Wow, stars!!

Today Kevin and I put a few constellations out of glow in the dark stars on Davy's ceiling. we put up the Big Dipper and Orion, we also put the North Star and Sirius on the ceiling as well. As we worked on it we let Davy play with one of the big stars, it is the size of half of his face so there is no fear of choking. While we worked on the ceiling Davy brought me his "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" book for me to read to him and his glow in the dark star. It was fun having him point out the stars in the book and show me the star in his hand. After we were done with the ceiling we put him down for a nap, and he did not want to give up the star. We finally had to trade it for one of the stacking stars from his stacking toy.

So fast forward to tonight. I knew he would be up late because he napped from 1 pm to 5 pm this afternoon, which spelled out "Davy will not fall asleep until after 11 pm tonight." for me. So about 10:30 pm I get him ready for bed and put him to bed. He chose the Twinkle book again to read tonight and pointed at Orion during bedtime story time, stating for me, "Star!" After getting him tucked in with a song of "I am like a star shining brightly." I gave him his stacking star, which he seemed to prefer over his current sleep toy, Twigs his giraffe, and then turned out the lights and said goodnight.

Things seemed to be going well at first, he was quiet, didn't cry when I closed the door. I figured I was home free. I did some work on the computer for awhile (I teach seminary in the morning and use the time after he goes to sleep to prepare for each day), and then suddenly I heard what sounded to be him crying loudly in his room. So I rushed over to his door and as I listened I realized it didn't quite sound like crying. So I put my ear to the door and listened closer. Imagine my confusion when I realized that I wasn't hearing crying, I was hearing him cheering. "Yay! Wow! Yay! Yay! Yay!" Was the words I was hearing coming from the door. What was the cause of the cheering, I will probably never know, but secretly I think it was the stars. They did look pretty awesome glowing there when I turned off the lights. Davy is seriously such a cute kid!

When the toddler is quiet

It is common knowledge among parents, when the child goes quiet start to worry and check on them, because you never know what kind of trouble they are getting into. So today after talking with Kevin about how cute it was that Davy was saying star last night, Kevin pulled the glow in the dark star kits that we bought for Davy quite awhile ago out of Davy's closet. Before I knew what he was doing he had the thing open and was trying to find the adhesive among the pile of stars. Problem was that there were stars falling out of the package as well. The stars in the package range in size from about the size of my palm to a little smaller than a dime, and everywhere in between. So I got a plastic zip-lock baggie and put all the stars into it. Or so I thought. So tonight I am checking out things online and hear Davy happily chattering away as he plays with his play house toy, and then he goes silent, and I know he has found something I probably don't want him playing with. I go back to where he is and find him putting something he can easily hide in his pinched thumb and forefinger through the window of his play house. Thankfully he drops whatever it is on the other side and I am able to find them before he picks them up again. Two little stars, both the size of coins. They must have spilled out when Kevin opened the package and I must not have seen them. Both stars went into the baggie with the others. I think when we put the stars up on the ceiling we will be using stars that are not swallowable. At least until Davy and any other children we have are old enough not to swallow things.

On another star note, I affixed one of the biggest stars to Davy's ceiling today and during a diaper change he noticed it. He started the changing session by squirming onto his belly and pointing out the vowels in the warning label that is on his changing table, first time he did that for me. Then I wrestled him onto his back, which he resisted as he usually does. But then something awesome happened, he noticed the star I had put on the ceiling and pointed to it saying, "Star, star!" It was great! He went from squirrely to focused in quick succession, and I was able to change his diaper with little fuss and a constant chant of "Star, star, star!" Now I want to put the big dipper above his changing table if only to keep him busy during changings.

Twinkle Twinkle

Every night, right before we put him to bed, I read Davy a book. Lately he has really begun to like the books that sing a song. We currently have "The Itsy Bitsy Spider", "The Bear Went Over the Mountain", "Baa Baa Black Sheep" and "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". Last night he chose to read "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". I took a different tactic than usual and began pointing out the stars since we have been practicing the word "Star" with him. He has a stacking toy that is made up of stars and we say "Star" every time he gives us one of the stars. So while we were reading the book we were pointing out the stars, each page I would say, "There is the star." We finally got to the last page and I said to him, "That's the star" and he repeated to me in his garbled toddler tongue, "That's the star". It was awesome! It is the longest sentence I have heard him say so far. Sure it was difficult to understand, but I did hear him say the words. It is so exciting that he is trying to say more words.

Doors

Today while finding clothes for Davy he went into his closet to play with some of the toys we have stashed in there, then he closed the door, at first I thought I would have to open the door for him, but instead he opened the door on his own. I hoped it was a fluke, but after he did it two more times I am at the realization that my son now knows how to open doors! Why did he have to figure that out so soon!! 

I seem to remember feeling this way when he learned to climb on things, and learned to climb over things. He is such a clever boy, but sometimes I wish he wasn't growing up so fast and learning things I am not quite ready for him to learn yet. We will have to buy some more baby proof door devices, so that he can't get into the rooms we don't want him in.

