A Strong Song

The MC never ceases to amaze me.  This morning was hard for me; I'm trying to hold it together for their sake and not let them see my despair.  I put on some music to empower me, my new favorite song, "The Cave" by Mumford and Sons.  I was singing along to it and then to the next one that came on, and MC said, "I like that song that was on before this one."
"I do too," I said, "It makes me feel strong.  Sometimes playing music can help me feel strong and more cheerful."
"You know what's a good song for feeling strong?" he said, "number 12 on Daddy's CD."
"Daddy's CD" is a mixed CD pair that I made for Cary a few years ago with a bunch of empowering songs, some cheesy, some less so.  Though he hasn't ever really listened to them much, the boys LOVE those CDs.  Meanwhile Cary and I and the sitters have grown very tired of listening to the same "Hot Stuff" and other songs in that genre ad nauseum. Nevertheless, I was most curious which one he was thinking of and rather incredulous that he not only knew a song that could make you feel strong, but that he knew which number it was and on which CD.  He couldn't describe it, so we went to put it on.  Soon, "Strong Enough," by Cher was blaring through the speakers.  I nearly cried.  That child is so unbelievably insightful sometimes.  Beyond what he even understands. He couldn't possibly understand the full power of those lyrics, but I just had to check on one thing.  As Cher sings, "I'm strong enough to live without you..." I said to him, "It's true A--, I'm really strong, but I'm not strong enough for that.  I could never live without you.  I will love you forever."
To which he simply responded with a hug and a kiss in return and said, "Oh, I don't know about the rest of the words, just the strong part."
God I love that kid.

Avi's jokes...

He's very into jokes. He regularly brings a joke home from Edison's daily announcements. And then sometimes he makes up his own variations, like tonight's.
Avi: "Knock knock"
Me: "Who's there?"
Avi: "Boo"
Me: "Boo who"
Avi: "Knock knock"
Me: "Who's there?"
Avi: "Boo"
Me: "Boo who"
Avi: "Knock knock"
Me: "Who's there?"
Avi: "Aren't you glad I didn't say banana?"

Track engineer

Ezra is quite good at putting train tracks together. I was impressed to see him put all tho together this morning, including using the slopped one to connect to the bridge. And after this pic was taken, incorporating a t intersection with additional track leading off in all directions. Clever boy.

Happy Mama

Is there much that makes a mom happier than seeing her boys play sweetly and appropriately together. Avi and Ezra have been stacking cup towers together for a good 15 minutes. Counting, stacking, knocking, etc. Avi's being a great big brother. "Let's do chop chop timber again."

Block towers

Ezra was surprisingly good at stacking blocks, even skinny ones on end a long time ago. I want to even say a year ago. But I was particularly impressed with his engineering skills this evening. He was stacking towers and I was counting the blocks for him. Then without any demonstration on my part he used two blocks to make the bottom level, straddling the next layer block in half of the first two, like an older more experienced mind would do. That worked well. He got six high that time instead of five. Then he happily knocked it over and started again. This time he used double blocks for the first two levels. He got seven stories high. He might just be as much of a smarty-pants as his brothers. God help us.
And his vocabulary has exploded as it's wont to do at this age. He suddenly seems to have hundreds of words. Now, to be honest, most people would only understand a handful of them, but I get it. Every day, every context finds him demonstrating new words he is wanting to try out. So fun. Now if only he doesn't become as challenging as his brothers. Wishful thinking I fear.

Where's Avi going to fall asleep next?

Another difficult bedtime. This is where we eventually found him tonight when we came down from watching a video.

Shabbat at the beach

What a great day at the beach we had this Shabbat. We left Friday evening, had a Shabbat picnic along the way at a park. Got in late to a hotel on Newport and the played all day on Saturday. Tide pools, beach time, hanging out on the docks looking at crabs and jellyfish and sea lions and boats, meals out, swimming at grandma and grandpa's resort and then havdalah before getting in the car to head home. What a jam-packed day we had. Like a three-day weekend rolled into one day. So glad we did it. We needed that family time.

Musical beds

This is where we find Avi more often than not. Either before bed as pictured here when he has snuck into our room to fall asleep unbeknownst to us or in the middle of the night when he wakes up and sneaks in be with us, also unbeknownst to us generally because we're both too dead tired to notice an extra body in that queen size bed (which is already also Murphy's sleep spot of choice to my frustration) until we wake up stiff and sore because of our contortions to make room for him (and Murph). I have to say one thing though. For all his challenges getting to sleep and staying asleep in his own bed, once he's asleep he's a great little smuggler. He doesn't wiggle and squirm. He doesn't breathe loud or anything else distracting. Unlike his big brother who is too squirmy to sleep with or his little brother who is too independent to sleep with anyone, Avi is a great sleep companion. Until of course you wake up drenched as I did one night last week because he'd peed all over both of us and the bed. Ugh. We both changed jammies, abandoned Cary on the dry side of our bed and moved to Avis bed together. Other nights (no pee involved), Cary has been the one to give up and move to Avi's bed in the middle of the night. Easier than moving him I guess he figured.

Puzzle master

Ezra did this whole puzzle almost all by himself. It may be the first time he has seen it, I'm not sure. He has a very good sense of what needed to go where with very little assistance.

