his face. I asked him if we should give yaya a timeout and he said yeah. He also tries to feed yaya. And likes to show things to yaya. He says “yaya, see”.
This weekend at the dock house Timmy is starting to say 3 word sentences. Everyone understands him with his words and his gestures. We went down to the dock and Timmy says pinecone, throw, ocean. When he was done he says done, home. He says “round and round” as he spins around. Lots of long skinny things are octdidi (octopus), such as necklace, wash rag at bathtime, string, etc. He drives it around repeating octdidi. He says cookie, acotcot (apricot), open and close, puzzle, key. He got hold of the keys to the white van and was going in between the lamp shade. When daddy peeked around to see what he was doing he put the key back quickly and told daddy to shoo shoo. Then repeat. He refused to let go of those keys even when we played outside. He put them in his pocket and says papa for pocket. Takes it out again. Finally we were going to throw pinecones in the ocean and the condition was he give the keys to daddy. He compiled. As soon as we got back he said daddy, key. Later he scratched the wall with the key so it has been put away. He asked numerous times for it and we have not given in. We forgot to pack the highchair but Timmy actually likes to sit in the adult chairs. More freedom I guess.
Timmy says “mere” for come here. He was feeding the seagulls and kept saying, “mere, eat” He says most of his body parts. Ears, mouth, eyes, nose, arm, leg, feet, hand, chin, tummy, tongue in chinese, teeth, finger, toe. He calls necklace “on on”. He asks you to tickle him and then runs away giggling. But if you don’t chase him he comes back and says “tickle”. He is spitting. Not just at teethbrushing time. Milk and water drinking time and has gotten several timeouts. Sometimes he does it as a sign of protest.