Daley Ponderings

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.

10/28 - The boys, both of them, are now officially sleeping upstairs.  They sleep together on the bottom bunk, with Christmas lights for a night light.  There is a flashlight at the top of the stairs in case of a necessary midnight bathroom trip.  It has been a good move for all. Noah no longer wakes us up with requests to fix his blankets (he's perfectly capable of doing that himself).  That was the reason for the decision to move.  However, another unexpected side benefit is their morning time together.  Whoever wakes up first wakes the other one and then they help each other get ready, without disturbing Mom and Dad!  It's very sweet to see them cooperating quietly together.

10/30 - I've started letting Faith be out in the backyard with the boys without me.  She loves to swing, and she'll even play on the ground with them, too.  This day, I was preparing to go back inside and I told Jonathan, "Take care of your sister."  He replied, "I will.  She's worth going through millions of disasters to get."

Faith likes to wash her hands and dry them on the hand towel.  It's very cute to see her dry her hands.

Faith now consistently nods for "yes" and "ok" and shakes her head for "no."  The shake is also sometimes accompanied by a "nn" kind of sound.

11/2 - Jonathan found my old book of elephant jokes.  He read through the whole thing, giggling hysterically.

11/2 - Faith's bottom left molar began poking through.  She seems to be a continual teether - I'm sure the fourth molar and a few canines are also on the way.  She does seem to take it better than she has before, though, praise God.

Yesterday we went to the zoo.  It was clear and chilly, but warm enough in the sunshine.  We had no deadline except the closing time, since Jon was working in Pittsburgh.  There were hardly any people there and we took our time.  We spent a very long time watching the elephants, five of whom were outside.  The big brother was playing a game with a red rock, picking it up with his trunk, sucking on it, spitting it out, picking it up again, throwing it in the water, picking it up to suck again, over and over.  The baby is much bigger, but still obviously a baby.

We watched a zookeeper toss apples to the grizzly bear, who caught them neatly in his mouth.

Faith was nervous around big animals close on the other side of glass, but she was totally fine with the sharks and sea lions.  Somehow she could tell they were separated better when there was water on one side of the glass.  She loved the elephants, but they were far away enough to be safe.

The sea lions were really fun because they were just as interested in us as we were in them.  They'd hold their breaths and look right at us through the glass.  A boy had a ball and was playing a fun game with them, moving it along the glass, the sea lions following and trying to get it.

It was a great visit at the zoo.