My blog is not going the way I had hoped it would. I originally wanted to do a blog about homeschooling and preschool. However, my family asked that it contain more funny stories about my boys, and recently I have decided to combine the both the best I can. In addition to as often as I can posts about what we are doing academically (with an un-school sidenote to homeschool), I will also include monthly updates on our family and, specifically, the boys development. Partly for my family, partly for the world, but mostly so I can remember these long-lived, short in quantity days.
October:
This month brought Monster's 3rd birthday party, appropriately train themed (his favorite thing in the world) and the beginning of a terrible month of behavior. One day when I have time I will search "three year old brain development milestones" and it will directly link this age group to a huge brain development milestone which I should remember from classes in college.
At the mere mention of not being able to bend to his every whim, Monster throws himself on the floor, screams at the top of his lungs, or extrudes a serious of angry words. Before the three year old was born, his reaction would be to reason with me until we came to a compromise.
Besides continuing to be the energetic, enthusiastic terror we have come to love, Monster is excelling in social skills. His manners have grown tremendously in the last year, resulting in more "pleases" and "thank yous" than I ever expected. I have to pat myself on the back for this because as I watched mother's and father's at play groups force manners out of their children, I led with example and boy has it paid off!
Monster repeats words...that he heard months ago...randomly...but almost always in context. And, thanks to his Grammy Mae, he returned home this weekend uttering "Why? Why? Why?" at every word I say. :)
Monkey boy is up to his usual antics. He climbs literally everything and I find him often in high places in the house, enjoying eating whatever he found there. His vocabulary is booming and he repeats everything I say, including a collection of Spanish words lately thanks to his brothers obsession with a certain Spanish speaking children's show. Monkey is completely obsessed with dogs and calls everything he sees "doggie!". For whatever reason he never calls me mommy/mom/mama. He almost always refers to me as "manny" (his version of my real name) or "daddy". The kid scares me with how smart he is and is extremely empathetic for a 1.5 year old. The best thing about him is what we call his "stinky face". He wrinkles his nose, squints one eye, and grins from ear to ear. A regular cutie-pa-tootie!
The boys have just started playing together. They will run off to their room for stretches of 10-15 minutes of giggles, shrieks and the occasional loud bang. Although now they are interaction together instead of merely trying to remove the other from their presence, they have begun to work together to cause me even more trouble...as if that is possible.
The other day Daddy Cakes figured out it would take some 600 odd laps around the kitchen island to make a mile and after observing for a few days, I think it is safe to say the boys get enough exercise.
I catch the boys doing cute things together often, like sitting on a bench their daddy made in high school and Monster giving Monkey some life advice. Or one day last week Monster was in a very loving mood and tackled Monkey in a bear hug every ten minutes, screaming "I LOVES YOU!" at him.
Today Monkey was in the kitchen, sitting in a cardboard box and pretending to drive, when I opened the dishwasher. He immediately jumped up and grabbed a sharp knife.
"No, no, that's owies, give to mommy" I said. Monkey gave it up easily, then grabbed a butter knife.
"Owies?" He asked me.
"Yes, owies." I reached for it and he snatched it back, exclaming "Uh-uh!"
He then proceeded to stab angrily at the air, laughing, and then ran to his cardboard box car. He jumped inside, stashed the butter knife beside him, yelled "Go, go, go!" and proceeded to make car noises.
I am starting to wonder if we should be concerned about him....
