Because I'm Keeping Track...

This blog is the best record of my kids (so far) so I am adding a random post about all the latest and greatest accomplishments of Lucy and Henry. I will use these posts someday as a resource to make an awesome book. I will.

So, Lucy took a little "dance" class this summer at the Horizons Center - not far from our house. Only one other girl was in her class (a 5 year old) and it didn't really involve a lot of dancing, but a lot of jumping, somersaults, hopscotch, balance beam, trampoline, and even some hilarious attempts at cartwheels. The 5 year old is a little ahead of the game in that department. Lucy's cartwheels need some fine-tuning, to say the least. She had a lot of fun. Now she's in a 4 day pre-preschool in Grandville that, we hope, will give her a little preparation for the real deal this fall. She is there for 2 hours (today is day two) and there are about 8-10 kids in there with her. Yesterday she came home with a very fancy piece of artwork and marker all over her arms. She had a blast.


She also had her second cousin Ryder in class with her, although she didn't necessarily cling to him. Ron saw her sit down by another girl. Probably a good thing, boys have cooties, right? Lucy is incredibly bright and funny, and all parent-bias aside, I can't believe how well she speaks, and how perceptive she is. On the other hand, she still has her moments ... when she catches Henry getting attention for saying something cute (ie: "mama eating too?"), she copies him, and talks like a baby. We don't like that. It seems no matter how much attention and praise she gets for her achievements, she is still jealous when her baby brother steals the spotlight a little. Another positive note: her desperate attempts at fridge raiding have really subsided. She hardly ever opens the fridge now. Maybe we will be able to skip those locks. Until Henry gets a little older, then I imagine he'll probably follow in Lucy's footsteps in that area as well. Sigh.

So Henry says little sentences, copies everything he hears, he even does pretty well trying to sing songs, and he mimicks whatever Lucy does. The following scenario plays out several times a day: Lucy does something kind of naughty and as we tell her to stop / make her stop, Henry does the same thing with a big cute grin on his face, so we have to bust him too, and then Lucy smiles because she has successfully gotten Henry in trouble, and shared the negative attention with her brother. We do our best not to crack a smile, because depending on the kind of day we've had, our tolerance level varies.

• Good day: We are very patient, borderline amused by mischievous antics, but discipline is calm and fairly consistent.
• Bad day: We are not at all tolerant of bad behavior, firm parenting, nothing is funny.
• VERY Bad day: Now the antics might actually push you toward laughter, but it's the laughter of a madman, or in our case, kind that you experience when you just can't believe how loudly your kids can scream when they are trying to outdo each other, chasing laps around the island, and the only way anyone can hear anything is to scream above their noise, and a camera crew should come bursting out of the closets any time now. This type of day, thankfully, is rare.

Cracking a smile never goes unnoticed, and it is the ultimate victory for an almost 4 year old professional button pusher and her trusty sidekick.

I digress. Henry is an awesome little boy. He points out and names countless objects in books (especially animals and foods), and repeats words pretty clearly (recently I said "triceratops" and he said it back to me almost perfectly). He loves to crawl around and act like a puppy, saying "ruff" and panting. He loves playing with little cars and lines them up like a parking lot, and Ron was overjoyed when he remembered "Camaro" days after being taught. He found the Camaro and said it! So cute. At bedtime if he's not screaming with his head thrown back, and pushing on my neck in a violent attempt to escape my arms, he will snuggle and let me set him in the crib, then he puts his hand over his mouth, and throws kisses one after another, going faster and faster until he cracks up laughing,. Yes, he is still in the crib. We haven't made the switch yet - mostly because it's easier to keep him contained in the crib for naptime and bedtime (obvious reasons). He turns 2 at the end of September, so I don't think we're necessarily "late" on the transition, although we put Lucy in her toddler bed a couple months before her second birthday. Shortly after that, she stopped napping. Forever. See how that might kill my motivation? We'll do it soon...

At this very moment he is pulling the folded laundry out of the basket and chewing on my toothbrush.... and that is why I probably won't post again for a while.