Talking, reading, and cuteness

Lately Davy has begun to talk more and more and in complete sentences. The other day he walked up to Kevin and said, "Daddy, I want to watch Dinosaur Train." (his new favorite show) And just Monday we were in the car and Evangeline started to fuss and Davy reached over, took her hand and said, "Evangeline, what's wrong?" So cute!

Davy is also reading a lot now. Lately he will read me the books he chooses for our bedtime story, and I know he is reading and not reciting memorized words because he will come to a word he has a problem with and look to me for help with it. He now knows how to read over 100 words, knows his colors, shapes, can write his uppercase letters and lowercase letters and is now writing some of the words he knows. For example he will draw a sun and then write the word SUN. He can draw most of his shapes, he still has problems with stars and octagons and such, but he can draw squares, rectangles, ovals, hearts, and diamonds. We have been working with him on drawing "The Star of David" as an alternate to the 5 pointed star. Kind of ironic since it has been the first star he has been able draw.

The kids have been playing really well together lately. Evangeline has been getting around by butt scooting everywhere. And Davy seems to like the fact that she is much more mobile and can now play with him. He likes to share, and sometimes not share, his toys with her. She has her four front teeth all coming in right now. Only two have really broken through, one on the top and one on the bottom, but they are all pushing their way out. She has been saying Mama, Mom, Dada a lot lately. It is super cute. These past two weeks everyone has had a cold, but we are now almost all over it.

Love

Davy loves baby Evangeline, and baby Evangeline loves Davy. How do I know? The little giggles when they see each other, the way she reaches out to him and smiles at him. The way he smiles at her and tries to feed her. The fact that he shares his toys with her. The fact that a toddler and a 7 month old baby seem to have inside jokes! What is up with that!? Seriously I am going to have to be careful with them, they are both very bright little kids and they have already started ganging up against me on things. One of them will do something sort of naughty and when I get after them they will look at each other and laugh. They are fun. And it is fun to see our children love each other as siblings. It is awesome to watch a child who is just barely talking and a baby who doesn't talk at all "get" each other so well. Children are awesome!

Potty!

On July 27th, last Saturday, Davy used the potty for the first time. He pooped in it! I know putting bodily functions on an online blog seems strange but we were thrilled! We cheered for him and clapped and made a big deal about it. And this morning after waking up with a dry diaper Davy peed in the potty as well! We are so proud of him and though I don't look forward to the stress of potty training, I do look forward to this next step in toddler-hood. Hurray for Davy!!

Tree

Yesterday at church we pulled out one of the books we bring to keep Davy busy, it is an 100 words book, and some of the things it covers is fruits and veggies. So Davy was looking through the book and trying to read some of the words. He got to the fruits and vegetables page and saw the broccoli and said, "Tree" Kevin, who was watching him, pointed at the broccoli and said, "broccoli" then he sounded out the word for Davy while running his finger beneath the word. Davy looked at the word, looked at the picture then ran his finger under the word and said, "Tree." Yep I am pretty sure I know what broccoli will be referred to for some time now. Davy is doing better and better at reading. He sounds out words and has been learning a lot. He really seems to like the fact that he can learn a word by sounding it out. He is such a fun little boy!

Reading

Lately we have been having Davy watch shows that teach reading as well as play with games on the tablet that also teach reading. He already knows all his letters and their sounds and can write pretty much all of them now. So today he was carrying around some of his letter flashcards and was saying the sound and the letters and I decided to see if he knew any small words. So I went and got his magnadoodle and wrote "BAT" and said, "What does that say?" And Davy looked at it, ran his finger under it and said, "Bat". Then I wrote CAT and he knew that, I tried him on DOG, HAT, SUN, and he knew all of them. I called Kevin in and told him about it and showed him Davy reading. Kevin got excited about it and pulled out Davy's Matchbox cars and began writing colors on the magnadoodle. Black Car, White Car, Orange Car, Red Car, Blue Car. Turns out Davy knows them all. So not only does he know how to read by sounding out words but he also knows words by sight. We made flashcards quite awhile ago with different colors and their names on them. This is where he learned those words from. Smart little boy! I can't wait to see what he learns next. I do find it awesome that at 2 years and 3 months old Davy has shown us that he has learned to read.

