Zip Zip Zippers

Davy has recently (as in within the last few months or so) figured out how to work zippers. He loves to use his new found knowledge on things like his jacket, toy containers that are closed with zippers, and his jammies. This has led to some of the more numerous of his toy messes, as well as his tendency to come out of his room in the morning without his jammies on. Today the kids were playing happily in the other room and I decided to check on them. I called both their names, Davy came up happily and said, "Hi Mama!" Evangeline giggled happily every time I said her name and eventually came over, as she rounded the corner I noticed that she was naked except for her diaper. "Someone" had helped her unzip her jammies and take them off. It is fun to see how "helpful" Davy can be when it comes to his sister.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Costume time!

So this year I have been wracking my brain as to what to make for Davy's Halloween costume. Last year as some may remember he was a Viking, complete with horned hat and beard. This year I was really trying to figure out what to make him. At first I thought maybe a jaguar, since he likes Diego, but my plan was to make it out of a sweat suit, but I couldn't find any sweat suits in his size that were the color I needed. So I thought that maybe I could make him a dinosaur costume out of a sweat suit, because surely I could find a green sweat suit. Nope, that was a no go too. As I was looking around the internet for some ideas, I came across a cute pattern for making a fox costume. Though I am an amateur sewer at best, having just started sewing last year I thought that this might be a hefty undertaking for me. But I was able to get it done, in just three days and less than what it would have cost to buy a pre-made costume for him. Here are some pictures of the cuteness that is a Davy fox.

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!

Holy Crazy Tantrum

Davy just threw a crazy tantrum. It all started when Kevin left for work. I told Davy to tell Daddy "Bye bye" at that point Davy ran to Kevin, threw his arms around his legs and started crying. Kevin brought him back to me and headed out the door with Davy still bawling. I tried a few things to calm him down, food, drink, TV. None of it worked, at this point Davy was laying on the ground and seemed to be bothered by the snot in his nose, so I got a nose sucker and cleaned it out which didn't help the crying. Cheerios didn't help, he would stop crying, eat a few and then begin crying again. He got happy when I opened his bedroom door, but only until he shut it and then he cried. Finally I decided, even though he had already had his nap for today that he obviously needed another, and the silence in the house tells me I was right. Which when it comes down to it is actually pretty good for me because it means I can get a nap too.