April 30, 2014

It's been so long since I've posted, I'll never be able to reflect all the wonderful things the kids have done since last summer.

Ben is so smart, almost too smart for me.  I find it so amazing and entertaining to hear him expanding his vocabulary.  I can tell that he is thinking of ways to use new words he's learned, either from his Pre-K teachers or from the tv.  Off hand, I can remember him using the words imagination and defense.  He says something like "oh, I thought the water was blue, but it was just my imagination".  Two nights ago, he said "I tooted on Daddy, that was a good defense, right?....just like a skunk."  For a while, he's been using the word "misspoke".  When he says something incorrectly, he'll then say "I mispoke".  That is one that I taught him....because he holds me to everything I say so literally.  I love to hear him sharing all of the things he is learning.  On random mornings on the way to school, he'll make sure I know that it is nighttime in China.

Rebecca is very funny to me too.  Sometimes, she just won't stop talking....very different from the little girl of last winter who went to the speech therapist to assess her speech delay.  She'll say, after I've told her to be quiet, "Mommy, I have a question."  When we go to the grocery store, just she and I together, she will talk the whole way up and down the aisles!  This past weekend, she and I went together (because Ben was on punishment and home with Daddy).  She chose to ride in the cart with the car attached to the front, not surprisingly.    Then, throughout the produce section, she had to get in and out of the car at every stop to select our fruit and vegetiables, or at least bag them and put them in the cart (which I had to pick her up to do).  Thankfully, she got more satisfied just staying put for the last half of the trip.  She did point out that we needed yogurt, and picked up a 6 pack of smoothies for us.

Becca loves to write.  She doesn't really make any letters yet, so it's mostly scribble.  But she holds the pen very well, always has from the first time she picked one up.  She likes to doodle on the white board and on paper, and she especially likes to get a pad of paper, preferrable spiral bound, and pretend to be a waitress.  She askes "what do you like" or "what do you order".  Sometimes, she tells me she's out of whatever it is I might ask for.  She also loves playing with the kitchen and all the play food we have....especially as she's filling orders from the restaurant.  A few times, she has used her cart with two back wheels to transport plates of real food from the kitchen to the morning room to put on the table...thankfully no broken dishes yet!  I'm hoping this continues and I'll have a really good helper in the kitchen someday.  Since Christmas, when Becca received several dolls from a combination of Santa and aunt Glenda, Becca has enjoyed pushing the stroller - both inside and at least once she's taken it outside...pretending to be taking her baby for a walk.  Becca is a great pretender...she also likes to pretend she's a grown up and going to work, sometimes wearing a pair of my shoes.  One really funny evening when she had some jogging-like shorts on, she said she was going jogging and started running laps in the house through the kitchen, foyer, dining and living rooms...our perfect circle for running around and around.

Ben still likes playing with his superheroes.  He's really started liking Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles though too.  He's enjoyed one of the movies he got from Aunt Lacie for Christmas along with the pajamas she gave him.  It helps that he took a Tae Kwon Do class through Primrose this winter.  He will demonstrate various poses in the evening, occasionally, and pretend to be a ninja.  One night, he got very elaborate with it and asked me to tie a black sash around his forehead.  That, along with a sword on his back, made him look the part.  He ran around on the sectional making what he thinks are Ninja poses.

Ben and Becca both probably watch too much tv.  They regularly enjoy some show in the morning on the iPad at the table, and fight just a little about whose turn it is to pick the show.  It was such a cold and wet winter, that we were inside alot the last few months.  Ben has started liking Scooby Doo cartoons (which we now record), Wild Kratts (he's liked for a while), and he's just started watching some Looney Toons on Cartoon Network.  Becca still likes Dora the Explorer and then she'll go through phases where she watches the same type of show exclusively...Daniel Tiger was her exclusive favorite for a few weeks, and then she lost interest.  Either before or after that, it was Tro-Tro.  She dabbled a little in Strawberry Shortcake and has watched some Care Bears too.  They both like Peppa Pig.

Something I think is absolutely hilarious is how Ben will listen intently to commercials on the tv, and want to do exactly what the commercial says.  If a show is being advertised, he'll let me know that we need to be around at "8/7 Central"...or he'll ask me on a Saturday if it's a weekday, because the show comes on every weekday.  One I thought was especially funny is when he said he wanted to "bring our home to life"....perhaps that was something her heard on HGTV.

August 27, 2013

We made a trip to the farm in July with Renee and her kids - Ben and Kelly both showed they could jump off of the diving board and swim by themselves to the ladder...initially Glenda there to catch them and help them begin swimming but eventually they were both doing it by themselves

Ben went up to Level 5 in July, and showed that he could swim almost the length of the pool by himself bobbing his head in and out of the water.  He really turned a corner becoming able to tread water by himself and swim by himself.

Becca is a master imitator - imitating Ben and me mostly.  Becca has been saying "it's too sunny."

Ben and Becca have also started jumping on Ben's bed at bedtime.