Tickle Tickle

The other day I was tickling Davy with my ponytail and was saying, "Tickle, tickle, tickle." Davy was giggling and giggling and then he looked up at me and said, "Tickle tickle little star?" It was so cute! Lately he has been saying more and more of songs that he likes. And very often he will talk along with shows that he likes and has watched multiple times. It is a lot of fun to watch him pick up more and more words.

I also discovered recently that Evangeline is super ticklish and that I can get her squealing and giggling pretty easily because of it. It has been a lot of fun tickling her and getting to know her sweet little personality. She and Davy get along pretty well. She loves to watch him and he likes to pet her and try to give her things.They are cute to watch together.

Sharing is fun! Except when deadly...

Recently I brought home a Bumbo that my parents have for the grandkids. A Bumbo, if you are not familiar with them, is a little seat thing that you can put babies in that helps them to sit before they develop the muscles for it. I started putting Evangeline in it and because she is such a strong little baby she has been doing great with it. Lately I have been using it when I need to do something where I can't hold her but need her not to start crying. Often I put her in it when I am feeding Davy or something similar.

Today I needed to give her a bath, she has been spitting up a bunch the last few days and today she had a bout of spitting up a bunch on Kevin and myself so she was super stinky today. So while I looked for the clothes I wanted to put her in I placed her in the Bumbo and sat on the ground to go through some of the hampers of newly washed clothes. While I dug through the hampers Davy came over and kept sitting on my lap. Because Evangeline was sitting right in front of me I had to be careful with Davy and her, I didn't want Davy to accidentally kick her and hurt her, so I tried to make sure that I was careful with how Davy was sitting on my lap. Davy did really great and brought over some shapes he was playing with. He had a triangle and square and he was showing them to Evangeline. He even tried to put them in her hands, which didn't work too well because she isn't quite to the point where she will hold things you give her, but she was able to hold the triangle for a bit. I was really proud of how Davy was sharing with her. Then he got up and got some goldfish crackers. He came back over and ate a few and then took one and tried to give it to Evangeline. Super cute, and I figured it wasn't bad unless he put one in her mouth, which he wasn't able to at his first try. Then he tried again and popped the goldfish cracker right in her mouth!

I must admit that I kind of freaked out a bit. I said, "Oh no!" and did a finger swipe and got the cracker out of her mouth right away. This caused Evangeline to start crying, and then Davy started to cry. So I had to reassure both of them that everything was alright. I made sure to tell Davy that the baby was ok, and that it was very nice of him to share with her, but that she was too little to eat crackers. Thankfully everything turned out ok, but I will have to make sure to watch them when they are together to ensure that Davy doesn't share something that could hurt little Evangeline.

On another note, later in the night I was nursing Evangeline and Davy was playing on my tablet, one of the games he was playing with froze up and he got frustrated by it. I had to turn the tablet off and then on again to fix it, but in the meantime while he waited for the tablet to turn back on he began to cry. When he began to cry Evangeline stopped nursing, looked up at me with big eyes, stuck out her little lower lip and then began to cry too. So I calmed Davy and calmed Evangeline and got her nursing again. Then Davy started crying again and she popped off, pouted and started crying again as well. I thought it was cute that Davy being sad made Evangeline feel sad too. It has been really fun to watch the children interact with each other and watch their relationship as siblings develop.

Toddler Bed

Monday night Davy did something that I was not expecting. It was bed time and we were getting him ready for bed. I went to get a book to read to him and he was running free in his bedroom. Before I could scoop him up and sit in the rocking chair with him he had run over and climbed up on his toddler bed. He had never taken an interest in sleeping in his toddler bed before. He had climbed up on it and played on it and sat on it and stood on it but never had he acted like he wanted to sleep in it. Kevin and I have been working on getting the room toddler-proofed in preparation for him to start sleeping in it, and so far the room is basically there. There are a few things I would like to have set up, but they are not absolute necessities. So Monday night we decided that we would let him try out sleeping in his toddler bed. We read him his book on the bed and then tucked him in, turned off the light and closed the door. Before going to bed we checked on him, he was asleep on the floor beside his bed, so we picked him up and put him back in bed. In the morning I heard him fall out of the bed and went to get him. But overall he did pretty good. I gave him the "big boy blanket" that I had made out of his crib bumpers, we made up the bed with the blanket and tucked it in under the mattress to make it more secure.

