Nathaniel -- Two and a half (almost)

Nathaniel's vocabulary is finally starting to grow at a noticeable rate. He surprised me yesterday by say, "More cookie." In many ways he speaks more clearly than Edmund. Have I ever told you that Edmund has a lisp? His tongue gets in the way whenever he tries to say the s and th sounds. But even besides not having that lisp Nathaniel speaks more clearly. He does not have as much difficulty with sounds made in the throat, such as g and c/k. Just another difference between the two boys. His new word of the week so far is "read." And believe me, he uses it a lot.

Nathaniel is quite the bookworm. He can sits for an hour sometimes reading books. He loves to carry stack after stack of books to one of his favorite reading spots, then sit down and read each one page by page. Regular children's picture books are great, but some of the most common books he picks are the big story collections or children's encyclopedias. The more pages the better. When we go to the family's house he heads straight for the horse encyclopedias. The strangest and funniest book he likes to read is the Bible. Yes, our regular Bibles that don't have any pictures whatsoever. And he will sit there turning page after page, looking at each one.

Nathaniel didn't take well to the idea of potty training. Too much other stuff to do maybe, or else he didn't want to have to think about when he needed to go potty, but rather just let it happen when it happened. Whatever the case, it took longer than with Edmund to get him to actually tell us when he had to go. If we happened to ask him right when he needed to go we could catch it, but if we asked a few minutes to soon he would say no, then the next thing we would know he would be going in his pants. We used candy (Skittles in this case) as a reward for when he used the toilet and after a couple of weeks he picked up on the idea and got pretty good at telling us when he needed to pee.

Pooping on the other hand took much longer. He absolutely refused to go in the toilet for a few weeks, even to the point of sitting there for several minutes every hour and just holding it. Somedays he would find a quiet place or catch a quick moment when our attention was elsewhere to poop in his pants. With Edmund we gave him one candy for peeing and a second one if he pooped, too. With Nathaniel that second one hardly made a difference. We had to make it an extra four candies before it was enough incentive for him to start going on the toilet.

Thankfully all of that is behind us now. It has been many a week since he has had an accident. He almost never goes even when he is sleeping now.

Nathaniel is starting to pay attention to colors. Everything is "blue," though he can say red, black, and gray when he is prompted. He counts, "two, three, two, three," even lining up his toys and counting them at times. When asked how old he is he knows to say, "two." One of his favorite toys is a plastic Bob the the Tomato that was handed down to us by some friends. He doesn't sleep with his Gorilla any more, but does like to have him on the shelf at the head of the bed. He almost always greets Jeremiah with a hug and a kiss when Jeremiah wakes up from his naps. He calls Jeremiah either "Baby" or "Jack-Jack." He refers to himself as "me" and calls Edmund "you," though he does know all the other names of people in the family.

Dairy still bothers Nathaniel, so we are cutting back on how much we give him. We originally intended to take him off dairy completely, but that is proving harder than you may think. It is amazing how much of the food we eat has even a little dairy in it. So instead of going cold turkey we are slowing taking him off. So far I have switched from butter to oil when cooking for him and have dairy-free pancakes in the freezer for him to eat whenever we have pancakes for breakfast. I used our regular pancake recipe which we already use oil instead of butter when we make and replaced the milk with soymilk, cooking them in oil of course. The soymilk makes for a heavier pancake, so I may try adding a little more baking powder next time I make some. They aren't as flavorful either, but with jam on top he doesn't seem to notice. I am also looking into other alternatives for him.

All in all, Nathaniel is quickly progressing from baby/toddler to little boy. He is very energetic and curious (what child isn't). He is a handful for sure. :)

Thoughts on Life

I go through phases, as I am sure we all do. Some days or weeks I am really motivated, and others I just want to sit around and do nothing (including wishing I wasn't bothered by little children so much). Unfortunately, I have reached that "grown up" point in my life when I find that being grown up means more than getting to stay up late, eat whatever I want, and work or play as the whim hits me. It is such a let down, don't you think? I mean, really, this housework keeps needing to be done even if I feel more like playing or being lazy. And guess what? I have to do it, there's no mom to pick up after me. I am the mom.

My New Year's resolution actually started back in December, as I began to really mean it when I told myself I wanted to invest more time in my children and less time in my daily housework and other "stuff." I have made this resolution in the past, and have even written about it here on my blog. This time around seems to be working better. For one thing, I have truly been spending less time on the internet, particularly Facebook. For another thing I have come up with a housework schedule that really seems to be working. And, as I am discovering this week, right now when things have been going long enough for good intentions to fade the weather has warmed up enough to hint at Spring, which is always a time when I feel more motivated to keep the house clean.

I hope I can keep it up. Edmund and I also do school almost every day. The goal is to do school every day, but with the morning being the best time to do school as well as the time I am most motivated to clean the house it sometimes ends up that the housework takes so long that lunch comes before we have gotten around to doing school. When this happens it is often easier, and less stressful, to skip school. Edmund really enjoys school and is doing a great job, but the later we sit down to do school the shorter his attention span is and the less brain power he seems to have. The struggle often isn't worth it to me.

Then I have this blog, which I enjoy, but don't seem to find time to post on much. Hopefully, that is changing starting now as I, with Jaired's help, attempt to write regularly (probably Tuesday nights). I will share more about Edmund's schooling, housework, my boys, and the other aspects of our lives in future posts.

Good Night.

Edmund -- 4 Years Old

Edmund's birthday was last month, the week before Thanksgiving. He has really been able to understand about his birthday and age change this year. The whole week after his birthday he would use his age in conversations whenever he could. Like saying, "Mama, can I have my four years old boy's Legos to play with?" (He got some Legos for his birthday, and we have to keep them up high when he isn't playing with them, so that Nathaniel won't get them.)

