A snake says, "FFFFFFFF"

Jackson has been playing a letter fishing game at school. He came home and talked about it non-stop. I asked his teacher about the game and she told me where it came from. When I looked into buying it, it turns out the game would be over 50.00 with shipping. Yikes! So I went to the local teacher store and improvised my own game. I bought a bucket of giant magnetic letters and we made our own fishing poles and it came out to less than 20.00.

But, the whole point of this is to say that I'm amazed/shocked/thrilled at how many letters he knows! And, not only that, but he knows about half of the letter sounds! For the first time, I actually feel like J could learn to read! I've been showing him how to sound out words (like Black Pepper on the infamous pepper box). He seems to somewhat understand it!

I showed him the letter F and asked him what it says. He said, "FFFFFF, like a snake." He just brought me a D and said, "D for Daddy." Holy cow! Who is this kid? We've got post its everywhere with words on them that he's asked me to write. We've got a long way to go, but I'm optimistic we'll get there!

Off to Grandma and Grandpa's on Saturday and Sunday and then to the Kalahari Sun-Tues. Can't wait!

Object du Jour: Letters, post its and words!

Check It Out Now, Funk Soul Brotha...

I've now discovered that Fatboy Slim is a great motivator to get a certain someone eat scrambled eggs. "Eat" being a bit of a broad term, but he allowed three separate pieces of egg in his mouth briefly and then promptly spit them out. No gagging or tantrums, so I'd consider it a success! At first, he would blow the egg off the spoon and quickly stick the spoon in his mouth like he'd eaten it. Stinker. Hopefully with continued exposure, eggs can be a new food to add to the list.

I've been amazed lately with the continued expansion of J's conversational skills and the questions he's been asking. I've heard that he's talking more at school as well.


The boys are currently having a blast with a Handy Manny paint with water book. Who knew two small people could make such a mess with less than a 1/4" of water?

I got to head out on my girl's weekend this past weekend and no one cracked their head open or ended up at The Chateau. Success!

Object du Jour: Still the iPod pictures, but with a twist. I have to write out the whole alphabet on one side of a piece of paper, and on the other I have a draw an iPod with AAA or XXX on it. The AAA is for Vampire Weekend's A-punk song and the XXXs, I'm not sure. He calls them "criss crosses" though.

For everything bad I said about Walgreens...

I just want to give a shout-out to Florence! She rocks!

Object du Jour: A picture of iPods from this week's Target ad.

If you like then you shoulda took a bite of it...

I've have now found the best motivator for J to try new/textured foods...Beyonce. He adores the song "Single Ladies." Tonight I told him if he took a bite of his spaghetti (it's Gerber, but it's chunky with noodles in it), I would put on the song for him. He tried a couple fake out bites and I would play a second or two of the song. It went this way for a few minutes and finally he took a bite and got to listen to more of the song. Finally it got to the point where he was chowing on the spaghetti and boppin' along to the music. I'm just happy he's eating and trying new things. And if it takes 5 rounds of "Single Ladies" to get there, I'm all for it. I'll never get the song out of my head, but hey, it's worth it! (Lame post title I know. That's all I got.)

We went to a birthday party for J's cousin yesterday at an indoor playground. I got there a little early to let J acclimate to the new environment. He did ok until more people started to arrive. Then he walked around with his fingers in his ears. He eventually started to cry and kept running out of the main room. Thank goodness the boys' cousin was there, he took Jameson around and helped him on the climbing structures while I held J.

The first pic is J closing out the noise at the party, the second pic is J imitating the cat stretching in the sunshine, and the 3rd pic is J with his boatload of Valentines and treats from his school party.

The last pic requires a little more explanation. J loves the way light shines through things. On the bottom is a light up aquarium from Aunt Donna. J placed the Elmo microwave on top to see the light shine through and tossed in the kitchen timer for added measure. He put different things in/out of the microwave for a long time. Interesting to see how his mind works.

Object du Jour: J is loving his Handy Manny phone.

Best Buy's House

For a 5 1/2 year old boy, you'd think Toys R Us would be the place he begs to go. Nope, Best Buy. Heaven on Earth! They have microwaves, Wiis, phones, and iPods all in one place! Amazing, right? He runs from thing to thing giggling the whole time.

We went to BB tonight to look for maracas for the Wii. When I met the teacher that J may have next year we started chatting about the Wii and how she uses the Wii Fit board in the classroom. (J doesn't weigh to activate the board) I told her that using the Wiimote has been hard for Jackson because there's too many things to push. She showed me the maracas and told me about the games they go with. The Wiimote fits inside the maraca and all he has to do is shake it. Sounds cool! They didn't have any at BB, so I'll have to order them online.

Then we went to TRU to find a b-day present for the boys' cousin. I also got them a little Valentine treat. Jackson will be getting a cool Handy Manny phone and Jameson will be getting his very own broom/dustpan combo and some candy. Exciting huh? I know J2 will flip over the broom, then maybe he'll leave my mop alone.

Object du Jour: Still the paper iPods. I tried to find a toy iPod at TRU with no luck.

Are you seeing this???

Jameson has figured out to make a "fort" in the living room with the fold out Little People village. He blocks off the entryway by the front door and wants us to sit in there with him while he makes "foffee" in his kitchen set. When Daddy and I are busy, Jameson settles for strong arming Jackson into sitting in his fort. He'll grab J by the shirt and drag him to the living room. Needless to say, J is not a fan of this at all. After being manhandled several times by his brother, Jackson looks at Daddy mid-pull and yells, "Randy are you seeing this!??" We laughed so hard. Poor Jackson!

Things are in motion for next school year. Jackson will get rechecked at school in all areas and then we meet with the team March 10th to discuss the results and decide what the plan is for next year.

Up to 15" snow today. Ugh! So far, school is still on. Maybe we'll have to go for a sled ride later.

Object du Jour: Still the bucket of magnet letters.

*Ahem*

ORTHOPTIST. Yeah, that's the ticket.

Object du Jour: A rediscovered bucket of magnet letters. J knows more letters than I thought he did.

P.S. Daddy took the boys to the children's museum today for 4 hours. Absolute Heaven! Got lots of stuff done and then just sat and enjoyed the silence for awhile!

We don't need no stinkin' apples!

Wowza, this has been a long week. We somehow survived without too much damage to anything or anyone! Daddy came back last night, so we took the boys to the domes to see the trains and feel a bit of spring. They were having a Chinese New Year festival as well, so the boys got some chocolate coins for good luck.

J had a follow-up eye clinic appt this week. The opthortist feels that J's vision is 20/50 in both eyes; last time one eye was 20/50 and the other was 20/80. I think the test results are very dependent on how cooperative J is feeling that day. She asks him to label black and white block images of a circle, apple, house and square on a computer screen across the room. J doesn't feel any love for the apple picture and refuses to label it. I know that child knows what an apple is! He (naturally) loves the square and the house and will begrudingly label the circle. It didn't help (or maybe it did) that the peanut gallery, aka, J2, sat munching on a bag of veggie sticks and shouting out the correct answers. We now patch him MWF and he wears glasses only on RF. We'll go back in two months and see how it goes.

J's been getting a touch more adventurous in the eating department. He will actively chew and swallow peas and green beans without issue! He's OK with baby food meats, but had a fit when I mixed some ground beef into a puree. We're getting there!

J2 is talking so much lately! He's able to ID the sound of any animal. When he's asked what Daddy says, Jameson says, "Duuuude." When asked what Mommy says, he says, "No, no, no, no" while waggling a little finger in the air. Yep, I guess that sounds about right.

Object du Jour: An orange DVD case. Why that's fun, I'll never know.