Seth is 3 years 10 months

This month seemed to be a little smoother, although Seth has gotten really whiny lately and seems to be melting down more often – I think he either is coming down with a cold (I have one) or he is not getting enough sleep.  I know he would get a lot more sleep with his own room.  Andrew and Seth’s schedules just don’t seem very in sync at the moment.  But, on the other hand, I think they would be lonely with their own rooms.

This month has been full of whining.  I know it’s the age, but I feel like Seth’s default talking is whining.  By the end of the day, I feel like I am going to lose my mind if I hear one more whine.  Seth is quite thoughtful and very diligent, on the one hand.  On the other, if he feels like he might fail, he refuses to even try.  He is very much a perfectionist.  Sometimes, I am amazed when I ask Seth to do something and then I turn around and he has already done it.  On the other hand, when he thinks something is hard in play or work, that’s it.  When he runs a race with someone else, he runs all out.  But, if he is not close (like they started way earlier, or whatever, because Seth actually runs pretty fast), he just gives up, does this wimpy run and then kind of flops around and then whines and starts half crying.

Seth has started wearing underwear at night and does well, but he is still not confident.  He wants to wear a diaper sometimes and will explain that it needs to be a pattern “underwear diaper underwear diaper”.  I think it’s pretty cute. 

Seth started doing reading lessons from the book this month.  He loves it and is catching on to sounding out very quickly.  He wants to do 2 lessons every day.  He is always excited to show Katsu all the stories he is reading “See me read” “See me eat”.  He loves to look ahead in the book and see which sounds he is learning next.  He is having a hard time blending beginning sounds but gets it after trying to read it a few times.

Seth had the stomach flu this month for a couple days.  That was not fun.  He also got punched in the face by Andrew and got quite a bloody nose.  He was scared to death.  Poor thing, but it turned out fine.

I am conflicted on what to do about preschool next year.  Seth had another parent teacher conference and he is doing really well.  Basically a model student.  His teachers said they would write letters to preschools in NC if they needed to, to get him off the waiting list.  They said he is just great and sharp.  But Seth hates going to preschool.  He is the ultimate home-body and really doesn’t want to go anywhere ever.  When I picked him up on Tuesday, he said “I can’t wait for tomorrow because it is not a preschool day”.  And the thing is – he seems to enjoy preschool while he is there.  But getting him there (or church, or story time or anything with a forced social component) is very difficult.  He usually pretended to be sick, but I finally told him how annoying that was.  I told him I could never tell when he was actually sick because he is always saying that he is sick.  And so, he usually tells me the truth now.  So … I am really leaning towards no preschool next year.  We’ll see if we have time to drop by the preschools and visit when we’re there next month.  Maybe Seth will change his tune.  They are cheap and in the budget, but I just don’t have energy to force the kid to go 4 days a week.  I wish they had 3 days options, but I don’t see any.  At least it’s not 5 days a week.  Too.  Much.  Driving.

Seth is very interested and “ready” to play sports.  He has started asking me when he can play.  In our town, everything for his age is in kind of like an intro-to-sports thing on Sunday afternoons.  Which doesn’t work, obviously, but I do plan on enrolling him in soccer after we move.  He tells me all the things he knows about sports and how much he wants to play baseball practice right now.  Soon enough, buddy.  Today, I have a cold, so I was watching a movie, and at one point, cricket came on the screen and both Seth and Logan were fascinated.  I think they will definitely be my sport boys.

We started new chore routines.  Seth got chore sheets from our neighbor for Easter and was very eager to use them.  He has been super diligent in doing his chores.  He always want to know how many chores he has completed and what extra chore he can do.  And he gets quite upset if someone else has done his chore.  Each week, we’ve tweaked the chores, but basically, he is in charge of feeding Joe, setting the kitchen table, and doing an extra chore, as well as a reading lesson, cleaning his room by 7:00 and following the rules.  For his extra chore, he especially likes helping clean the toilet.  Yay!

