Giggling

Today I was getting ready in the morning and listening to my kids giggling in my closet with the door closed. It was such cute laughter - down right stinking adorable. I was enjoying it for quite some time when it dawned on me the last few times this happened, it meant destruction of various kinds in my closet. There frankly is no toy that elicits that kind of happiness. Only destruction. So my next thought wasn't "I should go find out what is going on." It was, "I don't have it in me to look and find out." So like a good ostrich, I didn't.

Aaron called from work and Emma had wanted to talk with him earlier in the morning so I ventured in the closet. Turns out that they found packing peanuts and were shredding them. On a previous day Emma had said that John had eaten a piece of one so I asked if he ate one.

Emma: "No but he put one up his nose."
Me: "Is it still there?"
Emma: "No, I took it out."

Good thing for big sisters. While all of this was going on I had been holding my eye shadow in my had and didn't notice that I had tipped it and some dark brown eye shadow spilled on the carpet. As I tried to clean it up Emma says, "Mom, you need to apologize to yourself." So I did. As a side note, vacuuming isn't effective for eye shadow - makes it worse. So Emma and I spent an hour cleaning up the packing peanuts together. From now on I will be using plastic grocery bags to pad any boxes I need to mail. Those bags are safely locked away. 

Kicked out of Relief Society

I took John out of Relief Society for being adorable. Yup, not naughty, like most weeks, but for being adorable. This is the second week that it has happened. Both weeks John has been playing very nicely with a little girl who is 3 days younger than him. They share with each other happily and of their own accord. The first week, a lady in the ward has a wide brimmed straw hat and she let them play with it. They decided to sit right in front of the room and practiced putting the hat on one another. Today, they talked very loudly and nicely to each other in the front of the room. It was really cute babble. John also followed her around giving her hugs/sleeper holds. The problem is that it is so stinking cute that I looked around the room and nobody was paying attention to the lesson. These two kids stole the spotlight. So I decided that to be courteous to the teacher, John had to go.

A New Era

The last few months have marked a new era for Emma and John.  Emma started reading last week on June 28th.  It was such an exciting moment when the light bulb clicked.  She started writing her first letters last year, then memorized the sounds that each letter makes.  But it wasn't until last week that she has been able to make the mental leap from individual sounds to combining the sounds into words that she knows.  Emma was thrilled and I was even more thrilled.

Emma is also improving in math.  Recently we have been telling her interactive stories about kids who wanted to go on an adventure (e.g., play in the park) but who have been detained by a "math troll."  The math troll asks a math question, such as what is 3+4?, and we ask Emma to step in to help the child out in the story.  With prompting and some minor help, Emma is able to do the simple addition and subtraction on her hands and answer the questions.   She's happy to help the child in the story.

Emma also made a big step in swimming.  She completed her one week swim lesson where she learned to dog paddle and take a breath.  She can now swim nearly 25 yards across the pool.  She can also float on her back for nearly a minute. 

John has also advanced.  He said his version of "bye" while sort of waiving his hand and acknowledging his friends were leaving.  John loves to play outside and says a few more words now, including, "her-haw," "hi," "Emma," and imitating several sounds that we make.  He is also dabbling with some sign language, including "milk," "more," and "all done."

Try Again!

Emma asked me a question yesterday and I don't remember what it was, but it was something that I would have no possible way of know the answer to. It was something like, "What is that stranger's name?" So I responded, "I don't know." To which she replied, "Think again and try harder!"