Last night I decided to let him sleep in his toddler bed again. We went through his bedtime routine and I tucked him in and put him to bed. He cried this time and I was worried that he would crawl out of bed and I would have to put him back in it. But when I checked on him later in the night he had fallen asleep in his bed under his new blanket. I tucked him in a little better since he had moved a bit while he slept. In the morning when he woke up and Kevin went to get him he was still in his bed playing.

This is a rather exciting development for us! I knew that we needed to get Davy into a toddler bed soon. The baby will be able to sleep just so long in her bassinet before she grows out of it and will need to move to the crib. I wanted to get Davy moved into his toddler bed before that happened and get him settled and used to sleeping in it. The fact that he took the initiative to start sleeping in it makes everything much easier. The fact that he is staying in his bed even when he doesn't want to go to bed make me feel better about the whole thing. Now I just need to get Kevin to finish the last few changes to the room and I will be happy with everything. It is strange to realize that my little boy is growing up and has moved out of his crib and into a big boy bed finally.

Colors and Shapes

In case I haven't mentioned it before, Davy's favorite color is yellow. Growing up most of the members of my family liked the color blue, in fact it was my Dad's favorite color, my Mom's favorite color, and I think my brother's favorite color as well as my own favorite color. My sister's favorite color was neon orange. When I married Kevin I discovered that his favorite color was red, which worked out just fine for me because he could have red things and I could have blue things. When Davy was born I clothed him in a lot of blue, which was fitting because he was a boy, and as he grew older I found that I began to wonder what his favorite color was. He has this dog toy, Scout, who talks to him, I think I have written about it before. Anyway when setting it up I had to choose a favorite color for Davy, I figured that he probably liked blue so I set that as his favorite color. Lately we have been working with Davy on shapes and colors, and what I have learned from it is this. Davy likes Yellow. He likes to say the word, he likes to find yellow things, he just plain likes yellow. He also likes circles, hearts, and triangles. He can say most of his colors (the basic ones not fancy colors like magenta and such), he can also say most of his basic shapes. He loves working with flashcards and will bring us the bag they are in just so he can go through them. And if we are busy he will go through the bag on his own and name the flashcards off to himself. He has down a good amount of the words that go with each flashcard. He is also learning what letters each word starts with. As this year goes on I wonder just how much he is going to learn, I am excited to see what he learns to do and say.

Valentines and growing babies

Today is Valentines day, and for the first time Davy is old enough for it to be fun. So yesterday I made a few heart shaped cards and supervised Davy while he colored them. He decorated them with scribbles, quite a few letters and numbers as well as some smilie faces. After he went to bed I finished the decorations by making a snowflake heart to stick on the front and also wrote a little message to the person/people the card was for. We made two cards, one for Daddy and one for Nana and Grandpapa (my mom and dad). Today we delivered the cards to them. Davy gave Daddy his card, and then later in the day we visited Nana and Grandpapa and Davy was able to give them their card. He even signed each card, granted the letters weren't all in a line or even necessarily close to each other but the letters DAVY were all on the card in some place. For a Valentines present from Nana and Grandpapa, Davy got some magnetic numbers, which he loved. All in all it has been a fun day. Kevin got me flowers and some chocolates which I shared with Davy and Kevin, they were Lindt petite desserts which are chocolates designed to taste like popular desserts. The other part of his present to me will come later this year, I asked him to take me to the Japanese gardens up in Rockford at some point later this year.

For his present I am going to take him out to eat up in Rockford on Monday, it will be our first date since we had the baby. And our first date so far this year. Needless to say we are looking forward to it. I have saved up some frozen milk for my parents in preparation for babysitting.

In other news Evangeline has been spitting up a lot lately. So I took her to the doctor, he suggested that I eat less dairy for a week and see how things went. So I stopped eating dairy and she began to throw up more. So I said "to heck with it all" and went back to eating dairy and she is not throwing up as much anymore. Crazy. While at the doctor I found out her weight, she is now 7 lbs 5 oz, which is less than what Davy was when he was born. She will be two months old next Tuesday. It seems pretty crazy that she is still so tiny. She is just beginning to grow out of her Newborn clothes.  

