Milestone Minutiae

Emmett has been pretending that there are "fire jets" all over the house. Some of them have very complicated (imaginary) contraptions that set them off, others he seems to be able to set of at will. He talks about them often with Luke, who has joined in the game and tells me where the fire jets are, too. I've seen the two of them sitting in the dark in Emmett's room, waiting for the "fire jets" to light things up.

No, not that kind, I mean actually determining who is male and who is female. We have this game called "Guess Who," where you have a field of faces and have to determine which person your opponent has by asking questions like, "Does your person have blond hair?" etc... The faces are a bit cartoon-ish, and some are more androgynous than others. I think they're trying hard not to stereotype, but it leaves Emmett checking the names to determine gender for a few of them. And one of the sweet-faced men has a beard. That usually clues Emmett in. I only mention it because in another drawing, Emmett was having trouble identifying this one person as female. She's old and drawn with a fairly "severe" face - he was surprised when I told him she was female. While I can see what in the drawings is causing the confusion, it's interesting because I of course have no trouble identifying the drawings as male or female. It must be something we learn.

I can't believe I haven't blogged about this already, because it's been an all-summer-long occurrence. At the beginning of the summer, I bought some super-soakers for the boys to play with, but Luke couldn't squirt them without help. In my search for water guns that Luke could squirt by himself, we've ended up with quite an arsenal in the yard. I figured that was good - kids come over to play, and they can all have water fights together. Little did I know Emmett's idea of a "fair fight" includes everyone else with a squirt gun, and him with the hose. No one leaves with a scrap of dry clothing anywhere.

In Spring, I gave Luke a buzz cut at home. But his hair is so thin and blond that I realized I couldn't do that in the summer - his scalp would burn. So all summer long his hair has gotten longer and longer, and crazier and crazier. He's seen Emmett get haircuts before, so I started talking to him about going to get a real haircut. He seemed to like the idea, so yesterday we gave it a try. As we left the house, Luke wanted a haircut. When we got to Cookie Cutters (a "kiddie" haircut place, with videos, toys, and seats like firetrucks, planes, etc), Luke didn't want a haircut. But while he watched Emmett get his haircut he changed his mind. He did great! He was a little apprehensive about the cape, but happily watched Curious George while the stylist cut his hair. He squirmed like a normal kid, but never got upset about it. And now he looks so cute! (I'm getting a photo gallery ready, so you'll see the haircut as soon as I get that up.)

Luke learned how to climb up to the slides today! Emmett helped him the first time, providing a little support. Once he was at the top, Luke wasn't really sure he wanted to slide down, but did when Emmett held his hand. After that Luke was going up and down all by himself. He fell off once and was a bit upset, but was willing to climb back up and slide again.

Luke was sick yesterday. The acute (throwing up) part was pretty short, just a few hours, but he was miserable and mad. When Emmett got really sick as a baby, he'd become calm. It was sad, but it was easier to deal with than a baby who is mad! When he was getting ready to throw up, he'd tell me his belly button hurt. Cute, but still so sad. The good news is that it started just after lunch, and by dinner time he was running around playing and feeling fine.

When he was younger Emmett always skipped commercials when watching TV, but now he watches lots of them. Now Emmett comes up to me almost every day with questions like, "Would you like to make money on EBay?" or "Would you like to store some of our stuff in an off site POD?" He also wants lots of stuff they advertise to kids on TV, like Blendy Pens. Lucky for me, Costco had them so we tried them out. The first time Emmett tried to blend some colors, the "fusion chamber" broke. Some of the pens seemed much drier than others so the didn't blend well. We returned the set to Costco, and I tried to explain why things advertised on TV might not be of very high quality.

Did you know that your second kid won't be exactly the same as your first kid? It's trouble, you know. Emmett always loved taking baths. So before a bath, I'd say to Emmett, "Do you want to take a ... walk? Do you want to take a ... picture?" and so on. He'd get excited, sometimes yelling out "Bath!" and sometimes just heading off to the bathtub before I even got to "bath." Luke has enjoyed baths, but not as much as Emmett. And over time he's come to hate getting his hair washed, so he's not particularly eager for a bath. I tried my little "Do you want to take a ..." trick with Luke a few times, but he never responded quite the same way. Last night I skipped the lead in and said in a normal voice "Do you want to take a bath?" Luke said he wanted to take a walk.