Milestone Minutiae

Luke is obsessed with Curious George. We have zillions of books in this house, and when it comes time to read he wants to read Curious George. Fortunately, I found a 12 pack of books and gave it to him for Christmas, so we aren't reading the two books we had before that over and over and over. One of his favorite things at bedtime after the lights are out is for me to tell "Curious George comes to our house" stories. In the stories, Curious George comes over and Luke plays with him, and Luke loves it. Sometimes when I'm reading the books, I'll read "Curious Luke" instead. Luke usually laughs, and then will suggest another character that should be Emmett. Today I started reading, replacing with "Curious Luke" when he stopped me and insisted, "No, Curious Mom!" So I started reading that way. When we got to "And this is George's friend, the man with the yellow hat," Luke yelled out, "That's Dad!" So I

When we first got Guitar Hero, Emmett wouldn't play it. He wouldn't even try strumming the guitar while David or I handled the fret buttons. Too intimidating, somehow. Rock Band has two features that have been essential to Emmett learning to play. First, it has a drum set, which was enticing enough to get Emmett to play. I'm not sure if he thinks the drums are easier than guitar or not, but David and I both think they're harder. The second feature is a "no fail" mode, in which you can play through a song even if you're terrible (normally, you "fail" and have to start over). So Emmett started playing Rock Band on the drums. At first, he would only play songs rated very easy for the drums. As he got more comfortable, he began trying harder songs too. Now David complains that he wants to play really hard songs when they're playing together. Emmett plays by himself sometimes, and I hear him in the basement using the drum trainer - a prac

At bedtime when he's supposed to be lying down and going to sleep, Luke will sit up and say, "I need to sit up. I'm coughin', mom!" (In the past when he's been sick and coughing at night, we've told him that it helps to sit up.) The only problem is that he's never coughing. When I point that out, he'll give a few very fake coughs. Fortunately, he doesn't insist on sitting up for long before he'll lie back down and go to sleep.

Over Christmas Emmett had lots of fun with Grandma Gini learning about Roman numerals. It's an interesting system that lacks a zero. Last night, Emmett was telling me that he thinks they assigned "C" to "100" because "C" looks like a zero. I reminded them that they didn't have a zero, and pointed out that the Spanish word for one hundred is "cien" and Spanish has Latin roots, so perhaps their word for 100 also started with "C." Of course, when I said that the Spanish word for one hundred was "cien," Emmett replied, "It's not 'cien,' it's ' cien !'" I honestly couldn't hear a difference between the two ways he was pronouncing the word, but he was adamant that I hadn't said it right. In other linguistic news, now that Rock Band and Guitar Hero World Tour are being played daily, both boys have started learning the words to "Eye of the Tiger" (remember Rocky?). Luke

David and Emmett were talking about the new baby. David said, "Well, we don't know his name yet. What do you think his name is, Emmett?" Emmett replied, "I know one thing for sure, it ends with Ozenne!"

On our long drive back to Utah, we stopped for dinner at a McDs with a good sized play-place. Emmett always reads the rules at these sort of places, making sure we all stay in line. As I was getting our drinks, he ran over and said, "Parents under 12 can play, too!" Huh? The rules said something like, "Children under 12 may play. Parents too!" He was right!