Merry Christmas!

Rochelle has a Holiday Walk every December in downtown Rochelle. This year is the first time we learned about it ahead of time and were able to attend it. I would have liked to go to it sooner but I had to pass along the materials from my calling to the person who is now taking it over. That aside my mom and I hit the downtown area and visited a few shops and has some fun. The museum had a little fire in a brazier outside and inside they had Santa. We could take pictures with our own cameras of our children with Santa asking for toys or whatever. So this was Davy's first time meeting Santa, last year I didn't even try. And going by Davy's reaction this year I am kind of glad that I didn't. Davy was interested in the bells that Santa gave him to play with, but was not at all interested in having anything else to do with Santa, which I didn't really push. I figure Davy doesn't need to have bad experiences with Santa. It all resulted in us not getting any pictures, which is fine.

We also visited a few shops which were giving out free cookies and we also hit up the local thrift store which actually takes donations and uses the money that they make to fund a battered women's shelter. They were having a 25% off sale of everything in the store and Davy was able to get a few neat toys (most of them are going into the Church bag) two of which are toys that let him play with letters and numbers. He is in love with those. I also found a bag full of flashcards, but they are different than most flash cards. 1. They are thick cardboard cards that have a picture on one side and the word of what the picture is on the other. 2. They are also in the shape of whatever the picture is. 3. There are some letter cards as well that are in the shape of the letters. Kevin and I made flashcards for Davy but they were misplaced somewhere in our house and we haven't been able to find them yet. Kevin has been wanting to make some more flashcards for him but we haven't (or rather I haven't) gotten around to it yet. Kind of have been busy with getting ready for Christmas and having a baby.

Speaking about the baby, I am beginning to get ready for having the baby. I have written up a detailed babysitting guide for my parents that lists Davy's daily routines and have also put together a concise outline of his routines as well, I included important phone numbers and the feeding instructions for the dogs. I also put together a birth plan for when I deliver. Now I just need to print them all out, and pack bags for myself and for Davy and the dogs. I should probably pack a bag for Kevin as well just because. That way when the time comes we can just grab and go. I still can't believe that we are so close to her coming. By next Friday her lungs will be fully developed and she will be technically full term (37 weeks).

I am pretty much all done with Christmas presents, I just need to finish two of them, ship one of those two and then I will be done. I may drag Kevin up to Rockford tomorrow to get things for the last two presents.

Speaking of Christmas I have been thinking about it a good bit lately. So far this year I have discussed the birth story of Christ twice with my Seminary students. And this year I would like to go through it with Davy as well, I don't think he will really understand but I would like to go over it with him. I find that the older I get the less and less I like the gimmicky Christmas songs, you know, the ones about Frosty and Santa and Rudolph. Instead I love the beautiful songs about the Savior. This year I just seem so much more focused on the Savior at this Christmas time. With Christmas approaching Kevin and I have had more conversations about how we want to do the whole Santa thing.

When I was a child my parents told me at a pretty young age, I can't remember what age that was, that Santa was not real. So I knew, but as a family we still basically played along with the Santa premise. I don't really know how it was done in Kevin's family but I do know that one of his favorite personal traditions was helping his mom fill the Christmas stockings on Christmas Eve. They both suffer from insomnia so it was a great bonding time for him and his mom. Kevin and I have basically decided that we will tell our children that Santa is not really real but he is a fun tradition that we as a family will be doing. (Kind of similar to how my parents did it) I am guessing that we will probably also do it similar to how my parents did it where we will encourage them to "believe" in the Santa tradition even as we reaffirm that Santa is not actually real. I think we will probably go over the Santa story as a nice reminder of how we can serve others while focusing most of the celebration on the nativity story of Christ.

