My Kids

Both my chilluns are having birthdays soon.  Molly will be 3 and Jack will be 1.  I was reading back on my blog about what was going on when Molly was almost 1 and I have not done a very good job documenting Jack like I did with Molly.  Here are some updates:

Jack

• Walking all over the place.  Very bow-legged.  Refuses to wear shoes.  This morning James put shoes on him and he literally sat on the floor and sobbed.  He wouldn't even get up.  He acts as is shoes are the curse of the world.  Needless to say, he doesn't wear shoes at school and usually ends up walking around bare-footed (which I'm not thrilled about because dirty feet are yucky).  This weekend I am going to see if I can at least find him some of those gripper-sock-shoe things (or some shoes that he'll walk in).
• Picks up anything that looks like a phone and puts it to his ear, saying something that resemble "Hello."

• Makes sounds resembling a monkey and lion.  Molly and I have been trying very hard to get him to do these animals on queue and he is getting better.
• He can say Uh-oh, Mama, Dada, and bye-bye . . . . though he doesn't always say them when he is supposed to.
• Throws a ball pretty well already and with the early walking maybe it is a sign of some athletic ability (since his sister is a bit of a clod like her parents).
• Loves to eat, especially bread, cheese, baby oatmeal, and mini chocolate chips (dessert!). Loves to drink out of a sippy cup.  Loves to lick butter off a saltine cracker.  Doesn't like Fruit Loops or mashed potatoes.
• Loves his sister.  Follows her around.  Giggles at her in the car.  Screams when she screams.
• He has already learned how to torment his drama queen sister.  If he catches her on the floor, he'll pull her hair, let go, pull it, let go, until mom intervenes.  Molly screams.  It's kind of funny.  Also, the other night in the bathtub, he went to pull up on the shower knob thing to change the water from the spout to the shower and Molly freaked.  He laughed.  Although he really couldn't pull it up, he kept putting his hand toward it just to get a reaction from her.  
• He loves to be outside.  Most afternoons when I pick him up from school, he is outside playing with the big kids (supervised, of course).  He loves to sit in the wood chips and just walk around (without shoes on, also of course).  Tonight while we were spreading dirt, he had a lot of fun wandering outside and just sitting in the dirt.  He was pretty gross and needed a bath when we were finished.

Molly

• She is afraid of all "ladybugs" which is a universal word for any type of insect or spider.  The other day she was playing on the stairs and freaked out because there was a lady bug.  I couldn't see a bug anywhere.  I had no idea what she was talking about, but after several minutes of her freaking out and me searching, I found a microscopic web and spider in between the wall and the bottom step.  I killed it with a Klenex but she refused to go back downstairs.
• She loves to talk on her play phones.  She calls both sets of grandparents.  She calls Uncle Willie.  She calls all her teachers at school.  It is pretty funny. Conversations go something like this, "Hi Grandpa Binggeli . . . . you come to my house . . . ya Jack is by me in the car . . . ok bye."
• On Thursday she went on a field trip to Wheeler Farm.  In the car on the way home she told me all about the cock-a-doodle-chickens chasing her, the pigs not wanting to come out, she didn't get to throw bread at the ducks, and a few other things.  I tried to get her to tell me about her field trip on the camera, but of course, she wouldn't cooperate.

• She can recognize all 26 capital letters and actually does a pretty good job at drawing some of them.  When we go to a store, I tell her the name of the store and to look for what letter it starts with and she is pretty good at picking out the signs.  She can count to thirty by herself, but doesn't recognize any written numbers and really doesn't understand how to count.  She knows how many "just 1" is, but anything more than 1 can be 2, 6, 10, whatever.  She is getting a little better, though.  That will be one of our summer projects.
• She learned about "photosynthesis" at school the other day and was pretty funny telling about the trees and the sun and the ground, etc., but when I tried to get her to do it on camera, she of course did not cooperate.
• She LOVES to sing and can pick out the words on almost every song on the "Molly Playlist" on our ipod.  It is really cute.