week ending nov 11, 2007:

Week ending November 11, 2007: This week the kids have been much better behaved. In fact the only one in the family with bad behavior this week was me! I didn’t get enough sleep all week and one day I was really grouchy and in a quiet moment I apologized to Chloe and explained that it wasn’t her fault. She asked if a hug would make me feel better. I said “of course it will, but I’ll probably feel grouchy again later”. She said “then I’ll give you another hug later”. What a sweetie! This week Alex ate a pork chop. Because he was a late talker we had his speech evaluated when he was about 18 months old and they noticed that he wasn’t a strong chewer which indicated week muscles and was part of the reason he wasn’t talking. He was much later than Chloe accepting many foods and he has never eaten tough meats like pork chops until now. Also this week Alex saw a little girl in the grocery store and said out loud “that girl is beautiful!”. It is so sweet how kids their age say what they mean without putting on airs or trying “be cool”. I wonder how long that lasts. I already noticed that they both have started to talk about what “people” will think. Chloe got her shoes muddy one day on the way to the car and complained “Mom, I don’t want ‘people’ to see my shoes muddy”. Even Alex will say things like “people will see us playing and say ‘those kids are having fun’”. Chloe’s whopper questions this week: How does the water get in the clouds? Does the ocean get lower when the water goes to the clouds? Why does wood burn? (Had to look that one up, here’s the answer: http://science.howstuffworks.com/fire1.htm) And, why did that little peanut make Aunt Danielle so sick? The ‘peanut’ to which she refers is the peanut sized baby that was baby Aidan during Aunt Danielle’s first trimester. The picture this week is of Daddy and Alex in their favorite bonding ritual, shopping for boats on the computer (Chloe is asleep on Daddy’s lap because this was the day she got shots and had her swim lesson). Alex asks all sort of questions about the boats and is learning about different kinds of boats and together he and Daddy count the number of motors etc. Oh, and both of the kids are suddenly interested in letters and numbers. They notice letters and numbers on signs and packages and all around us and they love to talk about them. Chloe practices writing and drawing everyday without us asking her to. Her drawings are much more consistently recognizable and her repertoire of things she can draw is growing rapidly.
shower pics: http://picasaweb.google.com/constance.phelps/AidanSShower