kid updates
OK, now I'm at work where I can't do much about the mouse, so I'll distract myself (and you?) with a post about the kids.
Isaac is very much into math lately: counting, adding, subtracting. He likes to help me play Packrat -- it's this totally addictive Facebook game (and if you don't already play it, PLEASE don't add it -- I don't want you to hate me! ;) ). As part of the game, you collect credits that you can use to buy game pieces -- as you navigate through the game, little gold coins pop up with numbers on them and when you click the coin it adds that number of credits to your total. So Isaac loves to just click around in the game and look for credits. When he sees one, he likes to add up what the new total will be, before he clicks it. I know this is terrible ;) so I only let him play for a few minutes at a time. Okay, he's practicing his math, but still. ;)
He is also very much into baseball now. He loves watching the Red Sox games and is always sad that he can't stay up for the whole game (they usually start at 7:00 and go about 3 hours and his bedtime is 8 or 8:30). I always promise to TiVo the game so he can watch the rest tomorrow -- although, if there's another game tomorrow, he'll watch that instead of course. He's getting to understand the way the game works more and more, and will tell me what happens when I'm in another room or whatever. Combining his love of math with baseball, he likes to tell me what he hopes will happen, e.g. if the Red Sox have two men on base and one run, he'll say, "if we get a home run now, then we'll have four runs!" Or if the Red Sox happen to be ahead by eight runs he'll say "if the other team gets two grand slams, they'll tie it up!" He definitely doesn't understand all the nuances of the games, but he really enjoys watching them and is learning more and more. I'm taking him to a game at Fenway on August 31st (if I can find where I put the tickets, UGH, but that's a whole other post) and I'm totally excited about how totally excited he's going to be. :)
Isaac also likes to re-enact plays, providing me an instant reply. If I'm in another room, he'll run in and say "Jacoby Ellsbury made a great catch! It was like this!" and then he'll act it out. hee hee. He also likes to do instant replays when we play baseball in the back yard. He'll go, "Did you see my slide? It was like this!" and then do it again. LOL! He loves to slide. Every play ends in a slide or a falling-over to catch the ball in dramatic fashion.
Isaac is definitely ready for kindergarten. He has been telling me repeatedly that his preschool is boring, and I know it is -- he has definitely outgrown that place. A lot of the kids are his age, but there are also a lot of younger kids in his room, kids who are on the early side of 4 and some who aren't even 4 yet. He likes playing with younger kids to some extent, but when it's all day every day, it gets old. So I have been using that as an opportunity to talk up kindergarten and tell him that he won't be bored any more and it will be so much fun etc....Hopefully it's sinking in! Only one more month to go!
Ruthie has a new lovey: a calculator. LOL!! She has transferred her affections from her teddy bear and binky to a calculator. Isaac received one as a birthday present, just a very cheapo little calculator, and Ruthie appropriated it, so I got her one of her own. She loves it. She carries it around everywhere, pushes the buttons, holds it up to her ear and talks into it like it's a cellphone. Her latest thing is to take her bear's or doll's hands and make them press the calculator buttons. hee hee.
Oh yes, she does still carry her blue teddy bears around as well. She has two Peace Bears currently -- I had bought two extras when she first got attached to one; the first extra got lost, so we are down to two: the original, which is pretty beat-up by now, and a fairly new one, which is showing some wear but still clearly a lot newer than the other. So now she calls them "Cozy Bear" (the older beat-up one) and "Soft Bear" (the newer one). She definitely prefers the former. I'll ask her at bedtime "do you want your bear?" and she'll say "Cozy Bear, not Soft Bear!"
Ruthie also has figured out how to undress herself completely, including her diaper. (Yesterday she started taking her diaper off and I said, "what are you doing?" and she goes, "my penis is itchy!" LOL!) When we go in the back yard, within a few minutes she usually strips herself naked and is crawling around on the grass having a great time. lol. She also loves to put on random articles of Isaac's clothing that she finds lying around -- even sweaters and coats, which she'll find in drawers or bags and insist on putting on even though it's like 90 degrees outside. And she LOVES to put Isaac's shoes on her feet.
Her newest thing as of yesterday is that she'll remove her diaper immediately after peeing in it, which can be unfortunate. Call me crazy but I don't actually change her after every pee -- sometimes there are just little drips! But suddenly now she wants it off as soon as she has peed, even just a little. This could be a result of the fact that I've been putting her in underwear on occasion lately. For some reason I got it in my head that this would be a good way to start potty-training her (she does love putting on her Elmo undies) but I don't think it's working out. She gets that when she pees, her underwear gets wet; but she isn't yet grasping the idea that maybe she should do something about this before she actually pees. Maybe my mistake is removing the wet undies from her too quickly. Or maybe I should just do like I did with Isaac and have her be fully naked. I dunno. It's a work in progress.
Another thing Ruthie has been doing lately is starting to pronounce some words correctly that she has been baby-talk-pronouncing for a while now. She now says Isaac instead of ah-goo, please instead of peez, and a whole host of words beginning with a "k" sound which until recently she had been pronouncing with a "d" sound, e.g. car/"dar", kitty/"ditty", and calculator which originally was "dalc-oo-yay-doo." I have heard her deliberately correcting herself on a few of these lately, which is definitely bittersweet. snif.