Seth is finally starting to play more with Logan and be more of a friend.  He would still rather spend time playing on his own in his room without Logan messing up his things.  (Well, he would most prefer if I would play with him alone, but that almost never happens unless it’s nap time).  But sometimes they play cars or ball together and it makes me happy.  He still much prefers Andrew as a friend, but Logan is starting to be a friend, too.

Seth is really sweet and I love our time together (esp. when he isn’t whining).

Fun Things This Month

• We had a big snow storm the first Sunday of spring break – a whole foot of snow! The boys built a snow fort and a huge snowman. It was really really wet snow. Thankfully, it didn’t stay around too many days.
• During Spring Break, we also
• went to the zoo.
• went to Magic House.
• went to Purina Farms. We saw all the baby animals. And Andrew and Seth loved running through the tunnels in the barn.
• went to the CHildren’s Garden at the Botanical Gardens on opening day. They had music performers and the boys also got free plants.
• Spring Break was also the week before Easter.
• Seth enjoyed waving the homemade palm branches while we sang Hosanna and acting out Palm Sunday.
• We had a passover dinner with lamb, homemade unleavened bread, bitter herbs, and grape juice. Seth was so excited to buy the food for Easter.  He helped me buy things and then he put it all in a special cabinet.  He would show it to everyone.  And he was finally thrilled when it was Thursday night and we could start eating all the food.
• Friday, we had a Jesus dinner with foods he might of eaten, plus some symbolic food to remember the events of that day. We also made hot cross buns. We also dyed Easter Eggs. Seth had a lot of fun with that.
• Saturday we had our traditional ham dinner.
• Sunday we had a traditional ham dinner with friends. Seth was excited to go to his friend’s Miles house and do an egg hunt there.  I don’t think he ate a blessed thing the entire meal, but he had fun.
• Sunday morning we had our Easter egg hunt in the house. Seth had tons of fun finding eggs and eating the treats inside.
• General Conference – the boys listened to the prophet, but otherwise, they mostly just played. They did enjoy doing bingo with chocolate chips one day and eating chocolate chip cookies the other day.
• Opening Day for the Cardinals.  Seth was a little under the weather.  I think he was already coming down with the stomach flu, but he really really wanted to go anyways so he did.  He really had a great time and especially enjoyed the snacks that Katsu brought.
• Swim lesson continuing.  Seth is getting a little tired of them, but he works hard and he just has one more.
• 2 Planetarium shows.  It was the 50th anniversary of the Planetarium and while we go thru their often on the way to the science center, but we’ve never seen a show.  The shows were all 50 cents, so we went Seth, logan and I to see a show during the week.  It was the Little Star that could.  Seth LOVED it and spent the next few days telling me all about stars.  We went to a second show as a family on Saturday telling us about the sky tonight and what you can see, but Seth didn’t enjoy it that much. 
• We went out to eat as a family at Maggiano’s to celebrate getting a job.  It was fine.

Andrew is 5 years 11 months old!

I feel like nothing has changed for Andrew really in the last month.  He is busy with school, though with spring break there wasn’t too much school in there.  I think he is kind of bummed that we get to have fun while he’s at school, but I know he enjoys school, too.  He is running out of ideas at his Writer’s Workshop, but his teacher is trying hard to make him think he has good ideas.  I think if they could write imaginary stories that would probably help, too.  His reading is continually improving.  He doesn’t like reading to me too much (not surprising, since reading is so much work), but I try to get him to almost every day.  His fluency is improving.  I am always impressed with the amount of math he is learning.  He is really seeming to get a good grasp on numbers.  He understands negatives pretty well and can add and subtract within twenty really well.  The boys think it is great fun to give me whole strings of numbers to add together. 

