Milestone Minutiae

After meals, Luke likes to climb into my lap. Then he climbs back over into his booster seat, stands there for a while, then leans forward to fall into my arms. Usually, he'll stand there and say "Ah-" just before he starts to fall towards me, and "choo" as he reaches my arms. You know, with the sort of timing one might say "timber!" with.

Last night Emmett woke up and told me he was having bad dreams. As usual, I asked him what was happening so we could "fix" his dreams to make them better. Most of the time he can't remember, but last night I got lots of details. First, he talked about jumbled pictures like a puzzle. Then he said flash cards were dancing around his room. Then he mentioned that his stack of art had come out of the cabinet and was dancing around the house. All of this was preventing him from sleeping. He also mentioned a robot serving food, and told me that he'd "erase" from his dreams anything that wasn't real, like the dragon hanging in the bush. That's a lot of dreaming! This morning when I asked him about it again, he was quite sure that his eyes had been open and he had been seeing all of these things. I wasn't able to convince him that when he dreams, he thinks he's awake and seeing, but he really isn't.

Last night while I was putting Luke to sleep, he was crawling around in the bed a bit. He ended up hitting his head on the wall, so I said, "Oh, did you hit your head?" And he said, "Yes!"

A few months ago, Luke hit a very difficult phase for eating in restaurants. He wasn't easily entertained, wouldn't stay in a high chair, would run around etc. Either David or I would end up wolfing down our food and carrying him around. So we've been mostly going to fast-casual places with counter service. In those places it's not so bad if Luke wanders around a bit, and it's much faster. But last night, Emmett wanted to go to Red Robin. We decided to go for it - Luke likes coloring now and they have crayons, so maybe it would work out. It actually wasn't bad. Luke did many circuits of ducking under the table, crawling out and climbing up his high chair, and then climbing into my lap. He colored a little, and even ate some dinner. A couple of times he wanted to take a walk to go see a carousel horse that is a decoration in the restaurant. He signed "horse" and said, "Nay!!" Neither David nor I had to inhale our dinners, and Luke w

Emmett has a Leapster, a hand-held game system for little kids. Luke likes to play with it because he likes everything Emmett has (mostly, Luke just turns it on and off, watching the intro videos). Emmett was playing with his Leapster while I helped him get on pjs last night, and Luke was begging for it. I got Luke distracted and playing with a magna-doodle (a magnetic drawing toy). Then Emmett decided Luke could use the Leapster for a while, so he handed it to Luke. Much to my surprise, Luke didn't grab the Leapster. Instead, he picked up the magna-doodle. Emmett tried to hand him the Leapster again when I realized that Luke was trying to give the magna-doodle to Emmett! How cute - he was trying to trade with his brother.

Tonight, Luke started saying "bath" with the "th" sound! It is a completely clear sounding English word. Wow!

Luke has one very clear two-syllable word. It's "baila," which is "he/she/it dances" in Spanish. It comes from a Spanish language song in Music class. Luke loves to sing that song, even requesting it when I ask him what he'd like to sing. While singing it, he sways and steps side to side, sometimes adding a forward bend (this is how he dances) and he sings along with the word "baila" when it comes up (it's repeated several times in a row). It's his first two-syllable word, and by far his clearest word. In other word-news, Luke is begging for baths every day now. He says "Bai-ee," and the intonation starts high and drops for the second syllable. It sounds very sad and pathetic. So lots of baths are happening around here. Luke is saying "Emmett" a little better now, too. Today he repeatedly called him "Em-eee."

After I helped Emmett into his pajamas and went to put Luke down, Emmett told David he was ready for reading. David asked, "Ok, so what are you going to read to me?" After a little protest of "Dad, I don't read to YOU, You read to ME," Emmett agreed to read to David. So David headed off into Emmett's room, got under the covers on the bed, and listened to Emmett read Hop on Pop. Then David said to Emmett, "Ok, now you can turn off the light and come snuggle." So he did!

Have I mentioned that Luke likes to climb up onto the table? He'll climb up there, throw things off, dances around, and generally has a good time. Yesterday, I noticed that he was banging the table and singing. When I looked over, I realized that he was repeating something we do in Music class. We all play drums and sing "laaaaaaaa" until the teacher puts her hands in the air, which signals everyone to stop and put their hands up too. In class, she let some of the older kids lead too. Luke and I played the game with Luke leading most of the time. Maybe the next time we do this in class, we can see if Luke is willing to lead in public.

Emmett woke up last night and was calling to us, so David went to see what was wrong and help him get back to sleep. When David got there, Emmett told him that someone had tipped his bed and made him fall out. They had also turned off the music. David turned on some music, and Emmett was asleep again in an instant.

A few days ago the weather warmed a bit making the snow great for snowballs. I bundled up the boys and made a whole pile with Emmett's snow-baller that he got for Christmas. They both threw snowballs and Emmett figured out how to make more. After a while, Luke came inside. He was a little fussy so I held him in my lap. Then he looked straight at me and brought up his right hand. First he looked at the mitten, a little confused. Then he put the thumb of his mitten into his mouth. With that his desire was finally clear. He wanted to nurse!

Last night it snowed while it was windy, so there was snow blown up on the porch, snow stuck all the way up the trunks of the trees, and snow stuck to the satellite dish. The Lakers had a game this morning, but with the snow on the satellite dish the channel wouldn't come in. The dish is attached to our chimney, so it's definitely out of reach. David and I talked about how we could clear it - trying to somehow spray it with the hose, or reach it with some long pole or something. In the end, David had a flash of brilliance - he threw snowballs at it. It took him quite a few throws and a couple of hits, but he knocked off enough snow that the channel came back and he could watch the Laker game.