I have more, of course, but that's enough for now....
Isaac is very much into math lately: counting, adding, subtracting. He likes to help me play Packrat -- it's this totally addictive Facebook game (and if you don't already play it, PLEASE don't add it -- I don't want you to hate me! ;) ). As part of the game, you collect credits that you can use to buy game pieces -- as you navigate through the game, little gold coins pop up with numbers on them and when you click the coin it adds that number of credits to your total. So Isaac loves to just click around in the game and look for credits. When he sees one, he likes to add up what the new total will be, before he clicks it. I know this is terrible ;) so I only let him play for a few minutes at a time. Okay, he's practicing his math, but still. ;)
He is also very much into baseball now. He loves watching the Red Sox games and is always sad that he can't stay up for the whole game (they usually start at 7:00 and go about 3 hours and his bedtime is 8 or 8:30). I always promise to TiVo the game so he can watch the rest tomorrow -- although, if there's another game tomorrow, he'll watch that instead of course. He's getting to understand the way the game works more and more, and will tell me what happens when I'm in another room or whatever. Combining his love of math with baseball, he likes to tell me what he hopes will happen, e.g. if the Red Sox have two men on base and one run, he'll say, "if we get a home run now, then we'll have four runs!" Or if the Red Sox happen to be ahead by eight runs he'll say "if the other team gets two grand slams, they'll tie it up!" He definitely doesn't understand all the nuances of the games, but he really enjoys watching them and is learning more and more. I'm taking him to a game at Fenway on August 31st (if I can find where I put the tickets, UGH, but that's a whole other post) and I'm totally excited about how totally excited he's going to be. :)
Isaac also likes to re-enact plays, providing me an instant reply. If I'm in another room, he'll run in and say "Jacoby Ellsbury made a great catch! It was like this!" and then he'll act it out. hee hee. He also likes to do instant replays when we play baseball in the back yard. He'll go, "Did you see my slide? It was like this!" and then do it again. LOL! He loves to slide. Every play ends in a slide or a falling-over to catch the ball in dramatic fashion.
Isaac is definitely ready for kindergarten. He has been telling me repeatedly that his preschool is boring, and I know it is -- he has definitely outgrown that place. A lot of the kids are his age, but there are also a lot of younger kids in his room, kids who are on the early side of 4 and some who aren't even 4 yet. He likes playing with younger kids to some extent, but when it's all day every day, it gets old. So I have been using that as an opportunity to talk up kindergarten and tell him that he won't be bored any more and it will be so much fun etc....Hopefully it's sinking in! Only one more month to go!
Ruthie has a new lovey: a calculator. LOL!! She has transferred her affections from her teddy bear and binky to a calculator. Isaac received one as a birthday present, just a very cheapo little calculator, and Ruthie appropriated it, so I got her one of her own. She loves it. She carries it around everywhere, pushes the buttons, holds it up to her ear and talks into it like it's a cellphone. Her latest thing is to take her bear's or doll's hands and make them press the calculator buttons. hee hee.
Oh yes, she does still carry her blue teddy bears around as well. She has two Peace Bears currently -- I had bought two extras when she first got attached to one; the first extra got lost, so we are down to two: the original, which is pretty beat-up by now, and a fairly new one, which is showing some wear but still clearly a lot newer than the other. So now she calls them "Cozy Bear" (the older beat-up one) and "Soft Bear" (the newer one). She definitely prefers the former. I'll ask her at bedtime "do you want your bear?" and she'll say "Cozy Bear, not Soft Bear!"
Ruthie also has figured out how to undress herself completely, including her diaper. (Yesterday she started taking her diaper off and I said, "what are you doing?" and she goes, "my penis is itchy!" LOL!) When we go in the back yard, within a few minutes she usually strips herself naked and is crawling around on the grass having a great time. lol. She also loves to put on random articles of Isaac's clothing that she finds lying around -- even sweaters and coats, which she'll find in drawers or bags and insist on putting on even though it's like 90 degrees outside. And she LOVES to put Isaac's shoes on her feet.
Her newest thing as of yesterday is that she'll remove her diaper immediately after peeing in it, which can be unfortunate. Call me crazy but I don't actually change her after every pee -- sometimes there are just little drips! But suddenly now she wants it off as soon as she has peed, even just a little. This could be a result of the fact that I've been putting her in underwear on occasion lately. For some reason I got it in my head that this would be a good way to start potty-training her (she does love putting on her Elmo undies) but I don't think it's working out. She gets that when she pees, her underwear gets wet; but she isn't yet grasping the idea that maybe she should do something about this before she actually pees. Maybe my mistake is removing the wet undies from her too quickly. Or maybe I should just do like I did with Isaac and have her be fully naked. I dunno. It's a work in progress.
Another thing Ruthie has been doing lately is starting to pronounce some words correctly that she has been baby-talk-pronouncing for a while now. She now says Isaac instead of ah-goo, please instead of peez, and a whole host of words beginning with a "k" sound which until recently she had been pronouncing with a "d" sound, e.g. car/"dar", kitty/"ditty", and calculator which originally was "dalc-oo-yay-doo." I have heard her deliberately correcting herself on a few of these lately, which is definitely bittersweet. snif.
I have more, of course, but that's enough for now....