I went to a parent teacher conference again this last month.  Andrew is doing well.  His teacher thinks he would probably enjoy school more if it was more focused – he thinks the other kids and their wiggles is a little bit much.  We mostly talked about Andrew’s reading and how he depends on sounding it out too much and he needs to think about context and whether it looks or sounds right, too.

Andrew had his first trip away from us this month.  We went to Greenville, NC to visit.  Andrew seemed excited and seemed to do really well.  We left him at a neighbors house and he worked really hard to make sure that Seth wasn’t too scared.  He went to school and bought school lunch both days, which was a new and fun experience for him.  The third day, he didn’t have school for a holiday and so he went to the zoo with our friends and then had an Easter egg hunt at their house.  Overall, I think he had a really fun time.  He didn’t sleep as much as he should have (poor our friends), but otherwise, I think it went really well.  I think he is a little excited about the thought of us moving, though he would love to stay with his elementary school friends, forever.

Andrew is still doing his swim lessons and is working really hard on them.  Level 2 is a little harder and he is shorter than the other kids, so he can’t just stand in the pool like they can, but it makes me happy that he works so hard at it.

Fun Things This Month

• First time without Mom and Dad.  Did great and even had a super fun trip to the zoo, bought school lunch for the first time, and got picked up in the car line.
• St Patricks’ Day – we had green breakfast, which Andrew liked.  We also went to the St. Patrick’s Day parade.   It was cold and, of course, Andrew wanted to see the whole thing.  He was way up at the front so he could collect candy and swag, but there wasn’t space for us, so we stood back on the sidewalk.  After some people cleared out, we wanted to go up and stand by him.  There was this really nasty guy standing in the way who’d obviously had too much to drink or was just a real jerk anyways.  Anyways, he wouldn’t let us walk past him, even though our kid was there.  And the City Garden people wouldn’t let anyone walk on their plants.  So, we just had to wait until the stupid guy left and we could finally stand over there.  Andrew had fun anyways.
• Lots of playing at the park on the days when it was warm.
• Fish fry.
• 2 easter egg hunts back to back.  We were planning on skipping the first one since we had swim lessons.  But someone apparently had an accident in the swimming pool after Seth’s lesson, so Andrew’s was cancelled and we ran and barely made the first hunt, one we have always enjoyed in Richmond Heights.  Then, we went to a new-to-us hunt in Forest Park.  It was cold, but the boys had fun.  It was in the huge field (where the Balloons for the Balloon race start) and we got to see booths, the Bunny arrive by Helicopter and each of the boys had their own egg hunt.  There was TONS of eggs (55,000) so the boys got lots.  And some even had good candy.  We had a lot of fun. 
• We had a big snow storm the first Sunday of spring break – a whole foot of snow!  The boys built a snow fort and a huge snowman.  It was really really wet snow.  Thankfully, it didn’t stay around too many days.
• During Spring Break, we also
  • went to the zoo.
  • went to Magic House.
  • went to Purina Farms.  We saw all the baby animals.  Andrew was super grumpy and yelling that it wasn’t the real Purina Farms because the dog show outside wasn’t going on (it was indoors instead because of the big snow storm).  He said it was really Burina Farms.  I think he enjoyed it, though.  The dog show and the hay ride were nice.  And Andrew and Seth loved running through the tunnels in the barn.
  • went to the CHildren’s Garden at the Botanical Gardens on opening day.  They had music performers and the boys also got free plants.
  • Of course, what did Andrew tell his class he did over Spring break – went to Tilles Park.  Which we did, but it was clearly the least exciting of all.  It’s just what we did the first day.
• Spring Break was also the week before Easter.
• Andrew enjoyed waving the homemade palm branches while we sang Hosanna and acting out Palm Sunday.
• We had a passover dinner with lamb, homemade unleavened bread, bitter herbs, and grape juice.   Andrew liked the lamb.
• Friday, we had a Jesus dinner with foods he might of eaten, plus some symbolic food to remember the events of that day.  We also made hot cross buns, which Andrew refused to eat.  We also dyed Easter Eggs.  Andrew loved that of course and worked hard on decorating his eggs.
• Saturday we had our traditional ham dinner.
• Sunday we had a traditional ham dinner with friends.  Andrew was so excited because he finally got to go to their house.  It was probably the highlight of the week for him.
• Sunday morning we had our Easter egg hunt in the house.  Andrew had tons of fun finding eggs and eating the treats inside.
• General Conference – the boys listened to the prophet, but otherwise, they mostly just played.  They did enjoy doing bingo with chocolate chips one day and eating chocolate chip cookies the other day.

