Life As We Know It
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Wednesday, October 16, 2002
The lack of recent posts doesn't mean the kids haven't been up to anything blogworthy. They've actually been up to so much, it's seemed like too much trouble to type it all up!
Let's see...they're both in Mother's Day Out this fall, Kyle 2 mornings a week and Ryan 3. It's going well. Kyle has been putting 2 words together since 19 months old (he's 21 months now), and talks up a storm. He still can't put 3 words together without tripping up, but he talks in 2-word phrases all the time. He learns several words every day. I love it that he says "Whee!" and "Oops!" and "Whoopsie!" He doesn't like being messy, and gets upset about the mess if he even drops a toy (though he's not above throwing them sometimes!). He's very affectionate, and has to say night-night to everyone, including the bunny, Pablo, before going to bed or a nap. He has started labeling our emotions...happy, sad, angry, etc., which he seems very early to do. He has started liking books a lot--hooray! And he still loves music and dancing, as well as doing motions for songs and sometimes trying to sing. He climbs a lot, runs a lot, and is just a ball of energy. He loves animals, balls, and cars, and is getting good with Legos. He also likes coloring fairly well, and adores playing outside. He can be very clingy, but is also fiercely independent and wants to do everything himself! For instance, he insists on feeding himself, getting into chairs himself, walking instead of being carried, etc. He can be very bossy ("Mama, sit!" or "Daddy, walk!") and does not easily forget what he wanted and move on...he has a longer attention span than the rest of us! ;-) He also wants desperately to use the potty, though he still can't figure out how. He does whatever he can to keep up with Ryan, and still imitates every single thing Ryan does much of the time (or other people, sometimes). If Ryan lies down on the floor, puts on a blanket, and eats crackers from a bowl, Kyle lies down and yells for a blanket ("bucky") and crackers! If Ryan coughs, Kyle coughs. Etcetera! Kyle is a little comedian! He even says "Funny!" a lot, and uses it in the proper contexts (he's really into adjectives lately...). He has always refused to say his own name, though he has no trouble identifying anyone else. He makes a joke of it. If you ask him anyone else's name, he'll say it. If you ask him his name, he'll laugh & say "No!" Or better yet, he'll say "Doggy!" He thinks it's hilarious to say his name is "Doggy." If you say, "Are you Ryan? Are you Daddy?" or even "Are you Kyle?" or "Are you a boy?" he'll say no or shake his head. But often if you ask, "Are you a doggy?" he'll say "Woof! Woof!" He played a similar game with colors. We didn't think he knew any colors, but then discovered if we would ask for a certain color Lego block, he'd give us every other color, in turn, but not the one we asked for, then giggle. He was very consistent with it. If you asked for yellow, he'd give you blue, green, & red, but if you asked for red, he'd give you blue, green, & yellow. So it seems that he does know some colors (though he also gets some mixed up, often saying "orange" or "red" for each other, for instance), and also is a practical joker! Ryan, on the other hand, seems to be identifying colors less consistently than he used to, even asking, "Is this green or red?" sometimes, or labeling a soft blue color as pink, so we think he may be red/green colorblind (as both his grandfathers are). Ryan is still amazing us with his math skills. He just told me "6 is 3 sets of 2." !! (He's just over 4 years old.) Then he took 3 stacks of 6 Legos each, put them together, & said, "I took 18 Legos to make this." I don't think he counted them individually. One of his favorite games is Lego patterns, where he makes a Lego structure and we have to make one that looks just like it. He is very into making "walls" and "rooms" around the house lately, by moving toys and furniture around to make the walls...drives us crazy, as we're always having to step over stuff or push it out of the way! He likes to play "police car" with the armchair. He has started playing in his room some (he has a new desk up there, and also some toys that are too small for Kyle to play with safely), and was playing "daycare" up there a lot for a while. Most of his games involve lots of setting up the game but little actual playing of it... He was also playing "campout" a lot recently, making a tent from a sheet and a little wooden table, and getting in it with a flashlight. He is also interested in cooking, and loves watching Zoom on PBS, to find out new ideas for fun recipes. So far, though, the only one we've actually made is "peanut butter bees." But Ryan's big thing right now is writing. He wants to practice writing nearly every day. He can write his name pretty well, and is always asking me to spell things so he can write them. For recent birthdays, he has insisted on making the cards himself and writing the messages. He still doesn't hold the pencil or crayon well, so I hope this isn't hurting him in the long run, but he loves to practice writing letters in a wipe-off alphabet book Mark got for him, and just on regular paper. He also seems close to learning to read. Lately he's asked a lot about letter sounds and has tried to sound things out, which he was never interested in before. He tries to follow along in book, and is interested in learning about phonics and spelling. Probably not coincidentally, he got eyeglasses recently. After he did poorly on the vision screening at his 4-year checkup, we were referred to a pediatric opthamologist, who determined that Ryan has severe astigmatism in both eyes. He has probably had it since birth. We never suspected a thing, and we didn't see any sudden "Aha!" reaction in him when he got the glasses, but since he got them we have gradually seen a major increase in his willingness to draw or to think about writing or reading, and his hand-eye coordination seems to be improving. Oh, he also loves making things lately with scissors and tape, but again, he spends more time experimenting with the tape and such than actually making finished products. He also enjoys dictating stories to us. Here is one from today: Once upon a time, there was a little dog named Patty that came to a doghouse and asked if there were any dogs living there, and there weren't so he came in. He ran out to get a bowl of food and he ate it all up and got spots. And he lived happily ever after. There is also an accompanying illustration, in which the dog has three ears--a third in case the first two didn't work! Ryan had his 4th birthday party in August at the Austin Children's Museum. It was fun. We made cupcakes that looked like Rolie Polie Olie, though he also insisted on an Elmo at the Beach cake! I guess the latter was worth it, since it made him happy, and Kyle still plays with the toy beach ball that came on it ("bee ball!"), almost daily! He just insisted on going upstairs to find it a few minutes ago, in fact. Ryan has a "best friend" now, a girl named Kayla, and they are so cute together. They hold hands constantly. He sees her at a weekly church class, but we definitely need to get them together more often, as they adore each other. We also went to Galveston again on vacation this year, at the end of August, and both kids had a blast. They both loved swimming a lot, and also loved Sea World and its waterpark.
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