Daley Ponderings

2/11 - Noah, as we started school for the day, "I have my gun in my pocket in case any bad guys try to interrupt school."

2/13 - Faith says something that sounds very like "all done" when she is finished eating or going to the bathroom.  She also says "doe" for toes or nose.

2/20 - Faith is now consistently using the toilet sign (it looks like she's shaking an invisible pencil).  She does not use it every time she needs to go, but when she thinks about it, and sometimes at diaper changes.

Noah's work with putting the /g/ and /k/ sounds into his regular speech is coming along great!  Many words now come out correctly without him thinking about it, many more come out correctly the second time.  Since he is now listening and paying attention to how he is speaking, he has also improved other words, such as "seven".   It used to be "eh-uh" even though he can say /n/.  Now it's "eh-un."  /s/ and /v/ will come later.  I just ordered the second Speechercise cd and am looking forward to working on these new sounds with him.

Jonathan made a Lego olympics, with figure skaters, speed skaters, and luge riders.  He even made the bench that the figure skaters sit on with their coach while waiting for their scores. (:  (One of his sets of figure skaters are Han Solo and Princess Leia.  Their coach is a droid!) The ice rink was a flat base turned upside down.  He and Noah had two zambonis.

Jonathan has been reading up a storm.  He found a Star Wars book and has been steadily working away at it.

He had been having trouble with the fact that we solve math problems from left to right no matter where the unknown is.  For example, if the problem was [ ] = 9 - 5, he would write -4 in the blank spot.  "Five minus nine equals negative four."  He was quite frustrated with this for a few days, but the last time I gave him a worksheet with that kind of problem, I simply reminded him that the problems read from left to right, and he did fine.

2/1 - Jonathan, munching on dried cranberries, "I would have a happy life with air, cranberries, a Bible, and chips."

2/2 - Faith followed two-step directions:  go get her shoes (from the other room) and put them in the shoe rack.

2/4 - Jonathan, "Life is so fun, I can't resist it!"

The last several days, Noah has been spontaneously saying words with /k/ and /g/ sounds, and coming up to us to show us that he can do it.

The boys have been praying for another baby sister.  Recently, Noah thought he'd ask for two.  Then he commented, "Then we would have three!"  Noah can add!

I got a video of Noah showing me the bits.  If he didn't know one, he'd say, "hobo" or "hada" or some such made up word.  It's hard to catch what he says if you don't know it, so I'll write what he does say, "American Flag" (amehuhu a), "potato", "carrot" (eh-huh), "orange" (it's really a grapefruit, but you can't blame the mixup), "green grapes" (een ape) and my favorite "strawberry" (ah-bee-beh-hee).  I'd been wanting to record him saying strawberry for a while.

Noah is doing great at his speech practice.  When he thinks about it, he can do /k/ and /g/ sounds at the beginning, ending, and middle of words.  Examples: "big pig" "good guy" "duck"  I'm so encouraged!

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Faith can crawl downstairs now, and off chairs and couches.

1/14 - Faith finally signed milk.  She still only does it with prompting, but it's a start.

1/13 - Noah said broccoli with prompting "bwah-kuh-wee"

We've been working hard on /k/ and /g/ in school.  On 1/15, he said "gum" correctly and fluidly.  This is a major accomplishment!  (Normally he leaves the tricky consonants off entirely.  When concentrating, he can say the sound with a space before the next sounds, like "c--at".  He can do a few sounds like "ca" and "kuh".  Then "kuh--t" (cut) but not "cut".  So this "gum" was a breakthrough.

Other things Noah says which I think are more normal mistakes are switching some consonants.  He says "wordl" for "world" and "mintuh" for "minute".

Some Noah quotes:

1/14 - He crashed when standing on a cchair and leaning over the back.  He seemed a bit shaken but did not cry.  I asked him if he needed a kiss.  The reply: "Superbats always okay when them fall over."

1/16 - At lunch, I asked Faith to "bite down."  Noah commented, "Or bite up."  Right.  Our lower jaws go up when we bite.  Why do we call it biting down?

We spent two weeks in New Hampshire for Christmas.  It turns out that Faith doesn't really like snow.  She looked at me like I was from outer space when I offered her some to eat.  Hopefully this aversion does not last.  The boys, however, have a blast playing out in the snow.

Over the time we were there, Faith learned to say, "no" and "down"  which she pronounces without the "n".  She says "dow" to mean both up and down.

Jonathan and Noah got two sample karate lessons.

Jonathan went on a New Year's overnight with Grammy and her youth group to First Night in Burlington, VT.  He had "the best time ever!"

My wonderful mother-in-law (but I don't need a law to tell me to love you!) took me out to breakfast all by ourselves one morning.

January 3, Jonathan lost his second tooth.