Logan is 17 months old!

And he seems even older to me.  He is just growing up so fast.  He is definitely all toddler right now.  His tantrums aren’t too often, but boy – he is in a hitting and throwing stage.  He throws EVERYTHING.  Monday, he threw a step stool at my foot.  It hurt so bad; I was limping for hours.  It’s hard because he is too little to really discipline, so I either try to take away what he is throwing.  Or if he is just getting throw-happy, I put him in his room by himself for a little bit.  I feel like he’s too little for this, but it works pretty well.  He calms down and looks at his books.  I think it is so cute to walk in and see him with a pile of books around.

Logan is finally getting his molars, so he has been cranky and wanting to nurse all the time and not sleeping/napping as well.  Poor kid.  I think the top two are in so hopefully the others follow quickly as well.  I hate teething!  He has also been spitting out / throwing up his food a lot lately as well.  I hope it is a phase related to teething, because it is gross and he isn’t eating as much as he used to anymore.

Logan has really taken off in his playing.  He loves to play trucks and cars.  He likes the bigger cars and he will crawl around and push them all over the floor.  They don’t make too many noises yet.  He usually finds a little person or even an animal to put in the drivers seat.  He likes the big trucks, so he can try to push as many little cars or people in as possible.

He also loves to play ball.  He throws really well and is working on his kicking, too.  He also runs really well now.  He does a good job with stairs and can sometimes do them one foot per step, but he is still working on that.  He always wants to go up and down our stairs using the handrail or holding our hand, but when he is playing at someone else’s house he will go down the stairs on his bum or tummy because it is faster.

Logan is talking a lot more.  Most of his “talking” is pointing and grunting, but it seems like he has a lot more words.  They are just hard to understand.  Words I know he has:  Mom, Dad, Andrew, Seth, Joe, Jesus, cat, woof (dog), whoa, hey, hi, hat, hot, car.  His favorite is car.  Words he might have:  go, bye, gone, there, this, that, truck.  Anything with wheels that moves is a car – trucks, planes, trains, etc.

Logan is FASCINATED with anything that moves.  He likes to look out the window and watch the cars go by.  It is one of his favorite activities.  He also is fascinated by them in books.  And playing with them, of course.

Logan is generally good natured and a good sport.  He did so well on our trip to Greenville and put up well with seeing house after house.  The only time he really melted down was when he saw a ball or a basketball and then he wanted it!  He didn’t understand why we wouldn’t let him play with it.  He did well with the plane rides, too, though it is challenging to entertain a toddler for that long.  He slept on 2/4 flights and was well-behaved for all but one of them. 

Logan has a good memory and sense of direction.  He points out the way he thinks we should go to pick up Andrew if we go a different way.  And last time I drove him to a friends’ house (the one who usually watches him while I volunteer at Andrew’s school), he started crying as soon as we drove down their street.  He knew!

Logan has a thing with things around his neck.  He loves to put on necklaces, but he also tends to get things wrapped around his neck – it makes me very nervous.  You have to really watch that kid.

He likes to put on different hats and dress up.  He thinks it is funny.  He also loves to play hide and seek.  He will put his hands in front of his face to show that he wants to play.  He can hide, but lately he likes to watch where his brothers are hiding and then show me.

