My Thoughtful Boy

Aden (5 years)

A couple of weeks ago Daniel and the boys headed out on Saturday morning to go to the Home Depot Kids Workshop. They got two miles down the road when the van broke down. They had to wait for AAA to come tow it and since Sissy's car seat was in the van Dave had to go and retrieve them all from the side of the road. All that to say, the morning hadn't gone as planned and here we were an hour and a half later and Daniel and the boys still hadn't left for Home Depot. Aden decided at that point that he wanted to stay home. Surprisingly, Jonathan still wanted to go with Daddy. Usually he's the homebody who chooses to stay home with Mommy when Aden goes off to do this and that with Daniel. I think the fact that the Home Depot project was a race car may have pulled some weight in his decision. =) Anyway, Home Depot is about 45 minutes away and we always have toys and books in the van to keep the kids occupied on the drive. Since Daniel and Jonathan were taking the Corolla instead I ran in the house to get Jonathan a couple of books to read in the car. Just as they were getting ready to pull away Aden came running out of the house with Jonathan's favorite space shuttle, and said, "Here Boozie. You can take this." A smile spread across Jonathan's face and he said, "Thanks Aden." This simple act of kindness left such an impression on me. I'm not sure why. Maybe because it was clear that it was done simply out of a love for his brother...

Fun with Calculators

Aden (4 years, 11 months), Jonathan (3 years, 5 months), Elizabeth (16 months)
Last month when my mom was here visiting she bought the boys calculators at Walmart. They were only 50 cents each...what a deal! Well, for two weeks straight they followed us around the house with calculators in hand asking, "What number is this?" with 685,987,431 showing on the screen followed by, "And what number is this?"... 754,999,012. It was great fun. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your perspective) Lizzie got a hold of them and bit all the rubber numbers off and ate them. Yes, ATE them. I was finding red calculator buttons in her poopy diapers for a week straight! So, I'm thinking we'll re-introduce calculators when the boys have learned a little about place value and numbers (and can answer their own "what number is this?" questions) and once Elizabeth gets past the "bite, chew, and swallow everything" stage. =)

"A" is for Aden

Aden (5 years)
A couple of days before Aden's birthday we noticed that a roadside shrub had climbed a nearby pole and wire creating an "A" with it's leaves and flowers. We (my Dad, Carla, and I) got real excited and pointed it out to the kids and said something like, "Isn't that neat, Aden...the flowers grew and made and "A" just in time for your birthday! What a fun present!" (To add to the excitement, the flowers were orange...his all-time favorite color!) Note: these pictures were taken a week + after that and as you can see, the "A" is starting to grow into an "N" but when we saw it for the first time, it definitely looked like an "A"! Anyway, a few days after his birthday we drove by and Aden asked why the "A" was still there. Somewhat confused I asked him what he meant. He answered, "Well, I thought it was just there for my birthday and it's not my birthday anymore!" So the cute boy thought that it truly grew into an "A" JUST for his birthday. And then, because he's always got something cute to say, Jonathan chimes in with, "Yeah, when's it gonna be a "J"?"

Green Bananas

Jonathan (3 years)

So far neither of my boys seem particularly artistic (in the drawing, coloring, painting realm anyway) and often when they do color or paint they rush through it and sort of haphazardly approach the task. Most of their paint projects end up brown because they simply cannot resist mixing all the colors together and often their coloring pages will have something like a blue faced girl with green hair and purple arms and legs or worse yet, the entire page will be colored purple or red or orange. Now, I don't want to stifle any creativity they may be exhibiting but at the same time I think it is a good thing to force them to take their time and think a little while they are "creating". Well, they have these little alphabet coloring books and I like to sit with them and help them choose appropriate colors for the objects they are coloring. For example, a jeep. I'll let them color the jeep whatever color they want but the tires need to be black. Not pink. Not orange. Just black. Anyway, a few months ago we were working in the "B" book and we got to the picture of a banana. I said, "Now Jonathan, think about what color a banana is. Yellow, right?!" (as I hand him the yellow crayon...because of course, this was a no-brainer.) He looks at me, giggles and says, "Silly Mommy! Bananas aren't yellow! Dem are GWEEN!"

