Hoo Hoo!...Mama!

Davey is a little language sponge. From what I can observe, I think he is very much an auditory learner. He often wanders away and plays with toys while I am reading books to the boys, and I used to wonder whether he was absorbing any of it. But then he will be overheard repeating lines from books later, so I think he is taking it all in through his ears and processing it away from the pictures.

Davey is a great mimic and tunes in to the way people communicate with noises rather than words. He loves to say mmm hmmmm for yes and hmmm mmmn for no, which are noises that I make. He also imitates the clicking noise that I make with my tongue against my teeth when I am calling the cats to be fed. In this aspect, he reminds me of my brother, Andy, who can learn piano songs by ear and is a great mimic of other people's voices.

But the funniest manifestation of this all lately has been Davey's ability to pick up little words that are odd noises. The epitome of this is his recent obsession with the phrase yoo hoo, which he uses correctly in context but pronounces more like hoo hoo. For example, last night he politely asked me for more milk. It went something like this:

Davey: "More milk, Mama! Please!"
Me: "Mmmmm hmmm. Just a minute. I am changing sissy."
Davey: "More MILK, Mama! PLEEEEAAASEE!"
Me: "I hear you, Davey. I am almost done here."
[Pause of a few seconds]
Davey: "Hoo hoo! Mama! More milk please!" [Said while waving empty cup in the air.]

I don't particularly like that he addresses me by yoo hoo because it reminds me a bit of some rude customers I had back when I used to wait tables. But the phrase itself makes me giggle so I am not putting the kibosh on it until I get tired of hearing a tiny little two year-old voice calling out yoo hoo like some 90 year old grandmother. I kept saying it to myself at my desk at work today and chuckling out loud.

Mover and a Shaker

Sissy is officially now a mover and a shaker. See photographic evidence above. When I put her down, she was in the middle of the mat, and when I came back a few minutes later, she had moved a good twelve inches to the south.

Carrot Soup

Joe has been working the past few Saturdays, so it has been just me and the kids around the house. I have been letting them do the kinds of things that are not Joe's favorite, e.g., making messes for no apparent reason other than it is fun! Joe and I have very different parenting styles, and I think the kids benefit from getting both my embrace of lots of messy, pretend play and Joe's emphasis on teaching the importance of helping around the house and cleaning up.

This project fell squarely in the messy fun group. One week when we were making Saturday lunch, the boys decided they wanted to make carrot soup, which was their own concoction that consisted of baby carrots, lemon juice and ice in tall glasses of water. It reminds me of a line from one of my favorite children's books, To Market To Market. "Home again, home again...hot soup for lunch!" Or in this case, cold soup.

Nebulus

Poor sissy had bronchiolitis about a month ago now. The pediatrician said it likely resulted from a viral infection like RSV. Sissy continues to amaze me with her easygoing disposition. Even the nebulizer did not phase her. She took her first two treatments in the pediatrician's office so calmly that they decided not to hospitalize her and let us treat her at home. After two to three weeks of intense wheezing and coughing and a second round of treatment that involved steroids, she seems to finally be over it now. It is the third week in April and it just snowed two inches here on Monday. We are all so ready to be done with the illness and cold weather that we can hardly stand it. Here's to May flowers!

Here are some pictures of Julia calmly taking her breathing treatments. Those eyes on the mask are part of the fish face that comes on it to make the mask less threatening to kids and parents alike.

Puppy Love

It was AJ's turn to bring the classroom pet home last week. When I heard that AJ was going to bring the classroom pupppy home for two nights, I had a moment of panic when I thought it was a live dog. Our nanny explained to me that it is a stuffed animal and the kids each get a chance to take "Scooby" home with them overnight and then "write" a story about it in the classroom journal.

I was surprised to see how pleased AJ was when his turn came around. Clearly this is a big deal to the preschool set. He wanted to sleep with Scooby, feed Scooby and have Scooby near him at almost all times. It reminded me of a project my sister had to do for a child development class in high school where she and her partner had to keep a hard boiled egg with them at all times as their "child" to simulate the responsibility of having a baby.