Avi's wonderous brain

It's been five months since the snowstorm caused the tree branch on the power line experience that so significantly affected Avi. He still talks about it regularly. We've mostly worked through the fear of electricity that resulted. (The fear that made it hard for him to fall asleep because the electricity in the wires of the house might harm us, etc...). Anyhow, we're driving down the road just now on the way to our family day at Enchanted Forest and he says, "Is a branch a conductor?"
"Are you asking if wood conducts electricity?" I clarified.
"Yes."
"No," I said, explaining how that's why powerlines are made of wood.
Without missing a beat, he responds, "Then why did the branch catch on fire when it touched the powerline?"
If he asks questions that hard now, what's it going to be like when he's 8? Speaking of 8 year olds asking questions, that one is driving me crazy with his questions. Incessant. It's been that way since before he was two, and it hasn't let up. The worst is that he doesn't let up with a line of questioning. You give him a good answer and he asks a follow up question and you give another answer and just get another question until the questions just get more unreal and unanswerable. I end up exploding in frustration regularly. Then I feel badly of course, but it's out of control. Worst is when he repeats the same question when I've already given him an answer.

Tired boy

He might be a little worn out. Not only did he wake up at 4:40 this morning, but he just spent the last hour jumping into my arms from the side of the pool and walking to the steps, getting out and doing it again. He must have repeated that cycle 30 times.

Speed reader

We gave Noah a new book to try at bedtime last night, Ereth's Birthday by Avi (the author, not his brother). That was right about 8:00. Tonight he complained of having nothing to read. I said, "what about that book from last night, didn't you like it?" He grinned and said, "I finished it!"
"No you didn't," I retorted, thinking it not possible since he was asleep by 9 or 9:30.
"Yes I did," he insisted.
So I grabbed the book and read snippets from the back of the book, "Who died and how did she die... What were the mice singing at the end?" etc. He answered all my questions accurately. What do I do with a kid who reads 180 pages of a book marked ages 8-12 in 90 minutes?

Today is Avi's birthday. 5. We went out to Chapala as is becoming customary to mark birthdays around here. Then off to swimming lessons and then back over to 28th and Willamette to go to the Yogurt Extreme place so he could have a treat and play with the wii they have there. His idea. Nonetheless, he hardly ate any of the frozen yogurt treat and then he mostly just wanted to watch Noah do the dancing game on the wii. He tried a little bit eventually, but didn't actually want to use the remote or wand or whatever the handheld thing is called. Typical. He was happy observing. I'm assuming he will move out of observer role eventually, but I wonder if there's more I need to do to encourage that or if it will happen naturally regardless of my strategizing.

And since I've mentioned the other two, I might as well record an update on #3. He has finally started talking. Not all at once, but he's getting some words (recognizable by us if not outsiders). They include:
Up
Yes (yesh)
No
Mama
Daddy
Night night
Off
Poop

And more.... The other ones aren't quite as regularly heard and don't come to mind, but I have heard attempts at ball, all done, thank you, me, doggie, and others. It's coming slowly but surely. Not to mention plenty of imitation sounds like barking, sirens, cars, etc.
My personal favorite has to be "yesh" though. He says it so quietly and deliberately, and with a sheepish grin on his face. It's irresistible.

Thank you They Might Be Giants

My child is obsessed with the "backwards alphabet."

In the water!!!

Every now and then I think I may have figured out a dime's worth of wisdom about this parenting gig. Doesn't happen everyday, but when it does it sure feels good! So I'm patting myself on the back right now as I watch Avi smiling and enjoying swim lessons. No one would believe this was the same child from two days ago. Tuesday: crying, shaking, panicking, and refusing to get in the water. Today: bouncing, jabbering, grinning. We were a minute or two late Tuesday and that meant that the class started without him and I think, knowing him as I do, he then felt out of place and uncomfortable, which just compounded his apprehension of the swimming situation. He felt in the wrong. So today, I vowed to get there super early, which we never manage to do. But we did! We were 10 minutes early and that meant we were the first ones there. Even before the teacher, whom we were then able to say hello to before she even got into her suit. Avi waited for her ten and she came out again and he helped her get the props out and he was first in the pool before any other kids were even there. Success!!!

When Avi takes swim lessons...

Note: he is not actually in the pool. That's as close as we got him in the 30 minutes. Let's hope Thursday goes better, otherwise we're in for a repeat of last year.

When Avi plays with Legos...

"Up"

Oh, and Ezra seemed to learn the word "up" tonight. Add that to mamma and the all purpose "da" and an occasional "daddy." and maybe we've finally officially entered the verbal stage. He seems to be following in Avi's footsteps with the talking thing.

Monsters under the bed? No.

Avi is asleep on the couch downstairs (where Cary is doing sone work on his ipad) because he was genuinely too terrified to go to sleep in his room when we were not on the same floor. He lost story time due to poor behavior at dinner. He got ready for bed ok but then when left alone got more and more worked up about his latest bedtime fear. Ready for this... Electricity. He's been pretty freaked out about electricity every since seeing the transformer explode in the spring snow storm.
He has also become terrified of cars. To the point of being paralyzed at the thought of one near him. Not the presence of a running car, but just the possibility of one. This has transformed his new bike riding pleasure into a thing of the last (hopefully temporarily), and makes it impossible for him to get out of the car in a parking lot without a grown up right beside him. Where did my fearless toddler go?
Also in this note about how Avi's mind works... He worked much of Sunday with Cary on the project in the basement. He was curious about the barometer and then the dehumidifier and wouldn't stop asking questions until he understood exactly how the whole thing worked. Cary asked him the next morning if he remembered how it worked and he was able to describe it back to him in specific step by step details.

Done with highchair?

Are we done with it? That's a risky decision, but he does sure like sitting at the table with his brothers, and I would enjoy having it out of the room.

Playtime

These two have been playing together (parallel fashion) more and more. This morning Ezra played nicely with zoob and then train tracks while I did the breakfast dishes (instead of doing things like dumping out the dog food and water and getting into the water dispenser and pulling the bags out of the cupboard). Yeah. There is hope.