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Powered by LifeTypeWe 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 skipped the four month appointment because we were in Switzerland, but six months came quickly enough. At 27.5" long and 16.8lb, she is 50% in weight but 95% in height! Dr.Anderson wondered if we weighed her correctly, but he said when he saw her he had no concerns about her health. I had thought she was tall, or at least had long arms, since all her long sleeved shirts come up to the middle of her forearms. She's no skinny minny, though, so I too wonder if the weight is correct.
He was very happy with everything about her and we had a positive visit. She had her first shot which she has done very well with, praise God. I am happy with our decision to wait a few months. Let the immune system get bolder, let the thighs get fatter... Much easier to take that way.
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.
It makes me think of Asher every time.
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)
We interrupt the story of the trip with a special news bulletin.
After much fussiness in the morning as we were preparing to leave New Hampshire, Faith's lower left front tooth broke through the surface during the car ride home.
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)
...is going great, but has its challenges. I'm probably not the only one to brush someone's teeth with one hand while bouncing a crying baby with the other. But bedtime is pretty much the only time of high demand from all at once. Jonathan is great about waiting and about helping Faith to wait (singing, bouncing); Noah needs more practice, but he's good sometimes. Although just now, he brought over Faith's bouncy seat so he could sit in my lap (instead of crying about not being able to sit in my lap while I was holding her.) (More)
On a Wednesday, two days past my due date, the midwives scheduled me for post-dates testing at the hospital the next week. At first these only consist of a non-stress test (monitoring to be sure the baby's heart rate increases when he moves) and an ultrasound to confirm adequate amniotic fluid levels. However, that is a big "only" to me and I did not want to have to go in to the hospital to do that. (More)