His birthday meals this year were: Blueberry Pancakes for breakfast, Spaghetti with bread and salad for dinner, and Chocolate Cream Pie with whipped cream for dessert. The whipped cream was very important to him. Before he had even decided on a pie he knew he wanted whipped cream on it. :)

We had a lot of fun baking the pies together. He is getting really good at helping with stirring, adding ingredients, and getting out everything we need for the baking process. Jaired taught him how to crack an egg, but he doesn't like to do it because his fingers get egg white on them -- he is such a particular little boy.

Here is the final result. It was pronounced a great success.

Singing "Happy Birthday."

He blew out each candle individually!

Opening presents.

This book is The Wind in the Willows. We read it together the next week and he really enjoyed it. The pictures are beautiful.

Jaired and I got him a sleeping bag. He is so excited, because he has been asking for one since the summer. He sleeps in it almost every night.

In fact, that night we lit a fire in the fireplace and camped out in the living room.

The birthday shirt, made by Aunt Kimberly.

It is crazy that my first baby is four years old now. He is such a sweet, particular, funny little boy. He loves to help me around the house and to play with his little brothers.

We started school with him this year. He has really taken off with writing the alphabet, though he still doesn't remember the names of all the letters. He continues to love drawing and has recently been making "books." He will draw pictures on several papers, scribble "words" on them, then staple the pages together. It is always interesting to read these stories to him. He expects me to know the story, so I have to ask him questions to figure out the general plot and then make up something off of that.

Edmund likes to tell me about his wife, whom he hasn't meet yet. Her name is Aba-baba. He is always talking about her, how many children they are going to have, how she is going to to have a sewing machine just like me, or be like me in some other way. He is so serious about the whole thing.

Random Pictures

From a few months ago:

Edmund and his buddies having some hands-on experience during a Tower of Babel during children's church.

Edmund and his finished product.

Apparently, he didn't want to stand still for the picture.

(The building materials? Marshmallows and peanut butter.)

My budding musician.

Hmm, is he playing Bach? Or, wait, maybe it's Grieg. It is pretty hard to tell at this stage.

Edmund's Zoo

Ever since we visited the zoo last month Edmund has enjoyed playing zoo with his various animals. Today, when he invited me to visit his zoo I decided to be a good tourist and take my camera along for pictures.

The proud zoo keeper

A kangaroo, sheep, and goat live in cozy harmony.

A tiger (that looks more like a bear) shares his pen with a cow.

Edmund assured me that the tiger would not eat the cow. They are just sitting there together.

A cute baby bear.

And the whole zoo.

The Bite of the Sewing Bug

It seems like I end up sewing more during the winter than the rest of the year. At least that is how last winter was. Before Christmas I was making gifts, then afterwards I had several things that I wanted to get out of the way before Jeremiah was born.

I just got my first "load" of fabric for this winter's sewing delights. Be prepared for pictures of sewing projects over the next few months.

For now I will show off my babies and see if you can tell the three apart.

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

Exhibit C:

These pictures are the boys in order, as you may have guessed. Jeremiah is 7 months and the other two are about 5 months. He kicked his feet when I was taking the picture, which adds to how much bigger he looks than the others.

Nathaniel -- 2 Years

Nathaniel's birthday was about two weeks ago. We always get together with the family to celebrate birthdays.

Kimberly made this adorable owl shirt for Nathaniel. Do you see the little leaf detail on the back?

I think this picture is so cute just because of the face Nathaniel is making.

A present from Grandpa and Omi. Yes, that is a fishbowl, with a fish in it.

Nathaniel, getting his first look at his new fish, which he and Edmund named Otto, after the fish in A Fish Out of Water.

This may be my very favorite of all his birthday pictures. We had just finished singing, and he is saying, "yay!"

A little side story: Since the beginning of the summer Edmund has been wrapping up various articles to give to me, Jaired, or Nathaniel. He sings Happy Birthday, cheers, then hands over the gift to be opened, so that is how Nathaniel learned to cheer every time someone sings Happy Birthday.

It only took Nathaniel two puffs to blow out all his candles, which is pretty good for a two year old. Yes, he is two. There are three candles on his cake because we always put one to grow on. :)

Enjoying his cupcake.

I love this little guy. He is such a lovable little boy. He loves to snuggle, and is never shy about go up to our friends asking to be held. He is an funny mixture of big boy and baby. He loves reading books and drawing pictures. He is really getting into playing with Edmund, and is able to understand a lot of what Edmund wants him to do in the games they play. But he also still loves his pacifier. He can be such a baby sometimes when he is sad or not feeling well, but a lot of times if he gets hurt he will come to me crying and wailing and as soon as I kiss him on the head he shuts off like a switch and goes back to whatever he was doing. He is still very attached to his Gorilla and Dog, but he also goes through times when he has some other special thing he likes to carry around. This week he has been carrying around all my baby washcloths.

Speaking of Gorillas, we went to the zoo last Saturday as part of Nathaniel's birthday. Of course we took him to the Gorilla House. This one was right next to the window (as you can see) and Nathaniel was pretty excited about it.

Look at how calm and nice the gorilla looks. Well, just after taking this picture it sprang up and hit the window with all four feet. It was sudden, and loud, and kids don't know all about really thick, strong glass. That other little kid just about died of fright. Nathaniel handled it pretty well, his lip just trembled as he backed slowly away. But he didn't want to see the gorilla anymore. And when we went into the money house he refused to look at the monkeys. He still loves his Gorilla. :)

We love you, Than-than. Happy Birthday!