At that point I had to laugh. He was SO right! We buy our bananas at Costco and they are always super green...like a "you have to wait at least a week for them to ripen" green.

In case you can't tell just how green these bananas are I placed one of Lizzie's "banana yellow" garden gloves next to them for comparison sake!

In the end he chose light green and I have to say, his assessment and color choice was pretty accurate!

Spelling Lessons

Aden (5 years)

A couple of weeks ago I was working with Aden on spelling. We were sounding out the words/names of each of these pictures and as we'd sound it out he'd write the corresponding letters. He did a great job and did most of it correctly on his own. However, when he got to "umbrella" he wrote a "u" at the end. Makes sense...um-brel-luh...there's definitely a short "u" sound there. But I corrected him and told him that it was actually an "a". He looked at me like I was crazy! I went on to tell him that there are lots of times when English is silly and doesn't follow rules and that he needed to change it to an "a" to have it spelled correctly. He was troubled by this and said that he'd just keep it a "u" because he didn't like it with an "a" at the end. Well, I made him change it anyway but you can tell that he only half-heartedly erased the "u". Too funny!

Boys and Dolls

Aden (5 years)

Aden loves taking care of his baby. And he really does a great job of it too. He feeds her breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  He puts her down for naps, tucks her in at night, changes her diapers, and pushes her around in the stroller.
Some of my favorite related quotes:

"Mama, I put my baby down for her nap so can you be a little more quiet?" 

"My baby is almost done with her breakfast and then Lulu (Elizabeth) can use the highchair." (Never-mind that the real-live baby in the house is fussing because she's ready for some food!)

"When I'm gone will you put my baby down for a nap when you put Lulu down for her nap?" (And of course, I totally forgot...what an awful babysitter I am...and you should have seen the look of disappointment on his face when he got home and saw that his sister was sound asleep and his baby was wide awake, never having been put down for her nap!)

"I'm not a daddy, I'm a mommy!"
(in response to me telling Aden that he was "such a good Daddy")


Anyway, a couple of nights ago long after the kids had gone to bed I walked into our bedroom in search of my laundry basket and saw these two babies (one is Aden's, one is Jonathan's) tucked into their "cradle" for the night. Notice the care he took to provide a padded surface for his baby. (So THAT'S where the sofa pillows went!) He's such a sweet, tender-hearted boy and I love him so very much! He really will make a good daddy some day!

UPDATE** A few days after I posted this Aden announced that he wanted to bring his baby to preschool for show and tell. He proudly carried his baby out to the car that morning all the while I was fretting over how his classmates (the boys in particular) would respond. It turns out, ALL preschool age boys play with dolls! Ms. Connie laughed at me and said, "Are you kidding, they all (the boys included) fight over who gets to push the dollies around in the stroller!" Phew...I was preparing myself for one sad little boy upon pick-up b/c I figured he'd get teased. I'm glad to know that sweet innocence CAN still be found among 4 and 5-year olds!

A Glimpse of My Goose

Jonathan (3 years, 5 months)

Me: "Boozie, look at you. You are the silliest boy on the planet!"

Jonathan: "Yeah, heh, I'm going on vacation." (oblivious to his clothing situation and thinking that I am commenting on his carrying the suitcase around)

Me: "No honey, look at your pants!"

Jonathan: "What's wrong with my pants?"
Me: "Well, they are inside out, backwards, and twisted. Do you want some help?"

Jonathan: "No. I'm OK."

Me: "No, you need to fix them. You look very silly...see the tags sticking out?

Jonathan: "No, YOU are silly Mama." (giggle, giggle)

Jonathan: (he looks down and pauses for a moment, and realizing the challenge before him, looks up and says) "Um, Mama, can you help me?"