He loves to wave goodbye to Katsu and Andrew when they leave in the morning.  But he gets very upset when he has to say goodbye to them at the wrong time.  Katsu was out of town for a couple days this week and Logan kept asking for him.  Then, he came back yesterday.  Katsu was going to go outside to make a call, but Logan started crying hysterically when Katsu left.  He just didn’t want him to go yet – Katsu had to make his call from the boys’ bedroom instead.  He also waits in the window each evening and watches for Katsu to come home (at least, if he’s not too cranky).

Logan plays pretty independently, but he loves to play with his brothers, too.  He also loves to terrorize the cat (I think he thinks he playing most of the time) – poor Joe.

Fun Things This Month:

• St Patricks’ Day – we had green breakfast, which Logan thought was fun.  We also went to the St. Patrick’s Day parade.  Logan was cold and got bored part way through, so we ended up holding him most of the time.  He did like the big balloons, though, and the weird Shriner cars. 
• Lots of playing at the park on the days when it was warm.
• Visiting Greenville, NC.  4 flights in total.  A trip with just Mom and Dad.  Staying at a hotel.  Eating hotel breakfast.  Playing at the realtor’s office.  He just walked around like he owned the place – they said it was fun … but at one point, he came back with a soda drink he stole from someone’s office!  He walked around many houses, drove around town, and basically had a good time.
• Fish fry.
• 2 easter egg hunts back to back.  We were planning on skipping the first one since we had swim lessons.  But someone apparently had an accident in the swimming pool after Seth’s lesson, so Andrew’s was cancelled and we ran and barely made the first hunt, one we have always enjoyed in Richmond Heights.  Then, we went to a new-to-us hunt in Forest Park.  It was cold, but the boys had fun.  It was in the huge field (where the Balloons for the Balloon race start) and we got to see booths, the Bunny arrive by Helicopter (Logan thought that was pretty cool) and each of the boys had their own egg hunt.  There was TONS of eggs (55,000) so the boys got lots.  And some even had good candy.  We had a lot of fun.  By the second egg hunt, Logan really got into it and he hunted at each of the three hunts – we just couldn’t keep him away from the eggs.
• We had a big snow storm the first Sunday of spring break – a whole foot of snow!  Logan had fun throwing snow ball and walking around in the snow.  It was really really wet snow.  Thankfully, it didn’t stay around too many days.
• During Spring Break, we also
• went to the zoo.
• went to Magic House (Logan is really starting to love everything here!)
• went to Purina Farms.  We saw all the baby animals and Logan LOVED it.  He stood on his tippy toes and kept running back to see other animals.  He even petted the baby bunny and maybe the chicks, too.  He really enjoyed the dog show, though he got a bit restless by the end.
• went to the CHildren’s Garden at the Botanical Gardens on opening day.  They had music performers – Logan was interested, but a little skeptical.  He also got his own spinach plant, but ended up watering his pants instead of the plant.
• Spring Break was also the week before Easter.
• Logan LOVED waving the homemade palm branches while we sang Hosanna.  Surprise surprise, he also loved pretending to ride in as we acted it out.  One of his current favorite games is horsey ride.
• We had a passover dinner with lamb, homemade unleavened bread, bitter herbs, and grape juice.  Logan loved throwing it, surprise, surprise.  We also did some reading about Thursday’s events with food afterwards.  Logan keeps thinking he loves olives and always wants to eat them – but then he spits it out.
• Friday, we had a Jesus dinner with foods he might of eaten, plus some symbolic food to remember the events of that day.  We also made hot cross buns – Logan liked helping with that.  We also dyed Easter Eggs.  He wanted to help with that, too – he almost dropped all the dye on the floor when he pulled the newspaper on the floor.
• Saturday we had our traditional ham dinner.
• Sunday we had a traditional ham dinner with friends.
• Sunday morning we had our Easter egg hunt in the house.  Logan was very excited and by now he knows how to squeeze and open the eggs, so he mostly ate M&Ms and wasn’t too eager to search for even more.