Recently I saw a video of a young child, probably toddler age maybe 3 or 4 who was upset by the fact that the "Christmas Elf" did not bring him the toy he really wanted, the child threw a long and very intense fit over it. I showed the video to Kevin and he said, "If any of our children throw a fit like that over a toy they get for Christmas then they will not be getting whatever it was they really wanted." Basically not wanting to reward the child for the fit they threw. Another way of viewing it is, we want to instill in our children that the gifts they get on Christmas do not come from some omniscient being that knows exactly what they want, the gifts come from real people who are trying their best to get something they think the child might like. The gifts may not be exactly what they wanted, but they should be grateful anyway. It reminds me of Kevin's first Christmas with my family. We were engaged but not married at the time (I think), it was Christmas and we were opening presents from my Grandma and Grandpa who were visiting for Christmas. It was my brother's turn to open his presents from them. He opened them and found Precious Moments Christmas tree ornaments. My brother was 13 years old at the time. Now, I don't know many (if any) 13 year old boys who want Precious Moments anything. But we had instilled into us by our parents the knowledge that we should be grateful for any present we got, especially from our grandparents who were both retired and on a fixed income and were giving us presents from things they could find or afford. So my brother was very thankful and gracious about his presents, so much so that Kevin (who at this point did not know my family very well as this was his second time meeting them) thought that my brother actually had wanted the Precious Moments figurines. It is this that I want to instill in my children, the attitude of gratitude no matter what they are given. I think more people need it, and I hope that my children are able to grow up with it as part of who they are.

Uh oh

Lately Davy has been saying a lot more. For some reason he calls milk "nose" but when he wants milk he will run to the baby gate and say "nose", he will ask for goldfish crackers by pointing to the box and saying "fish", and just today he started saying, "Uh oh, where did it go?" when looking for a toy. What was really funny about this is that he would hide a toy or throw a toy or lose a toy and then walk around saying, "Uh oh, where did it go?" Not only is it super cute but it is one of the longest sentences I have heard him say so far.

Today he threw two sippy cups into our spare room and counted them as he threw them. One, two...smart kid. One of his favorite songs right now is the ABC song. He knows all his letters already but he loves to sing the song with me, and is beginning to get the hang of singing his letters instead of saying them. He also loves a counting song from one of the shows he watches. It is pretty cute.

On the pregnancy front, so far everything has been going well, I just can't believe that December starts soon and that I basically have just a little over a month before my due date. So crazy.

Walmart and the Savage Davy

Lately I have been having regular headaches, they seem to be part of the "joy" that comes with this pregnancy. With Davy the "joy" was morning sickness the entire pregnancy. This time around it has been headaches that turn into migraines that send me to the hospital. Anyway, I have good high dose pain pills for the migraines, but I tend not to use them because they aren't the best for the baby. My doctor prescribed them and recommended using them once a week if possible. So instead when I get a headache I can tell is going the way of a migraine I drink some caffeinated soda take a regular strength Tylenol and hope that it works. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't.

Today my slight headache turned into a full blown migraine after taking Davy to Walmart to pick up food for dinner. Lately when we go to Walmart Daddy lets him push the cart because Davy hates sitting in the cart. Well tonight it was just Mommy and Davy and the Walmart, and getting some of the stuff while having him trying to push the cart was too much so I put him in the cart for the first part, and he screamed, so finally to calm him down a bit I let him push the cart. Which helped for a bit until we had to get things and I had to stop the cart and he screamed. He pretty much screamed almost the entire time we were there because I wouldn't let him push the shopping cart as much or as fast as he wanted to and when he screamed too much about that I picked him up and he screamed some more. We ate dinner over at Kevin's work with him and had family dinner at the data center, which also helped to calm the savage Davy. Davy loves to go see Daddy at his work. He wasn't too happy to leave though, but he finally quieted down on the way home and began counting after awhile. Once we got home he calmed down and bed time was super easy compared to Walmart. Don't know how often we will be going to Walmart without Daddy.

Fire = Hot

Today Davy learned that the fire on the stove is hot. We were over visiting my parents tonight, planning on carving pumpkins. My mom was making soup and Davy was wandering around their kitchen being cute. I had been keeping an eye on him to make sure that if he got too close to the stove that I could yell at him to get away from it. Well, as accidents with kids seem to happen, Davy just walked up and stuck his hand in the fire. My mom was thankfully standing right there and pulled his hand out right away. We immediately filled a sink with cold water and ice cubes and let him play in it for about 15 minutes and then after a 5 minute break let him go back in and play another 15 minutes or so in the cold water again. He has little blisters on his fingers, and I gave him some children's Tylenol. He was a little fussy over his hands tonight, but otherwise played like normal and was his normal self. I ended up calling his doctor to make sure that I didn't need to bring him in, but after talking with the nurse about how it looked and how he was acting, she said he should be fine being treated at home and gave me some advice on how to take care of him. It broke my heart seeing him cry when he first got burned, but I am glad that he should be ok. And I am hoping that it taught him that we don't stick our hands into fire because fire is hot and can burn us. I just wish he had learned about fire without the need to get hurt.

