Daley Ponderings

6/18 - Talking at the dinner table about what something tasted like.  Mommy: "My tongue said [it was yummy]."  Jonathan:"My tongue said, too." Noah: "My tongue said, one!"

6/25 - Fire safety lesson.  We learned about Stop, Drop, and Roll.  What a fun thing to teach!  We've also been discussing what to do if there's a house fire and what to say if you have to call 911.  Jonathan knows Daddy's cell phone number and our street address.  He also can recall our home number if he gives it some thought, but Daddy's cell comes quickly to mind.

6/28 - Noah's third birthday!  Since it was on a Sunday, the church sang to him, which was more embarrassing to him than I would have guessed.  When Paul asked him how old he was, he said, "one."  But after some coaching throughout the day, he now says, "'ee!"  The Weavers came over for chips and salsa (Noah's requested birthday dinner) and cake and ice cream.  There was lots of crazy fun, including a rubber band fight, swinging, and a football game in the backyard.  After that, Noah had a couple of phone calls but was falling asleep while talking to Grandma and Dad-o, so he took a nap.  Jonathan woke him up for dinner but he was too sleepy to eat.  After that, he opened presents, which was quite fun and woke him up thoroughly.  Pictures will come sometime.  We measured Noah on the height chart (a birthday tradition here) and he is just over 40" tall, which is only an inch shorter than Jonathan was at four years.

6/28 - Sometime in the evening, when the boys were playing with the presents and Mommy was cleaning up, I noticed Faith sitting up on the corner of the coffee table.  After the suspects were questioned, it was determined that Faith had crawled up there herself with the help of a box the presents had been in.

6/29 - Jonathan and Noah were playing Star Wars.  Jonathan said, "I'm Obi Wan."  Noah said, "Me not Obi Wan, me Obi Three!"

We are the happy recipients of two used swingsets - one from a family at church and one from the next door neighbors.  It is loads of fun and we're planning on building monkey bars between the two sets.

Recently, when I was reading one of our storybooks about Noah and the flood, our Noah asked me, "Why God tell me make ark?"

6/6 - Jonathan came up to me and said, "Four is exactly halfway between nine and negative one."  He had figured this out from an addition facts table he had posted on our fridge, looking at the column headers and pretending that the plus sign in the corner stood for -1.

Jonathan is now helping me with the laundry, and it is wonderful.  I showed him what settings he should use, which he marked with stickers.  Now when I ask him he will bring down the hamper and do all the steps on his own.  He can also do the transfer to the dryer, but he prefers not to sort and fold afterwards.  Fine by me at this point!  It is amazing to me how nice it is to have this help.  Mostly because I am not usually bothered by laundry, except that it is one more thing on the todo list.

Whew! Enjoy this because I bet you'll have to wait a while for more posts.

After we hear others talking about ticks everywhere, we hadn't seen any at all in our yard.  And then Jonathan gets Lyme Disease.  He had a fever and slept all day for two days, and then he was better so we didn't think anything of it.  A few days later, he gets this red rash on his cheek, rather like a sunburn.  But it didn't hurt or itch, so I didn't do anything besides keep an eye on it.  Then last Saturday, he started getting the bulls-eye rashes showing up on his wrist, arm, and leg.  By Sunday several more had appeared.  Talking to a friend about it linked the previous fever to the rashes. Jon went over every bit of Jonathan's body with a magnifying glass, but the culprit had left.  (I'm itching all over just typing this.) I called the doctor's office the minute they opened Monday morning, and got an appointment for just as soon as we could get there. (More)

We now have a dishwasher in our kitchen, which Jon installed himself (running new electric, supply, and drain.) Yeah!

There is also a ceiling fan/light fixture in our bedroom to replace the bare bulb fixture.   Yeah!

5/13 - N count to 10

5/13 - Jonathan's practical math problem that he solved himself: If you have a foam octopus with 5 legs, how many do you have to cut in half to get eight legs for your octopus?

5/18 - Jonathan can do multiplication by: x2, x10, x1

5/23 - Faith will now sometimes crawl to the bathroom when she needs to go.

5/24 - Jonathan can pump himself on a swing, from still to high.

5/29 - I saw a hummingbird at the feeder!

Noah likes to play "Robo-bot" and when he does, he always has a wire sticking out of his back that shoots water, and lasers on his arms.

