Kids Update

Aliyah is 4 ½. She loves preschool. She is VERY social. She always wants to be playing with friends. She is very into schedules—she likes to know exactly what we are doing all day each day for the following week. She is very curious and is ALWAYS asking questions, why things are, how things work. She loves music. She loves listening to her own music in the car (a fairy movie soundtrack and her church songs) and loves listening to and dancing to music with daddy at home. She loves trying to sing along to songs, and its funny to listen to her interpretations of lyrics. She is EXTREMELY stubborn. That definitely leads to problems with mom and dad. Luckily she is very good at school, church, and when other people are watching her. Her arm is basically healed. Her motion is not 100% back, but after four months of Aftin doing physical therapy on her (where she screamed and kicked and tried to get away each time—she is a bit overdramatic!), we figure it is good enough. Hopefully the rest of the motion will come back with time. She loves to help mom with cleaning and chores. She likes to try to play with Spencer. However, she also likes to tease him a lot too. She is getting very good at playing by herself—she loves playing imagination with her little doll house and figurines. She loves art projects and loves giving them to people. She is still very friendly—she talks to everyone she sees, including yelling “HELLO!” down the street to somebody coming out of a house 10 houses down. If you can’t tell, she has a very strong personality…the description of everything she does includes words like “very”, “always”, “extremely”. This has made raising her a big challenge, but she is such a special girl and we love her a lot.

Spencer is 20 months. Life is hard for him right now. I am not sure why, if he isn’t sleeping enough, or if its all his teeth coming in, if its just the age, but he has been pretty emotional lately. Aliyah does tease him a lot, and I know that’s no fun for him. I think its mostly just finally hitting a point where he has a little mind of his own and he knows what he wants and if it doesn’t happen, then he throws a fit. And his fits are big, because he is big. Its all I can do to physically keep him under control—he is a STONG kid. He has a short attention span, so he is usually going around the house from one thing to another. Looking at a book, taking a toy a way from Aliyah, pushing a car across the floor, playing in the toilet (no matter how I try, he is in the toilet like twice a week!) He loves playing outside and swimming in our little plastic pool. He has lost patience for bathtime and usually only lasts about 5-10 minutes in there. (However, the other day I got him out and dried off and dressed, then before I could stop him, got back in the tub, clothes and all with Aliyah!) He loves dancing to music and has his own signature dance, moving his arms back and forth (hard to explain) and he is starting to sing along to songs he knows, it’s adorable. He loves wandering off at parks, although he still is doing great sitting in the cart or stroller for long periods of time. He says more words—“gock” means drink, snack, sock. He can say “shoe” and “cheese” (mostly for the camera). “Shide” means outside, “flu-fuh” means his little blanket, “shawsh” means wash. “Da-du” means thank you (and he says thank you all the time without being prompted, what a polite boy!) He says a lot of words that are just using the sound “duh” but for the right amount of syllables and cadence. That’s how he says “one two three go!” He knows the main animal sounds and body parts. He loves wrestling and playing tackle with Daddy and Aliyah. He started nursery a few months ago, its still pretty hard for him. He loves little babies and is so sweet to them. He crouches down, tilts his head and talks in a high pitch voice to them (and to bugs also!). When they cry, he looks so concerned, he tries talking to them, even tries patting them and hugging them. He is really a sweet boy. But definitely a boy! He does a lot of growling, and running and tackling, and just running back and forth while yelling out. He also loves pretending to be a kitty by crawling on the ground, meowing, and scratching people.