On a lighter note, we bought Scout for Davy today. Kevin has been wanting to get him the "boy" dog since I brought Violet home from my parent's house. Finally we have him, there are some differences from Violet, as the Violet we have is an older version of the toy. But all in all, Scout is basically the same toy as Violet. I put them both on the couch to see which one Davy would go for, turns out he likes having both dogs with him. Maybe he feels like he is in the videos he watches and has both his friends to come play with him. I have them programmed so that Violet calls Davy "David" and Scout calls him "Davy". The only thing I have noticed so far is that Violet's paws are easier to push, and Scout's are more difficult. Oh well, maybe they will get easier over time.

Halloween

Today was Halloween! And Davy had a full day. It started around noon, we went over to Nana and Grandpa's house where we met up with Davy's cousin's Sydney and Payton. We had a Halloween themed lunch with bat wings and goblin snot (tortilla chips and guac), sloppy joes (I can't remember what my parent's called them) and lots of cute treats. Then Nana played some Halloween games with Davy and Sydney, Payton watched but was too young to participate yet (next year), she told them a story where they had to feel things in buckets during parts of the story, and had them play pumpkin buckets (like bozo buckets but with pumpkins). Then we all went down town and trick or treated at the local businesses and at the nursing home. After that we went back to Nana and Grandpa's and had a Halloween themed dinner, with Ogre toes (fingerling potatos), Witches Brew (punch), Zombie fingers (cocktail sausages in sauce), and Halloweenies (hot dogs rolled up into croissants to look like mummies). After dinner we all went trick or treating around the neighborhood. Davy ran with Daddy from door to door and was able to hit quite a few houses that way. Halfway through he ran out of gas, and thankfully Mommy brought a stroller so he relaxed in the stroller while Mommy and Daddy took him to the remaining houses on our route. We put him to bed an hour early and he pretty much fell right to sleep without a peep. Below are some pictures of him in his fox costume, and a picture of me in the pregnant skeleton costume I made for myself.

Word Count

This morning Kevin asked me, "How many words does Davy know now?" So I did a count. Counting the original 10 words I mentioned before as well as the new words he has picked up which come to a total of 18 (this is including the numbers he knows), then if we include the letters as words (because they are) we come to a rough total of 54 words. I am sure there are some I have missed, but that is pretty good. Especially since it was back in August that he only knew 10 words. This is the time during which he will begin to add words quickly and it is amazing to see how many he adds to his vocabulary daily. It is exciting watching my little boy grow up, even though at times I would like him to slow down just a bit.

Reading

As I have mentioned before I have had a goal of teaching my children to read by/during the age of 2. As I have been mentioning lately Davy has been blowing my mind with how fast he has learned his letters and how good he is doing with it all. Well today we passed another milestone. Lately when we are going to bed Davy and I have a part of the routine that I do to avoid a tantrum. Davy LOVES water, he loves brushing his teeth because he gets to play with water, so when tooth brushing is done he generally throws a fit, to diffuse this tantrum I have him help me turn the light off. Lately he has been saying On when we get to the switch (which has a tiny "on" written on the switch) and he says Off when he points to the fan switch that has a tiny "off" written on it when in the off position. So today, on a whim, I had Kevin write the words "On" and "Off" on Davy's magnadoodle and sure enough Davy said on when he saw the word on and off when he saw the word off. Now keep in mind that these are not words we have been practicing with him, we have practiced "Wow" and "Mom" and "Yay" and "Yeah" but not On or Off, and yet these are the first words he has learned to read. Though it is only two words now it still marks a milestone, Davy has learned to read at 21 months, a full three months before turning two.