Grandma Francie, who is a reading specialist and teaches third grade, was able to explain to me that this is a writing activity to inspire the kids on a group writing project. There was a journal that came home with Scooby and each kid had a page to draw a picture and have their parents write down what the child reported about his/her experience taking Scooby home. AJ reported that Scooby slept with him, ate Cheddar Bunnies for his snack and got to go along on a trip to the library. In other words, just a typical Thursday night at our house.

Opening Day

For Christmas this year, we went in on an "Ozzy Plan" pack of tickets to 10 White Sox games, named by the White Sox marketing team for manager Ozzie Guillen. AJ had been talking all winter about how he wanted to go to White Sox Park to see Pauly Walnuts play again. Pauly Walnuts is the family nickname for first baseman Paul Konerko. AJ was delighted to kick off the season by arriving at the stadium to see Pauly Walnuts out there manning first base.

AJ's other observation was "there is a guy with my name on the White Sox!" He heard the announcer call AJ Pierzynski's name and got excited. Don't worry--we are not that rabid of White Sox fans to name our first born after a player. My dad and Joe's dad both have a love of the White Sox that runs deep, but not THAT deep. When we were considering names for AJ four years ago, we named AJ Andrew John for two of his uncles. But Joe's respect for AJ Pierzynski as a player added to his enthusiasm for the name. Here are the pictures from opening day.

Solid

This post makes me realize that I have some catching up to do on the past two months. Julia started on solids at 4 months, about 5 weeks ago now. Grandma Julie had the honors of giving Julia her first rice cereal during her last visit. Grandma Julie loves to feed babies, so this worked out well for all parties involved. Julia was game for rice cereal and also likes oatmeal quite a bit. She is not as fond of apples or peas. Tonight I gave her oatmeal for dinner followed by peas, and I should have taken her cues that she was not enjoying the peas. I kept forcing the issue, and ended up with all of the peas and the oatmeal coming back out of her. A lesson in patience and listening for me. She is more fond of sweet potatoes and pears.

1, 2, 3 Kick!

Here is sissy in a particularly adorable pair of navy blue tights with white stripes. Having come from a family of four boys, girls' tights are a new concept to Joe, and he thinks they "look goofy" and appear to be uncomfortable. I told him if he thinks baby tights that are made out of 100 percent cotton and are stretchable and breathable look uncomfortable to him, he should take a look at a pair of women's control top pantyhose.

PS--Thanks to Cousin Violet for the great hand-me-down dress!

Yellow Pink, Yellow Pink

Davey has a funny habit of obsessing over the colors yellow and pink. Whenever you ask him what color something is, his first response is an enthusiastic and certain "yellow!" As you say no, it's not yellow, Davey, try again--what color is this? he will invariably respond "pink!!" with even more certainty and enthusiasm than his original yellow. He then will be heard saying over and over again to himself in a singsong voice "yellowPINK...yellowPINK...yellowPINK" as he plays with his toys.

I was worried for a few weeks that he didn't know his colors and started labeling everything. "Can you hand me the blue plate, Davey?" "These are mommy's red shoes." Then I started to drill him a little bit, getting out a shapes and colors puzzle and working on it with him in the evening before bed. "Davey, what color is this?" I would ask, holding up a green circle. "Circle!" he would say. "Circle is its shape, Davey, but what color is it?" I would ask him. "Yellow!" he crowed. "No, Davey, try again." "Pink!" I fell for it every time, hook, line and sinker.

Finally one night after worrying that he might have some idiosyncratic color blindness where he only saw the world through yellow and rose-colored glasses, I asked him what color Thomas the Train was. "Blue!" he yelled. He then went on to correctly identify that Gordon is also blue, Henry is green, James is red and Percy is also green. I realized that (1) he knows most of his colors and (2) he probably just likes the sounds of the words yellow and pink. And that I need to relax a little bit.

Idioms

AJ is starting to learn idioms, which is fun because he reminds us of how ridiculous and silly some of them are. The other night I told him that he cracked me up when he did something funny. Shortly after that, he was laughing at something I said and told me "Mama, you crack me to pieces!"