5/30 - Jonathan was complimenting me on the yummy lunch I made, and included the line, "Good old Mommy."  Noah retorted, "not old..." Then ensued a discussion of age and who I was older than and younger than.  Somehow this turned into relationships and fathers-in-law.  Jonathan discovered that he does not have a father-in-law, though his first guess was Papa.  Then he asked who great-grandpa Wightman's father-in-law was.  I remembered his last name, but not his first name, so I got out Mom's Honor Enough book for that branch of the family and looked it up.  Then Jonathan wanted to know the name of Whitney Porter's father-in-law, and his, and his, as far as I could.  There you go, Grandma, a budding geneaologist!

5/4 - Jonathan read Hop On Pop to us.  It took two sessions because it is a pretty long book.  It was fun for me because I know that was one of the first books I read out loud to my parents.

5/8 - Kids only know what they're exposed to.  When Noah saw the TV in our hotel room, he said, "Little movie screen!"

That was fun for them, staying in a hotel room.  We were there two nights for the homeschool conference.  We got a lot of info that we're still processing.  I'm not sure how much I'll be posting on that, since I try to post minimally anyway.

5/10 - Noah can count to seven.

Faith is starting to pull up to standing on furniture.  This now makes most of the coffee table no longer safe for lego bases, so we'll have to figure out something else.

4/10 - Noah comes up to me, winking, and says, "Mommy, me one eye!"  It was hilarious.  (I couldn't wink until first grade.)

4/11 - Guess which story this is, by Noah: "Let me in.  No, no, no.  Blow up house!"

4/20 - What does Noah say when the smoke detector goes off?  "Timer!"

Faith has a neat pincer grasp and feeds herself finger food easily.

4/14 - Faith is starting to pull herself up onto furniture.  The problem is, she can't get back down without falling.

I have moved her on to 12-month size clothes, and her legs still stick out.  She's going to be tall!

Jonathan has been reading more and more.  He's gotten some Step Into Reading: Step 1 books from Grandma and borrowed some from a friend, and he loves it!  4/17 - He called to me from the other room, "What's that crazy word again?  The one with the 'k'? Right. 'Now he knows...'."  I hadn't realized before watching Jonathan read this that a "silent k" turns the present into information.

We borrowed WALL-E from a friend a few weeks ago, and the boys love playing "WALL-E and Eva".  Today, Jonathan made a WALL-E costume out of a cardboard box without any help.  He made a cube of trash out of Duplos, and asked me to make a little paper cockroach for him. He can fold himself all up in it, but then his arms and head come out of the sides and top when he's ready to work again.  There's a little flap in the front for his trash compactor.  He labeled it with his warning light and power meter, and a nice WALL-E on the flap.  Look for pictures and video on the pictures page later.

3/29 - Jonathan was upstairs quietly playing for a very long time.  When he finally came down, he showed us what he had been working on the whole time.  It was a completely filled in color-by-number page.  He read the colors all by himself to see which one went with which number.  Sometimes he helped himself with a clue like "I figured b-l-u-e had to say blue, because 1 was the sky."  He also did a very neat job of coloring within the lines.  He had not been very good at it in the past, but I had never pushed the issue.  I think it was because he didn't really care, and that was one reason I hadn't pushed it. (More)

3/6 - Jonathan beat Heather in chess, fair and square!

3/18 - Noah said, "I love you" for the first time.  It was to Faith.  Later that day, he said it again to Daddy as he was leaving to go shopping.  He has yet to say it to me, but I know it will come. (More)

We finished our taxes today, and the kids were around while we were doing it, and then we went out to the Olive Garden, since we didn't feel like cooking at 8PM when we finished the taxes.  On the way home, we were talking about how much the meal cost (Jonathan has various data points on how much things cost, so trying to fill that in some more - so the dinner was $26 for the five of us (all you can eat breadsticks and salad) and Jonathan thought that was a lot for not very much food. (More)

2/10 or earlier - Faith can transfer an item from one hand to the other.

2/10 - Jonathan, studying a penny, "This coin says 1 - 9 - 9 - 9.  That's super long ago!"  (I knew my kids would think anything before 2000 was ancient history.)

