Comprehension

Laurel is now 10.5 months old (I know!) and well into the phase of letting us know her likes and dislikes.

She is VERY good at this. A bit too good.

For one thing, she now understands "NO", which usually generates one of two responses:

But I WANTED to throw my food on the floor!

or

This is what I think of THAT idea (look close, that is a raspberry)

In other words, I think we're in trouble. The crying happens when she has no control over the situation (in this case, we took away the food she was throwing on the floor). The non-crying raspberry/grin-of-evilness is the more usual response. She'll actually get up to the gate, give it a little shake to get our attention, and then really shake it while laughing at us.

Bwah ha ha ha! Look what I'm doing!

All in all, its kind of new territory. Ben was BUSY. Insanely busy. We used to joke about how we could hire him out to check out other people's babyproofing. If we stopped him from doing one thing, he'd just move on to another (and another and another). Laurel, to put it mildly, is more persistent.

So, yeah, looking forward to her adolescence.

Can you read this title? Ben can!

Warning: Serious parental bragging ahead (since I don't want to be snubbed at playgroups)

So, Ben started reading last week, and isn't showing any signs of stopping. He's even trying to read "deep in his head" (silently). He's also been getting up early (6:30, ug) and quite happy to get up by himself for a half hour or so and read his books. There is some sounding out of words, but for the most part, he seems to just know what a lot of them are.

So, at least we know he'll be academically ready for kindergarten. Physically, he's come a long way since the summer - he jumps and hops all over the place now, and is taking skating and gymnastics, (Thanks Nanas and Papas!)

Plus he could probably pass a science 9 biology test. Quick! Where are the following parts of the body: ossicles, pancreas, radius, gall bladder, cochlea, bladder, adrenal glands?

Here's a little help from Ben!

All in all, we're quite impressed. The downside is that I feel like I need to downplay it a bit, since I don't want to a) be considered a braggart (except for here, where people can just stop reading) or b) be thought of as one of those pushy moms who have been using flashcards and phonics programs (that would require some sort of organization). So, Ben is reading and pretty much no-one in town knows it except for us.

The other downside is that we are getting some regression in other (mostly behavioral) areas as well - part of it I think is just Ben being a boy (probably not helped by his boy-heavy pre-k class: 12 boys, 3 girls, 2 poor teachers), but also there is so much going on inside his head right now that rules and routines that we have done FOREVER are constantly being overlooked or forgotten. Plus he's waking up earlier again, and having problems falling back asleep (ok, this is kind of more a problem for us than it is for him, but some days he is soooo tired and any extra sleep we squeeze into him just gets undone with the early wake up time)

Other non-Ben news this week: Laurel just got one of her top teeth and is about to get another, so maybe we'll all get a bit more sleep soon!

Flatterer

Ben, trying to get Darren to keep telling him made up stories:

"That was a GREAT story, Daddy. Could you tell me another?"

and

"I LOVE your stories Daddy. Make up another one please"


It worked really well.

Daddy, can you tell me stories ALL night long?

Feb 1, 2008