Naps, letters and bedtime

Let's start with the biggest issue at hand here. Sleep. You don't really realize just how precious it is until you become an adult and start to get less of it than you would like. You really don't get it though until you have your own child to disrupt your sleep schedule. Lately I have been taking the age old advice of, "Sleep when your child sleeps." Well the best time for that sleep is right after Kevin leaves for work, which is around 3 pm-ish, but this means keeping Davy awake until that time. And it also means that he will often sleep until about 5 or 6 pm. And that can be a problem. Though it is wonderful to get a good long nap in, it also can mean that when it is bedtime Davy does not want to go to bed. And this can take his usual 9:30 pm bedtime and lengthen it to 11 pm or even Midnight. Ugh... Not the time that I want to go to bed, especially when I am waking up at 5 am the next morning to teach seminary. And here is the big kicker, I don't usually get a chance to work on my lesson for the next day until AFTER Davy goes to sleep. Yep, can we say no sleep for the Rachel? So today I put him down for his nap at 1 pm and he only stayed asleep until 2 pm. Which is a much shorter nap than I wanted for him, but when I put him down for bedtime at 9:30 tonight, he went right to sleep. Much better, but shorter nap time for me. Boo, but better than no nap at all.

Moving onto the next topic, letters. Davy has a little magnadoodle that he plays with and loves to have us draw on. Lately we have been writing letters on it, and have been practicing them with him. At this point he knows almost all the vowels by sight. He really likes O, and is pretty good at getting A, and he is beginning to love U because he likes to say "ueueueueueue" (it sounds like youee). Super cute! He is pretty good with I, but still struggles with E. We have been working with some of the consonants as well, but have been hitting the vowels pretty heavily because they are some of the easiest letters for him to say. Yay! Now we just need to work on his body parts with just as much enthusiasm. He knows where his bellybutton is, and his nose. But the other parts he has not really gotten down yet. We will get there.

Slides and Labor Day

Lately Davy has discovered slides. Previously every visit to the playground was filled with Davy playing with whatever was being used as the ground, this meant wood chips, small pebbles, strange chopped astro-turf, anything that was ground material was what he was interested in. But this summer he discovered the playground equipment, in particular the slides. At first he needed help, one of us would carry him, or lift him up to the other parent who would wait at the top of the slide to help him slide down, meanwhile the other parent would hurry back down to the bottom of the slide to catch him and start the process over again. But lately Davy has figured out how to climb up the playground equipment on his own. This has led to much more fun and a much more tired little boy. It also means that Mommy or Daddy can take Davy to the park on their own without having to have the other parent with them because Davy will do the leg work on his own.

This brings me to Labor Day. Labor day we decided to go apple picking as a family. So we met up with my parents and my sister and her family (Jake, Sydney and Payton) at a local apple orchard. I had suggested that orchard because they had a children's area and I figured it might be fun for the kids to play in. We went apple picking and then I purchased an entrance ticket to the kids area, figuring that Sydney and one of her parents would want to go into the area as well. I didn't realize that was not the case until it was too late. So I took Davy in anyway and we had some fun in there together.

The first place we went to was this corn silo which was basically like a sandbox with corn instead of sand. He liked playing with the corn and helped another little boy fill a toy truck bed with corn. Then he discovered a slide in the corn silo and decided to start going down it. At first he had some trouble navigating the steps on his own, but eventually he got the hang of it. About that time I noticed a large wolf spider that was on the slide. It was right near where Davy was placing his hand when he was climbing up the slide. So I started throwing corn at it to knock it down. I got the spider off the slide and chased it over to the wall of the silo. Then I switched my attention back to Davy, glancing at the spider every so often. Well during one of my glances I noticed the spider was no longer there. So I put it out of my mind, until I saw it on the slide again. But now it was worse, it was no longer trying to hide on the side, it was trying to climb up the main part of the slide. So at this point I kind of started freaking out, which gathered the attention of the other mothers in the silo, which I am sure thought I was kind of crazy or something (from the looks they gave me) because I was freaking out over this spider. One of them pretty much got the spider off the slide and chased it somewhere else. At this point I decided that Davy and I needed to go somewhere else. Because I really didn't want to stay in there anymore if the spider decided to come back.

So we went over to the petting zoo area. At first we walked around it, and Davy waved to all the animals, then I decided to take us in. Davy wasn't really sure about touching any of the animals. So I picked him up and let him watch me pet some of the animals. This gave him some courage. So together we petted a calf, a donkey, a llama, a sheep, and I think a goat. He was fine with petting the animals as long as they didn't try to get their face in his face. I think the calf reminded him a bit of a dog. About the time we got out of there I saw Kevin and found out that everyone else had moved inside and was talking about leaving. So I figured that I should probably just bail on the idea of doing any more in the children's area.

After the apple orchard we went to a park in DeKalb and ate a picnic lunch, after lunch Davy and Sydney went to a playground that was at the park and played a bit, they didn't end up playing for long because it was hot and the grownups were getting way too hot (and I think the kids were too). We went home after that and all three of us ended up napping for a very long time. All in all it was a great day!