Arwyn set the Transue school nap record today, sleeping a whopping 2 hours and 45 min straight! I was always so amazed when I learned that some other kids did that, but now I have one that does. Of course she still has her share of short naps too, but at least we know the long ones are possible! She's consistently inconsistent, so we'll just see what happens. Arwyn is also still puking from last week's garlic incident. I'm getting really tired of this, so I'm very impatient to get my system cleaned out and see if it helps or if something else is going on.
Leia's milestone this week is her sudden ability to draw nearly perfect circles rather than just a bunch of scribbles! Check out the first picture below, so amazing!! We had our neighbors over for a play date this week, and again, even though Leia wanted Echo to come, as soon as she arrived the stress of sharing was just too much. Older brother Rye was downstairs having the run of all of Leia's Hot Wheels with no problems, but letting Echo have anything was not allowed. She finally got so stressed that she just sat in my lap and sucked her finger, which she never does. She finally just started trying to corral all of us to go back downstairs and get the hell out of her room (despite having initially insisted we all come up there). It was pretty funny. Leia started out always wanted her own cup of coffee (which we assumed she learned from school since no one here drinks coffee), but now she's always wanting her own glass of wine (which we know for sure she did NOT learn at school)! It's pretty funny, and since we have plenty of plastic glasses, we have to oblige. Luckily she doesn't actually know what she's asking for yet, but I guess it won't be long.
The cutest new thing is that Leia has started making up and singing new songs with her own lyrics about what is going on around her, just like Josh does. He always says to me, "That's a song I wrote for you," and while Leia isn't specifically saying that yet, that's what I hear in my head after she sings one of her songs and it makes me laugh. She's also started on insisting on reading books herself. When we sit down to read before bed, she takes one and I take one. Mostly she just flips through hers while I read mine aloud, but one day when I said "Let's read the book," she said "I'm going to read it too." Then she opens it up and actually starts reading the pages. "Girls and stuff" was what she interpreted the words to be.
We had a small break through in the discipline front. Based on a recommendation from our good friends Beth and Danny, we read the book "How to talk so kids will listen, and listen so kids will talk." Already on my own I had decided that timeouts really weren't working for us, and I had abandoned them for the "active ignore" technique we learned from Leia's teacher Jenni, which has been working surprisingly well. But I was tired of her hating getting her hair brushed and me chasing her around while she screams. So, thanks to the book, I said to her one day, "I see you don't like it when I brush your hair and how it hurts you. It's really important to me that we get it brushed and get those knots out. How about if we go to the store together and you pick out a brush that you like so we can always brush your hair with it?" Her face lit up, and she kept reminding me about it until we had time to go, and now she's so much better about getting her hair brushed! (It's not always perfect, but way better.)
Leia's milestone this week is her sudden ability to draw nearly perfect circles rather than just a bunch of scribbles! Check out the first picture below, so amazing!! We had our neighbors over for a play date this week, and again, even though Leia wanted Echo to come, as soon as she arrived the stress of sharing was just too much. Older brother Rye was downstairs having the run of all of Leia's Hot Wheels with no problems, but letting Echo have anything was not allowed. She finally got so stressed that she just sat in my lap and sucked her finger, which she never does. She finally just started trying to corral all of us to go back downstairs and get the hell out of her room (despite having initially insisted we all come up there). It was pretty funny. Leia started out always wanted her own cup of coffee (which we assumed she learned from school since no one here drinks coffee), but now she's always wanting her own glass of wine (which we know for sure she did NOT learn at school)! It's pretty funny, and since we have plenty of plastic glasses, we have to oblige. Luckily she doesn't actually know what she's asking for yet, but I guess it won't be long.
The cutest new thing is that Leia has started making up and singing new songs with her own lyrics about what is going on around her, just like Josh does. He always says to me, "That's a song I wrote for you," and while Leia isn't specifically saying that yet, that's what I hear in my head after she sings one of her songs and it makes me laugh. She's also started on insisting on reading books herself. When we sit down to read before bed, she takes one and I take one. Mostly she just flips through hers while I read mine aloud, but one day when I said "Let's read the book," she said "I'm going to read it too." Then she opens it up and actually starts reading the pages. "Girls and stuff" was what she interpreted the words to be.
We had a small break through in the discipline front. Based on a recommendation from our good friends Beth and Danny, we read the book "How to talk so kids will listen, and listen so kids will talk." Already on my own I had decided that timeouts really weren't working for us, and I had abandoned them for the "active ignore" technique we learned from Leia's teacher Jenni, which has been working surprisingly well. But I was tired of her hating getting her hair brushed and me chasing her around while she screams. So, thanks to the book, I said to her one day, "I see you don't like it when I brush your hair and how it hurts you. It's really important to me that we get it brushed and get those knots out. How about if we go to the store together and you pick out a brush that you like so we can always brush your hair with it?" Her face lit up, and she kept reminding me about it until we had time to go, and now she's so much better about getting her hair brushed! (It's not always perfect, but way better.)
Look closely at Leia's page full of practically perfect circles. She did these all herself!
Arwyn frowning with annoyance about Leia's attempt to read a book without pictures...so boring!
Ah, first sighting of the toes!
Sister hugs!
Arwyn liking Leia's rendition of "So goes the doggy to the mill."
Holding hands and happily snuggling in their matching rainbow bright pants while Mom immortalizes the cuteness...I hope it stays like this forever (except for the rainbow pants part)!
We all need somebody to lean on...
It's just a hood kind of day.
Yes, everything about this is hilarious and scary at the same time!
Future rock star leading our daily music session!
Leia takes the "Hello Song" to innovative new places:
(look below for password)
Password = Leia
"Hello to Arwyn, so glad to see you!"
So funny how she likes to sleep with her hands over her eyes!
Scares me to death, and rightly so, but Leia always insists on trying to hold her up!
Out in the neighborhood for a little picnic!
Good view of the construction from picnic spot #2.
Still busy picking leaves; lucky for her it's been a long fall.
Arwyn decided to join us on this beautiful fall walk.
Josh complains about all the eating restrictions that Arwyn and I put on him (no dairy, nuts, or garlic), and yet he managed to create the best pesto sauce I've ever had in my life without any of these things which would normally be considered the essential ingredients!
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