Micellaneous Milestones

Since my last post, we've had some busy times! Here's a brief update.

Papa attended a Doxology seminar in Nebraska, where he learned about the devil and his wily ways from Dr. John Kleinig. He, and several pastors from our circuit, greatly enjoyed their time together (scrumptious food enhanced their experience, I've heard) learning about how to beat down the Evil One. The boys are into superheroes and "getting bad guys," so I'm still stewing about how to make a connection for them with this.

We celebrated my birthday with my lovely mother here (who also enormously helped out with the kids while Papa was away)! Turning 31 feels great, in a very achieving gravitas kind of way (especially when you leave sentences like this dangling for a week on your blog. I am FULL OF GRAVITAS. :)) And thanks for the "Happy '29th' Birthday" card from my brother, who's unofficially moved me into the "older person" stage. :) The boys spontaneously sang me "Happy Birthday," which brought me to tears. Little C shrieked and grinned, which brought me joy. Papa bought me a beautiful card and some pretty earrings--and the boys helped with both! I'm very thankful for all the wishes and cards and gifts; truly, my cup overfloweth.

Papa presented on "Family Matters" at an LWML Fall Rally at our church, which I was able to attend (thanks, Mom!). It was great visiting with many women, singing for the group, and even participating in a skit without knowing what I'd have to say or do ahead of time. Let me just say that Mrs. L.E. is hilarious and utterly trustworthy! Papa's presentation was fantastic, too--as he's prepared for this, he's helped me prioritize our children's spiritual care (more on this in another post). That's always a "win, win, win," as I teasingly tell the kids.

P's reading. I mean really reading. While he phonetically sounds out words sometimes, many times he just looks at them now and just says 'em. No help. Just the other day, he brought me a baseball thing and said, "Does this say, 'Get in the game'?" Yep. You read that right, buddy. So his "Letter Lessons" have been really fun! We just started Section Eight of The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading, so we're about halfway through that book. He's been practicing holding a pencil correctly with the help of a gripper, and we'll start a formal writing program soon, mostly because he keeps bugging me about learning how to write more than just his name. Hey--I'm not complaining!

P and I have also been doing "Math" (or what he sometimes calls "Number Math"), where he practices counting to 100 on the abacus or I write simple addition on our white board and he figures them out by counting dots. The first time we tried this a week or so ago, he literally quivered with excitement. "Mom, I just love this!" he said at least three times. I had to quell thoughts of him, at nine, performing complicated equations with a dry-erase pen on a window (I saw some news segment on a young math whiz years ago who'd do that). So far, I'm just glad he thinks it's all fun. We'll be starting weekly science and history lessons in the next month, too.

S has developed into a tackling machine. Not out of any desire to hurt stems his sudden pouncing; he's just a really physical kid. He's been giving hugs a lot, which is fantastic! I just find myself bruised more frequently. We're working on his gentleness around C, because while she laughs and grins every time he "hugs" (see: pushes, sits on, drags) her, we don't want any trips to the ER. He also is still our little singer. Last week, while he and P played in the leaves, we caught him yelling--YELLING--the Stephen Starke version of the Lord's Prayer. He also randomly bursts into song, sometimes mid-sentence. He also regales us with random comments, like the one just recently when I was helping him in the bathroom: "Mommy, I won't poop on you." I was so relieved to hear that! :) Yesterday we heard him walk into the living room and see something P had done, and he goes, "WOW! A-MAAAAAZ-ING!" His enthusiasm is contagious!

C is testing the waters with walking! She'll pull herself up by a chair or something and then let go--and stand for a second or two by herself. She's definitely thinking about letting go and taking steps (believe us, we can see that look on her face). She's also starting this cheesy-grin/grimace thing. It's so big, it looks like it hurts her face, and we can't help smiling every time she does it! She's a happy little girl. She's eating table food all the time now, and in a month or so we'll start introducing whole milk already. *Sigh.* My baby's not really a baby anymore! P will play with her by himself, and he just loves her, and she him. It's great to see their sibling relationship develop. S and C are still at the "NO, C! That's MINE!" or the sitting-on-her stage. S loves her; he just doesn't want her in his stuff. I admit I dream that someday S and C will have a Jackson/Johannah relationship (that's a Duggar reference, for those of you who don't know).

We've enjoyed jumping in the leaves! And tracking them inside. :)

And a decluttering update: I've cleaned out the laundry room (!!!) and gone through about five bins of micellany besides. I've still got about ten to go, but it's all consolidated, and I've just been plugging away at it whenever we're watching something at night, like the St. Louis Cardinals play during this postseason. Between a clean and not-cluttered laundry room and the Cards, life is good right there.