Whew! These last weeks of summer have been jam-packed with fun adventures, amazing conversations and silly shenanigans. There have literally been dozens of times where I thought to myself, "Hey I need to write this down, it would make fantastic blog material!" I even accomplished the actual act of documenting the moment on paper for future posterity on a few occasions ... ahem ... but do not ask me where in the world those notes are because I have no idea. When my brain fails me like this, I usually fall back on the bazillion photos I have taken of our escapades. But alas, I find no help there either. We've been so busy just
doing stuff I've apparently slacked on my photodocumenting (with the exception of a super cute video of the boys having a dance party to Metallica's "Master of Puppets" which I hesitate to post on the web because the dance party occured right after bathtime and they are in just their undies. Also, I fully realize this is not really the most appropriate music for 3 and 4 year olds, but we were just cruising the radio dial and this came on and the boys flipped! So, there goes my mother-of-the-year award again. Regardless, the boys have some serious dance skills and it was super silly fun for all of us = )
Okay, so this might end up pretty random, but here's a few things that have just popped into my head ...
Girlfriends - A week or so ago, I found out from one of the pre-school teachers that a little girl has a serious crush on Riley. She always wants to sit by him during meal and snack times, stand by him when they line up, and be in his assigned "center" when doing projects. Now this in itself is nothing new, he's a bit of a chic magnet. However, this is the first time Riley has taken a shining right back to a little filly. Are you kidding me? He's only 4! Anyhow, he's become pretty fond of this raven-haired cutie with huge sea green eyes. The other day as we were leaving school he stopped to chat with her while she was picking up her little brother in the infant classroom. Their conversation consisted mostly of some "Nana nana boo boo's" and "You can't catch me's" followed by some "Oh yes I can's" and "I'm gonna getcha's" and well, you get the picture. When I advised Riley it
really was time to go, he looked over and informed me in a no-nonsense tone, "Mom. Just a minute. I am
trying to have a conversation with Elaina." Oh boy~!
Girlfriends cont. - So, on our way home after this I was quizzing Riley a little about his girlfriend and in typical guy fashion he blew it off as nothing. However, Gage did not want to be left out of the conversaton and started to tell me about
his girlfriend, Sally Mandy. "Who's that?" I ask, since we know no one named Sally Mandy. He explained it's the girl with the crazy red hair, black eyes and striped socks. "Oh, you mean Raggedy Ann?" "Yes! But I call her Sally Mandy. She is my girlfriend. She is a mommy and I am a daddy. We have 2 babies, a girl and a boy. The girl is Sally Candy because she likes to eat all of the candy at Halloween-time. The boy's name is Coco Loco Choco." Aaaand, then the story went on from there for like 20 minutes or so. Gage is a bit of a storyteller (that's a HUGE understatement by the way!) Anyhow, to this day, Sally Mandy is still his girlfriend and we are treated to stories about their little pretend family fairly regularly. That Coco Loco is a crazy character = )~
Letters and Words - Riley is really excelling in his letter and word recognition and his handwriting skills are improving by leaps and bounds. It is truly amazing to me how much these kiddos learn at such a young age now. Much of what they do now I am sure back in my day we did not even attempt until at least first grade. Anyhow, he super duper loves his dry-erase pre-school books that he gets to practice on at home. This last weekend he was drawing lines matching small letters to capital letters, completing mazes by following the letters in order, and practicing his letter formation. Upon completing each of the skill sets he would proudly proclaim, "Wow, look at this! I'm really great at writing!" We cheered him on 100%. There will be plenty of time for modesty later on, for now we are all about encouragement = ) On this same line, each day at school the children sign in their own name. It is so fun to see how different Riley's name looks from when he first started. He has also taken to singing his name while he writes it in kind of a DA DA DaDaDa melody ... R - I - LEY. While we were signing in on Monday, the teacher remarked how each of the student's now also sings the spelling of his name. I assumed that meant they sang their own names, but no, she clarified that Riley's little song has caught on and each of the students sings Riley's name. That just cracked me up. Love it!
Potty Training - I think we have finally reached the end. After 4 1/2 long years, no more Pull-Ups or diapers at this house. Hooray! I don't want to jinx it, but Gage is really doing great. He's been fully potty-trained for quite a while during the day, but still needed Pull-Ups at night time. He is going on 6 or 7 days straight with no Pull-Ups at night and has had only one accident. Yay! Finally! We are all super happy about this and Gage is feeling pretty proud of himself, as well he should be = )
Chauvinism - What? Exactly. So, any of you who know me well know that I do not put up with any kind of chauvinistic macho attitude bs. No how, no way. So, imagine my horror when the other day we are at a friend's home and my sweet little Gage starts telling this little girl (who was only 2 and couldn't verbally defend herself yet) that she could not play in the swingset clubhouse with the boys because it was not for girls, she should go play with the dolls. Oh, no no no no NO little buddy. That will not fly! So, I took him aside and we had a little discussion about being respectful and that girls can do anything that boys can. From there I gave him some examples of things that I, mommy, a girl, can do that might be considered boy things such as throwing a football, playing with army men, climbing trees, etc. To which Gage's only reply was, "But, mom, you're not a
real girl. You're just my mom." And then he was off. I'm not sure what to make of that comment and I'm not sure I want to follow up on that just yet. You just never know what those darling kiddos will say!
Well, that's it for now. Looking forward to what the rest of this week will bring. I promise, next time there will be pictures = )