It is kind of crazy to me, my mom (who I tend to think of as a SuperMom) got me reading at age 2, and here Kevin and I have beat that with helping Davy learn to read when he was still 1 year old. Craziness, pure craziness!!

Violet

Leap Frog videos are the shows that have taken over the well worn spot from Go Diego Go as Davy's favorite shows. Leap Frog videos are educational videos that the company Leap Frog has put out for kids. Davy's favorite one is Phonics Farm, but he also likes many of the others. Though I try to cut down on how much TV he watches each day I don't mind the fact that he has been learning good stuff from these shows. Phonics Farm for example goes through the ABCs and what sounds they make. I do think that Davy has learned most of his letters from us, but I also will agree to the fact that he has probably had them solidified in his head due to Phonics Farm. And Numbers Ahoy has been helping him pick up his numbers as well. He doesn't know his letters or number in order yet, but he now knows all his letters as well as 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8 and 9. We are still working on 1, 7 and 10.

Anyway, one of the characters from Phonics Farm is a purple dog named Violet. My parents just happened to have a Violet stuffed animal that they had found at a thrift store. With her batteries in Violet sings, and interacts with Davy, plus by downloading a simple program and plugging Violet into the computer I was able to get her to say Davy's name (David). We brought Violet home tonight with us after visiting my parents and Davy took her to all his favorite toys and showed her the numbers and letters on them (his favorite things right now). When it came time for bed he took Violet with him to brush his teeth and then, ended up playing with the water for only a short amount of time before leaving the bathroom on his own to find Violet (this has never happened before, he LOVES the water). Then when it came time for bed he played with Violet during his diaper change and was not interested in reading a book. I put him to bed with a star and with Violet, sang him his song, turned off the light and closed the door and didn't hear a peep from him. Wow! I know eventually Violet will get old and the new fun of her will wear off, but for now it has been pretty fun to watch Davy with her.

Glucose and Nightmares

I finally got back the results for my 3 hour glucose test. And I passed it!! I have been a good bit nervous about it this pregnancy that I would not pass it and that I would have gestational diabetes, but the results came back normal. I was a worried after I didn't pass my 1 hour test. Thankfully this means that I can eat pie this Thanksgiving, which I have been looking forward to for quite a few weeks now. Yay for pie!!

On another note, Davy seems to be having nightmares lately. Last night he woke up screaming and started crying. Kevin went in and rocked him for a bit and then changed his diaper which brought on another crying fit. So I went in and rocked him for a little bit and then put him to bed. While we were rocking the dogs came in to say Hi, which Davy seemed to like as he kind of roused himself and petted both dogs. Thankfully after I put him back in his bed he pretty much went back to sleep after babbling to himself for a little bit.

Letters and Words

So I know we have entered the time where Davy's word list starts to grow drastically. But it still surprises me  at how fast he is learning things. He now knows the majority of his letters.
Letters he knows: A B C D E F H I K L M N O P Q R S T U W X Z
Letters he still has trouble with: G J V Y
Four letters, that is really saying something! I am SO blown away by how fast Davy has learned his letters, every day it seems like letters that were difficult for him he suddenly knows. And he is learning lowercase as well. And numbers are next, he already knows 2 and 9. He is learning names for things and picking up new words every day. Today he said turtle, as well as other things. We went and visited my sister and her family to celebrate her husband's birthday. While we were there Davy's cousin Sydney was telling Davy to say stuff and he was responding to her. I don't know that he said everything she said to say, but he was saying stuff nonetheless.

He now says Sun (pronounced Nun), Star, Nose, Doggy, as well as many others that I can't keep track of at this point. It doesn't seem like all that long ago that he only knew about 12 words and now he knows a bunch. I am excited to see what he learns next and to see how fast he learns everything. I will admit that I did have a goal of teaching him to read before age three, I never thought though that he would know almost all his letters before he even turned two. Though I do work with him quite a bit on his letters I will admit that a good part of where he has learned most of what he knows is from Kevin. Kevin works with him quite a lot and has been a big driving force behind many of the letters that he has been struggling with. I still remember, Davy didn't even know B and then one day there he was saying "Buh, buh B" and I knew it was all Kevin's doing. It is great having a husband who works with me to teach our son things.