Milestone Minutiae

Emmett was looking at an old picture of himself and he noticed that he was wearing a shirt that Luke wears now. I could tell that he thought it was a special connection that they had, he liked sharing his clothes with Luke. I hope Luke sees it the same way when he gets older, because I've saved a lot of clothes!

After dinner, Luke was begging David for a graham cracker. After David handed him the cracker, Luke said "thanks!" Well, that's what David guesses he might have been saying. Luke also says "sorry" after he does something that makes me yelp (usually a pinch). It's cute - he reaches over and gently rubs my cheek with his palm and softly says, airy "sorry, sorry."

Last night, Luke seemed to figure out how the bath squirters work. First, he squirted himself squarely in the face. After that, though, he took note of the opening and squirted Emmett instead. Most of the water even stayed in the bathtub! He can't fill them up yet - he knows he has to squeeze them under water, but doesn't wait for them to fill before starting to squirt again. So I filled them for him, and he and Emmett had a great squirt fight. I wish I had audio for you. They were both laughing and squealing, and I'm sure I don't have to tell you how magical those sounds are.

Emmett's first pee-wee soccer game was this morning. The coach hadn't called a practice before the first game, so he told the kids to listen to the ref and try to kick the ball in the goal. Good enough for a bunch of 5 year olds, I guess. It was really fun watching the little kids. There were a few hand-balls as overwhelmed kids decided to just grab the ball, the other coach walked up and down the field holding hands with two of her players (the coaches are allowed on the field), most of the kids were in a bunch around the ball, but there were always a few off in their own world too. Emmett had lots of fun. He mostly stayed out of the bunch, running from goal to goal looking like a goalie for both teams (they play with little nets and no goalie). I tried to tell him to get close enough to the ball that someone could pass it to him, and that he should always know where the ball was. At one point, the ball popped out of the cluster and was going towards the goal. Emmett ha

We know lots of songs where we have fun by inserting names of people we know. This session in Music Together there's a sweet song called "Dancing with Teddy." When I start singing it, Luke will yell out "Daddy!" so I sing "Dancing with Daddy." Then he yells out "Emmett!" or "Gabah!" and even sometimes "Jenny" and "Jake" (oddly, he's never yelled out "Mommy!"). When I sing with the names he's requested, he gets very excited, smiling and jumping around. Luke is still singing along with the Music Together CDs in the car. Today he was singing along, with understandable fragments of words and mostly correct melodies. He's still not singing in class, though. Last week Luke smiled and the teacher said, "Oh, I saw that! You were smiling!" which reminded me just how different he behaves in class vs. at home. At home, we dance together holding hands. In class, I have to pick him up w

When Eileen was here, I didn't notice Luke calling her " Oma ." He learned to say "Wiley" quickly, and had a great time hiding dog treats from her in the basement. Both boys loved playing with Wiley, actually. After my mom left, I heard Luke saying " Olmo " and figured out that he was talking about Oma . And of course, he still talks about Wiley, too. Now that Grandma Gini is visiting, Luke called her " Olmo " a couple of times. But he's switched to " Gabah " or " Dabah " now.

Some things become so common, so quickly, that they just become part of the background of life around here and I forget to post about them. Here are a couple that I've remembered Luke likes to run in circles. When he's excited, he'll start running in tight little circles - if he were running around a post he'd almost be able to touch it the whole way around. While he's doing this, his outer arm will pump back and forth while he runs. Also, Luke runs far more than he walks. He runs around the house, in the backyard, in the driveway, at Target, everywhere. It's cute. One of Emmett's favorite toys for the past couple of months is this handkerchief rat thing. He brought it home from Spanish school, and played with it for a week before it unraveled. Then I had to figure out how to re-tie it into a rat. Google "handkerchief rat" if you're interested. It's tricky, but I figured it out after a while. It was tough, though, with Emmett upse

Luke has started saying "Watis!" (that's "watch this") all the time. Yesterday, it was "Watis!" after which he'd take a rock and drop it on the ground. Or "Watis!" and then he'd run around in a circle. Or "Watis!" and he'd get on the scooter and start trying to ride it. If he says "Watis!" and you don't, he starts yelling. This could be trouble... Luke has been actually getting on Emmett's scooter and riding it properly, pushing with one foot and holding onto the handles. He can't turn yet, so when he needs to turn he picks the whole scooter up and points it where he wants to go. We got a new razor scooter for Emmett yesterday - he's still adjusting to the new scooter, but I'm sure he'll love it once he's used to it.

Emmett has been literally bouncing off the walls this morning. You know, running at a wall, reaching out with his hands to catch himself, and then bouncing off of it. Dad says, "I always thought that was a figure of speech." Also, I was recently reminded of something I don't think I mentioned before on the blog. Emmett likes to jump on the couch while watching cartoons. When the cartoon is really exciting, he'll even run back and forth. One day, he ran right off the side of the couch, landing in the little space between the couch, window, and table.

Emmett has moved on from Music Together into Musical Bridge, a class that starts to introduce elements of reading music, but is designed for kids still a bit young to start on an instrument. During the last session, Emmett had his Musical Bridge class at the same time that Luke and I did Music Together in another classroom. It was ok, but it was on Saturdays which I didn't like. This session, Emmett has Musical Bridge on Monday afternoons and I'm going to Music Together with Luke on Thursday mornings (while Emmett is at Spanish school). I think I confused Luke when we took Emmett to his class on Monday. After sending Emmett into his class and watching through the window for a little bit, I asked Luke if he wanted to go play. (The class is held in a location with two classrooms and a small store with awesome children's toys, so there is lots to look at and do there.) Luke went over to the door to the classroom that we used to do Music Together in and stood there, wait