When we got home, I rejoiced to see that God cares about the little things and prevented any mice from visiting my kitchen while we were gone!

1/6 - I discovered Jonathan and Noah using their new Christmas Nerf dart guns to play a geography game, shooting at the world map and seeing where they hit.

1/7 - All the kids were playing Rescue Team.  "Our number is 9-1-9, so if you need us, just call 9-1-9 and we'll come to the rescue!"  Pretty soon I had an emergency (there were bad guys locking the silverware drawer and I needed the forks to be rescued and put on the dinner table) and they came running.  The boys had their First Night bracelets on and their Nerf guns.  Faith had the play goggles on her face and a pencil in her hand.  She triumphantly stepped into the room, holding her pencil out and saying, "tada!"  It was priceless.

Noah has added a syllable to his pronunciation of Jonathan's name: "Ah-huh"

12/11 and following - My aunt gave us some plastic prisms and we have had a lot of fun playing with them in the kitchen (which is the sunniest room in our house.)  The rainbows come out quite nicely and the all the kids love to touch them and play with them. (More)

11/7 - Noah discovered the two cube puzzle that has pictures of six different vehicles and plays the sound of each when the puzzle is completed.  He was having trouble with it, which seemed strange to me at this age.  He kept getting the wrong sounds playing.  I told him to match up the pictures and it would work.  After a while, I took my attention off of Faith to watch Noah and see what the trouble was.  He was matching the pieces face to face instead of next to each other! (More)

I'll start with most recent and then go to my pocket notes.  Jonathan and Faith both had well child checkups yesterday.  As much as it seems like it would be easier to have two checkups together, it really isn't.  I'll go back to scheduling them separately.  It wasn't too bad, but a bit hectic and it took a long time. (More)

10/23 - Jon said, "Ask Jonathan an addition problem with two digit numbers that sum to a multiple of ten."  I asked him 53+17, and Jonathan figured out loud, "the seventeen goes to twenty, the fifty three goes to fifty...seventy!"

I signed Jonathan up for the Pizza Hut Book-it program and the way it works now is that you set your own goals.  We set a goal of thirty books a month - one a day.  He didn't really need extra motivation to read, but it's fun to get free pizza. (:  Some of the books he's read recently include The Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham, Curious George, and Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel. (More)

Jonathan has created a new superhero.  Actually, a team of superheroes.  They are the SuperFire team, made up of as many different colors as you would like.  Super Orange Fire is the captain (that's usually Jonathan.)  Noah is often Super Blue Fire, or Super Green Fire.  I'm sure I'm forgetting details, but some of the features are that they can turn into fire and they can shoot worlds from their arms.  They have capes that can separate into wings.  The theme song includes phrases from the Ride of the Valkyries.  (More)

Noah's three year appointment was at the beginning of the month.  He is 42.5 lbs and 41" tall.  They did the hearing and vision tests and the nurse was very impressed.  She said usually at this age, they can hear the sounds but not figure out which ear they're hearing it in, and he did great.  The vision test was very interesting for me, but not the eye part.  His vision is fine, but what they do at that age is show the pictures up close first to see what the child will call each object.  So Noah said "apple" and "house" just fine, and then circle was "round" and square was "round."  She went back and forth on those a couple of times and then said, "are those two shapes the same?"  He started to say yes, and then emphatically said No!  So I told him that that shape was called a square and he repeated it.  Then for the real test, a square was the first object.  He hesitated, and then she reminded him of the name.  After that, he named each object perfectly.  At first, it rather bothered me that Noah didn't know the simple shape names, but it just means we haven't gotten to that part yet.  He knows his colors and lots of other things.  So now he knows the name for a square. (: (More)

8/7 - Faith started using the more sign consistently and spontaneously.  She will now also use it to mean "I want that."

8/11 - Faith took her first step.  It was sort of accidental, since she was walking holding to my hand, and I slipped my finger out.  After that first step, she realized she was not holding anyone anymore and she sat down.  On 8/15, she took another step in a similar way.

8/12 - Faith shook her head along with the more sign to indicate "no more".  She has not done it again.

When Noah starts telling a story he begins, "Wunt 'pon time..."

Noah's word for spaghetti is "ebbi." (More)

7/5 - (oh, yes, this means I have not posted in at least a month...) Faith crawled upstairs all by herself (with Mom behind her all the way.)

Noah says he can do it "all mine by self."

Jonathan: "The person I love most after God is Faith."  (More)

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!"

Faith is 21.8 lb, 29" tall.  Those are both 90th percentile.  Everything checked out great, though he did do some extra fiddling with her legs because she has "asymmetrical creases" in her thighs.  This can indicate problems with the hips or differences in leg lengths, but he concluded that she's fine.  She got a shot and her lead test, which was unhappy, but she was quite curious about the multicolored bandaids and managed to pull them both off before the end of the appointment. (More)