Are we having fun yet?: Just for grandma and hoppy

We've been doing experiments out of the book I bought. Right now I'm loving the book I bought. It's getting some use. One of the experiments is to track rainfall. It was pretty fun. We started last week and it was really boring. Barely any water in the container the first day and lots of zeros after. But I think that was good because now every day after lunch T and W are excited to measure the water. Why? Because suddenly the container is half filled every day. Here is how it's been since Saturday. 1 inch. 1.5 inches, 1.25 inches, and today was 2 inches. These are all 24 hour rainfall totals. So that should tell you how much it is dumping rain and how much we are staying inside. It is driving T crazy.

This one is for grandma and hoppy. E loves grapefruit. I think he is just really desperate to feed himself and so any food that I give him for self feeding he goes to town on. But I wasn't expecting him to down it. He loves it and made a huge mess eating it.

W made a hexagon track. That's exactly how she described it.

We all went for a 2.5 hour hike. I have no idea how much the distance was but it took us 2.5 hours to complete it, including the long snack bak. T asked to go back home every time we started walking uphill, but other than that they did great. Whenevere we go walking in the woods I've been trying to see if they will pick the correct pathway back. T hasn't done so well in the past. Usually it is w that gets it. But today he got every turn but one. The last one he missed, but I can't blame him since there were 10 turns or so and that last one was 2 hours previous. That is some skill.

I asked t who his friends are. He said he didn't know. I asked him who he likes to be with. Without hesitation, he answered papa! Then e. then mommy.

I changed their sheets to their summer ones. They are microfiber ones. W loves them. She even traded meow meow for dolphin to match them. They are hello kitty ones. T was awake an hour extra the night I changed them. I finally went in and asked why he wasn't asleep. He said his sheets and pillow were soggy and cold. He wanted his other ones because they were soft and warm. W asked if we were going to give them to another child that will use them. Yes. Hopefully e will like them and he can be the other child.

T was an awesome gardener. He helped me prune and does a fabulous job!

I let e crawl outside. He loved it. Me a little less. He is very adept at getting wood chips in at a rapid pace. He also got to play with the car we have outside. He can kneel and walk behind it. He was laughing hysterically at that.

The neighbor kids thought it was funny that e crawls. They were crawling with e on either side of him and declared it to be really fun. They are 6 and 4 years old

This week T was washing his hands. He stepped on the stool funny and it rolled out from under him so he totally smacked his chin on the counter. And bit a hole in his tongue. I could easily see that injury and saw it scab up, so I thought, other than an annoying pain, he would be good. That was at 11 am. At 2 pm I was smelling this horrible but odd smell that I couldn't pin point while reading books to them. I finally figured out that it was T's mouth after sniffing all sorts of normally offensive sites. It had started bleeding again and I couldn't tell the source, so I took him in the bathroom to make him swish out his mouth so I could see his teeth. He kept swishing and swishing and all I could see was red teeth, so I made him stop and pushed on his teeth. All were solidly placed. So then I took his toothbrush to brush his teeth. Ah. The Problem. A flap of tongue was stuck in his teeth and needed to be flossed out. It was sooooo gross! Poor kid. He must have been in lots of pain. He barely ate any food the rest of the day, just smoothies. At dinner he was desperate and ate a bean burrito, but it was hard for me to watch it because he had red bite marks each time he bit the tortilla. Broke my heart. And I should have known he was in pain if he asked at 6 to go to bed for the night, not to mention he did no running around that whole afternoon and just wanted to snuggle and read books. Sounds more like W, not T. But he made up for it the next day.

At joy school they talked about what made them happy. I think it was a fun lesson. They came home talking about it and a previous lesson about green eggs and ham. T brought his thomas the train sticker book. W brought her watercolor paint set. Those things cheer them up. They made pigs in a blanket for snack and they loved that. Apparently they used mr potato head to talk about emotions. His teacher got a kick out of how much T laughed at all the funny faces to choose from on mr. potato head.

I think a cute moment I had with them was when I found them all playing in the same room together with everyone happy with each other. E was immensly pleased he had pulled to stand on the IKEA chair the big kids turn on it's side to make a car or a hide out. T and W were lauhing at how they were playing with the doll house fruniture

E loves to follow us out doors now. It cracks me up because he sees that we are all leaving the room and he sets his face to keep up with us and works hard to do it. He is so determined. That and he laughs when he finds any of us or pulls his bib off. he really likes standing in the fridge or at cabinets to pull everything off the shelf. and he just keeps smiling and smiling and smiling while he explores and explores and explores. He's really excited to be on earth

Did you know there are cute hitches? T was stopping to check if a hitch was on a car, when w said,"it's not a cute hitch, it is a big hitch". I wonder when all this hitch checking put will end. It reminds me of when my brother r liked checking out public bathrooms, just to see what they are like.

I've been reading parenting books lately because I'm running out of ideas. I really liked this one in particular because it talks about how we are the parents and thus we are in control. I agreed with the part of if we are in control of rest and nutritious diet, it will really, really help our kids. But then it also talked about how we are in control of other behaviors too. They are usually a reaction to something. I totally agreed with the comments on how what are kids eat and how they sleep will influence their behaiviors greatly. I can see in them and how their behaviors change based on how much processed food they eat versus real food. I can also feel the difference in my own body. I also see and feel it in relation to sleep. But I guess it also means the other part about behaviors is a reaction to something. That's harder. That means I have to take a good look at myself and how busy I let our house be or not and have to agree to follow the rules of not getting to busy so that I'm messing up nap times or bedtimes. Or look at myself when they do stuff that I don't like. Maybe it is something they see me do...

E really wants to feed himself. Not a favorite of mine because it is really messy, but he loves it.

He is also well on his way to being a 6 tooth baby.