This and That

The boys and I are sitting at the breakfast table. Julia is over on the floor playing with this toys that has a steering wheel and makes a lot of car sounds like engine revving, tires squealing, etc. A minute ago she was going to town on that toy and it was really funny. We were all laughing at the noises until I made a little joke. I said, "Nobody let her behind the wheel of a real car! She would be one dangerous driver!" The boys stopped laughing and just looked at me with solemn expressions. They just don't GET jokes! I told them I was just kidding and then they burst out laughing. So funny how sarcasm is lost on kids!

Miss Julia has made a turn for the better on her sleeping. In the last week I think she has gone from 6 or 7pm till I feed her at 4 or 5 (and then back to sleep till 7) or has slept straight through till 6:30 or 7. I am amazed and really surprised that she's done this on her own. Who knows if it will last. She is crawling all over the place and is still SOO attached to me. Unless I have *just* put her down to play and she's in a good mood, I can't walk past her without picking her up or she'll cry like her heart is breaking. And if she's sleepy, forget anyone else holding her...guess she only wants Mommy to experience her crankiness!

Gray has neared the end of his one month of hand-taping and is doing well I think. He's gotten a sticker for almost every nap and nighttime and the other day I let him pick out a car for his end of the month prize, only I'm making him work hard for it at the end. Yesterday he put his shoe in his mouth (happens all the time), ate the strap on my purse, and licked the shopping cart, so each time I told him he had to take a sticker off his calendar. I think since ending the thumb sucking, he is doing even more of putting yuck stuff in his mouth, so trying to end that too. So now he has to fill in the missing spaces on his calendar, which may take awhile at the rate he's going. And oh my has he gotten sassy! He thinks he knows it ALL! He regularly has arguments with me about things like how you say volleyball ("No Mommy, you're wrong! You say bolley ball"), what a yellow light means ("No Mommy, yellow does not mean get ready to stop, it means slow down. I know what it means!"), etc. And throwing fits when he doesn't want to do something has resurfaced too. I think for Joshua those came in waves till he was 4, so hopefully just 6 more months of that! He had a fit when we got to church last week and then when it was time to go, he sat down on the floor and pitched one then too. Fun stuff! He's been thinking about Jesus a lot though and I love his little comments like, "Daddy, even if you were in a fire, Jesus could save you...he could!" and "Joshua, Jesus wants you to do your best, even on a puzzle." and "Mommy, when it's dark I don't have to be afraid because Jesus will watch out for me." The other day in "preschool", I thought I try teaching him to write his name, and then I regretted that choice as soon as I started. He seemed pretty hopelessly unready and i was just about to quit (as opposed to continue and have to pull my hair out!), when he suddenly wrote a perfect G! Now he loves to write G everywhere and can write it just as well as Joshua. Maybe teaching him isn't going to be as tough as I thought. I think he just learns differently than Joshua.

Speaking of Joshua, he has been really into practicing his letters and he does really well with writing. The progress he has made without my help has made me want to take things casually with school. He is still such a little engineer and builds and creates stuff all the time. Lately he has been super into the marble racing set and he and Matt spent an intense naptime conducting a marble tournament. Joshua is so easy to be with as long as Gray isn't around and he will help us do whatever we're doing or play games with us or play with Julia, which he does a lot and is really sweet. I can see him learning a lot of life lessons, but not being able to quite apply them yet. It's nice to know he's listening to me and understanding though. He loves hanging out with Matt now and gone are the days when he refuses to leave my side.

Last thing- we're continuing to add new clients in the gym every week, thank the Lord! Matt counted about 31 people that come work out, if you count non-payers like me. We only had about 6 or 7 before the move, so things are really picking up. We are so thankful! Well I better go take care of the kids and house now. Have a good Wednesday!