Practicing with the Spoon

Jonathan's Lobster Robot

Here's the lobster robot. Depending on the claw placement, he says it can turn into a crab, earwig, or...

scorpion.

Zoom!

Shoes

Although Grace had a wonderfully content morning today, I promised to post about something other than my kids' moods today, so here goes!

Thank you to those who have been asking how I'm feeling.  I'm almost 23 weeks along and thankful to be feeling very good (as well as feeling lots of kicks.)  I feel much better than I did when Grace was on the way, so I'm very thankful for that, too.  With her at this point in my pregnancy, I was feeling out of breath all the time and having headaches, too.  Not so this time!

My trouble spot this time is my feet and legs.  Whether it's because I'm older now, I don't know.  I could blame my trouble on the amount of weight I've gained or the miles I'm walking to and from school, but my feet and legs were hurting before the pounds added up this high and before school started.  So, I realized that if I wanted to keep my feet from hurting during the day and my legs from waking me up in the middle of the night, I was going to have to break down and buy some new athletic shoes.  With feet this size, I can't just run down to the nearest store and buy whatever kind I feel like.  But, with some help from my hubby, I did find some without searching too hard.  Here they are.

After wearing them on school dropoff/pickup walks, my feet felt much better.  And after wearing them during the day, including in the house, my legs felt much better, too.  Yes, friends, I am violating our house habit of "no shoes in the house."  (I clean them off with a wet cloth when I come in.  So worth it.)  I wasn't planning on it, but after my legs woke me up again last night, Jeff suggested wearing shoes during the day, and it was a good idea. I look goofy wearing these shoes with just about everything, but I feel so much better that it doesn't matter.  Not that I concern myself too much with looking goofy anyway.  What's better than making my husband grin in the morning because I'm wearing a big bathrobe with tennis shoes when he gets up?  :)

I Spoke Too Soon, of Course...

Well, I shouldn't have mentioned that Grace was becoming more content, because she has been anything but content all morning...until we got out of the house, and then she was OK.  Next time I'll post about something more reliable than the moods of my children.  :)

About Grace

One side benefit I'd hoped for and maybe expected, with Jonathan going to kindergarten, is that Grace might start to talk a little more.  During the summer, when Jonathan was at Vacation Bible School for just five mornings, her babbling sounds got a lot more varied, which I loved.  I started hoping for the same thing for this fall.

After just a few days of kindergarten, I have noticed a big difference in the sound of her babbling.  She doesn't have a lot of words yet, but it's awfully cute.  Backing up a bit, I should note that we have done a lot more sign language with Grace than we did with Jonathan, and it has worked great for both kids.  (I have had some people ask whether this delays their language development, but research has shown that it actually enhances it.)  I thought I'd make a list of the signs she's using right now, for you faraway relatives who may not see her during this stage.  She would know more signs if I knew more myself and took the time to teach more to her, and also if our library carried the Signing Time video series.  Anyway, here's what she signs, some days better than others:

bear
dog
bird
fish
fan
light
no
baby
hurt
sorry
sleepy
eat
drink
more
all done
please
thank you
cracker
cheese
fruit
plane
car
phone
bath
silly

Back to the babbling:  she has started trying to say what we say now and then, which I love.  I love the trying-to-talk stage.  This weekend she learned "yay," "yeah," "moo," and "neigh."  Very simple, but this mommy is happy.

For the last few weeks (months?) Grace has been fussy in the mornings for no discernible reason.  She has been fine out and about, but not at home.  It hasn't seemed to matter what we're doing...she's just not content.  Finally, at the end of last week, she had a content morning (compared to before, anyway!) and it was so nice to be able to enjoy time with her with less complaining on her part.  Between the new babbling and less wailing noises, my time with Grace is getting a lot more fun.  We're soaking in the times that we have together, just the two of us, between now and December.

Breakfast Companions

Our table is right by the sliding-glass door to the back yard, and the kids love to watch whatever creatures make our yard their home.

We have seen a lot of tiger swallowtail butterflies lately.

We see a hummingbird to two on most days, too, but they are really hard to catch on camera. I barely zoomed in on this one fast enough to catch her. They love our Rose of Sharon trees for breakfast, and I think they live in redwoods.

Before Boarding the Ark...

The animals need some kisses. Grace kisses just about everything and everyone these days.

And, they need their fur to be combed.

More combing.

Time to rest!

For the Birds

The other day after school, Jonathan decided that it was very important to build some birds.

These are the first two, and since we have two Lego strings, the first two "fly." So they also needed hinged wings, of course.

Here's the parrot.

Here's the cardinal.

Here's the owl. Since we were out of strings, Jonathan used a helicopter part to help the owl perch on the cabinet handle. I love watching what comes from his imagination!

We Have a Kindergartener!

The first day of school for our little man. Can you believe it? Here he is, ready to walk to school.

Grace and I have been walking him to and from school every day, and Jeff was able to join us on the walk to school the first day. It's usually hard to get a really good smiling picture of Jonathan, so this smile tells you how excited he is to start kindergarten.

We ran into a neighbor kindergarten buddy on the way to school. You can see they're both jumping out of their skin.

I love this picture of my two favorite guys right before we dropped Jonathan off.

Of course, he did great, no problem saying goodbye, no anxiety that I know about, and he comes home with fun stories and knows a few more new kids each day. I'm the one who's having trouble adjusting. It's not that I'm weepy...I'm just having trouble resigning myself to the fact that I am, once again, subject to the school calendar and clock each day. I will get used to it because I know it's a good thing. But, it's making me tired so far. I am working on establishing new routines and norms for all of us, and we're getting the hang of it. It gives Grace and me some time to ourselves, and we are taking advantage of it. But, we're always glad to see Jonathan after school.

Speaking of new norms, here's Jonathan doing some of his homework.

He has a reading folder that he brings to and from class each day. He gets to choose a book from his teacher's shelf to bring home, and if he remembers to bring it back the next morning, he gets to choose a new book to borrow. As soon as we get home, I put Grace down for a nap and we read together. We both really love that individual time.

Jonathan tells us that one of the best things about kindergarten is learning how to dribble a basketball.

Overall, I'd say that school is off to a great start.