Since coming home from our trip, Faith has developed stranger anxiety, much earlier than average (or at least than the boys did.)  This hasn't really bothered me (though it bothers the people at church who would like to hold her) since I know it won't be very long before she says, "Bye, Mommy! I going with my Noah!" (that's a Wightman joke)  However, I mention it because of the interesting interactions she has with the mirror.  The boys didn't get stranger anxiety until they had already figured out how a mirror works.  Faith would get quite a concerned look on her face when she saw Mommy "somewhere else" even though I was holding her. I think by now she has gotten the idea, though maybe not 100%

 2/17 - When grocery shopping, I bring Faith's carseat in and clip it into the place where a kid could sit.  This Tuesday afternoon, we were at a store that uses smaller carts and they are not too bottom-heavy.  While I was waiting to sign the pinpad at the checkout, Noah climbed up the side of the cart and brought the whole thing down. Several people saw the beginning of the fall, and I bruised myself clambering over to try to catch it (no success.)  Faith was of course screaming, and I rushed to take her out of the sideways seat and examine her.  Thankfully, she stopped crying a minute or so after I held her, so I knew she was not injured.  Noah said his leg hurt, but he was walking fine, so I knew it would only be a bruise.  Everybody was helpful and concerned, and we were quite shaken, but unhurt.  In addition to the guardian angels whom I am sure were present, Faith's carseat had protected her - it stayed attached to the cart, the handle was up and the sides were high enough to keep her face or head from hitting the floor.  Whew.  This was not the first shopping cart incident my children have been in, but I hope it will be the last.

Noah likes to point out when items match in color or shape.  He is getting there with identifying colors but still mixes up some.

2/20 - Faith looks down when she drops something.

2/21 - I think she is starting to wave at people when they say hi to her.  A man at a store was convinced she waved to him.  It was the first time I'd seen it, and she might have done it a few more times since then.

2/23 - We put new batteries in our Japanese alphabet book.  When it turns on it says (pardon my transcription) "... konichiwa......bohn-eh?"  Noah was playing with it and when it said "konichiwa" he replied, "hi" and after the question, he said, "uh-huh."

2/25 - Jonathan sings and hums many things throughout the day, ranging from super themes to old hymns to praise songs, and now we can add classical music to that list.  At breakfast yesterday, he was humming "Lieutenant Kije." Actually, now that I try to find it online, I don't think it's Lt. Kije.  But our music players are all on random, so it's hard to find what we've listened to.  I'll try to remember to update this when I find out.  My best resource is on her honeymoon at the moment. **Update 3/19/09 - I asked my sister and her guesses did not provide any correct answers.  I tried to search the mp3 player, but it's pretty hard.  I looked through our CD inserts with no sucess.  This afternoon, it finally came up again on our mp3 player!  I ran to check out the listing.  It was from my Greatest Hits - Trumpet CD.  Entrance of the Emperor and his Court from Háry János Suite by Zoltán Kodály.  And do you know what?  The track right before it on the CD is Kijé's Wedding.  God made our brains very intriguing. 

You can hear it starting from minute 1:36 on this youtube video.

2/26 - The difference between states and countries still eludes Jonathan.  He knows we can't spend Canadian dollars here, nor Swiss Francs.  However, today he told me that he couldn't spend his Idaho quarter until we visited Idaho.

I figured I'd be getting some birthday money from someone, so I went ahead and spent it last week, by buying a handful of CDs from Sovereign Grace, which happens to be having a fairly big sale.  It will go for the rest of February, so you should probably check it out.  It seems to be becoming an annual event, so I'll need to remember that, though I don't know if I have bought anything from them recently.  (More)

1/23 - Faith's matching lower tooth came in.

It looks like she's teething again, maybe some top teeth on their way.  She, like Noah my other early teether, is interested in solid foods already.  Jonathan bought her (with his own money) some little cereal pieces, the kind that dissolve quickly.  We give them to her half a piece at a time and she likes to play around with them in her mouth.  Tonight she actually fed herself two of the pieces, grabbing them in her left fist. (More)

While looking at a dollar coin, Jonathan said, "I think it has a picture of Obama or something", (really, it's Andrew Jackson).

"Switzerland laughs and American laughs are the same; only the language is different.  I made my silly face at people in Switzerland, and they laughed like a regular American."

I am now on vacation and so can spare a few minutes to type up the notes that have been hanging in my pocket for a while.  I will apologize to my readers for making them wait so long, but I will not feel guilty.  Blogging is something most mothers in the history of the world did not have on their list of responsibilites and I will not let it grab a top priority from other important things.  (More)

I have heard people debate about whether not being able to hear a child playing is worse than hearing one that is really loud.  I can tell you that I would take either one over waking up to sounds of water splashing around.  (More)