Little math whiz

I was planning to take the kids to the Little Tot Drop In at the St Louis Park Rec Center today. It's a chance for the kids to run around and it's two dollars per kid. I was in the shower when Joe left and just moments after he yelled goodbye to me I remembered I only had one dollar. I yelled and yelled for him to see if he was still there. The kids came to see what was going on. Erik told me Joe had left and asked why I wanted him. I explained I wanted a couple dollars, but that we would raid his piggy bank for three dollars. He asked how much three dollars was. I asked if he knew which ones quarters are. He said they are the big circles. I said three dollars is four quarters, three times. So he went and got a piggy bank and made piles. When I came to check on him he had two piles of four quarters (which impressed me) but had run out of quarters. I found two in my jeans pocket, and we used dimes and nickels for the rest. I really think that if there had been twelve quarters in the bank he could have gotten me three dollars!

At the rec center they have several large vending machines and Erik wanted a snack when we left at 11:30 (lunchtime). I explained he'd had fruit snacks already and we were going home for lunch. But he was sooo hungry now. He was afraid by the time we got home he wouldn't be hungry anymore. So I reminded him we'd used our last nickel paying admission. He shuffled his feet a moment and said, "I wish we'd brung some more pennies."

Pictures of January

I'm not sure why my formatting is so weird. Grr.

Erik's been napping again lately, yay! One day last week, after cuddling with Joe on the rocking chair, Erik fell asleep. When Adin wandered by later he said, "Erik sleep."








Then he went and got Erik's blanket from his room and covered him up! Sweet!


Here's a picture of Erik and Adin in Erik's bed. They played a little peek-a-boo after I took this picture.


And finally, here's a picture of the gingerbread pieces Erik and I decorated. We didn't bother to assemble the house. It was too hard, and we just wanted to eat them, anyway!

Well, la ti dah

Adin is now saying three word phrases on a regular basis. I've been writing them down, but of course they are upstairs as I am writing this. When we came in from outside he said, "no jacket on". At bedtime yesterday he talked about, "Elmo blanket book". This evening he even said, "yellow ball go in"! 'No' plus two words or 'my' plus two words are very popular ways to get in a three word utterance. And he's trying to imitate everything. Because it's past my bedtime, of course I won't remember what the funny long word he tried to say was, but maybe tomorrow there will be a good one I can report. He's had an ear infection and does not want to take his medicine, so all week he's been saying, "no medicine" but it comes out all funny and cute.

Ginsa!

Here's a picture of our family at a Japanese restaurant where they cooked our food in front of us. I may update later with a picture of column of fire, if I can get my pixels on one. Oh, the little girl by Joe is the daughter of our friends.

Wilderness Adventure

We went to the Wisconsin Dells this weekend for the first time and stayed at the Wilderness Resort. It's huge, with multiple waterpark areas to explore. Erik blows hot and cold when it comes to pools, so I didn't know how this would go, but he loved it. The wading pools were nice for him, just a tiny bit too much spraying water. We drove down Saturday and came back Monday, and he was sad to leave. He said three days wasn't long enough. He wanted to stay at least five days, or even better, could we please live there? The picture of Joe and Erik in the yellow inner tube was one of Erik's favorite activities: floating on "Lazy River".

Adin had fun, too, but he had a bad ear infection, so he was pretty zonked out the whole weekend. By the time he had antibiotics and was perking up, we were headed home. Oh well, he got lots of cuddle time.

Little Stinker!

Most of the time, Adin is a great one for sharing. He'll share candy, fruit, almost anything. Today we went to the grocery store after dropping Erik off at school. Cub has free cookies for kids. Adin often can't finish his, so I get to have a taste. Today they had M&M cookies and he named the colors, licked the candy, took the occasional nibble of the cookie. After a while, he told me he was all done. I asked if I could have a bite. "Noooo." Could I have a nibble? "Noooo." I picked up a bottle of hand soap, and Adin said again that he was all done with the cookie and held it out to me. Before I could stop the cart, reach and take his cookie, he'd dropped it on the floor so he could pick up the soap! I was so frustrated that I could have had the rest of his cookie if he'd only waited a moment longer! Oh well. The last thing I need is a delicious M&M cookie!

Like Mother, Like Son

The kids and I were downstairs. They were watching Sesame Street and I was reading blogs, comics, etc on my computer. Adin kept peeking over the couch at me and saying hi. After the show was over, I started playing Legos with them. Next thing I know, I look over and Adin's tapping away at my netbook.



Cheese!

verbage

Yesterday I noticed after Adin does something he thinks is special (kick a ball, for example) he will say, "did". I'm sure he hears Joe and me say, "You did it" in situations like that. Today I heard him say "is", although I forget why. I think it's sort of unusual for 'did' and 'is' to be among kids' first words. And for good reason, they aren't that functional. But it's still pretty fun to hear!

A Day of Firsts

Adin had quite a day today. He said his first three word phrase: more juice please. He also peed in the potty! He's been saying, "pee pee" and standing near the toilet. A couple times I tried sitting him on it, but he was a little scared. So I when he says that, I let him sit on it with his clothes on. Then one time Erik was on there when Adin said, "pee pee" so I put Adin on the little potty seat. Tonight when the kids were getting ready for baths, I guess Adin said it again, so Joe had me get the potty seat and we put him on there. It's physically a little hard for him to sit on it and aim down, but he got some pee in there! And some on the floor, but still! Then during books he requested the potty again, but I'm not sure that he peed the second time. Wow! How fun for him to have a little success so early.