Oh, Lucy! She just has the most impish of impish grins, I love it. She has been veeeeeery reluctantly letting me put her down lately, which mostly just means she crawls toward the kitchen, since that's where I always am when I'm unencumbered... Sometimes she'll crawl towards the other kids though, especially when they're sitting down reading. What fun! She can rip the books out of their hands if she tries hard enough! Although she has yet to succeed, thankfully. It makes homeschooling interesting, that's for sure.
John Paul and Cecilia have been very "big kid"-ish lately, cooking for themselves/their siblings, doing their own laundry (with plenty of complaining, but we're getting there), doing the dishes, minding the baby... It's a big help! I remember when we had 4-under-4 and it felt like things would NEVER get easier! Well, I'm not sure that things are necessarily easier now, since we have MORE kids with MORE activities and actual homeschooling to worry about, but it's definitely more manageable even though I have a lot of balls up in the air at any given time.
Everybody is still doting on Lucy just as much as they possibly can, although she's become rather a terror now that she has realized just how much fun they've been hiding from her! She hears them playing with duplos in the corner and insists on crawling and destroying whatever they've made, even when they set up decoys for her to destroy first. So now they do lots of playing upstairs in their bedrooms, and sometimes it ends up just being me and the baby downstairs while everybody trashes the upstairs! She crawled straight for Peter while he sat eating a snack today and I had to capture how sweet it was - all she wanted was a pretzel (which he immediately gave her), but then she was convinced she needed MORE and just stayed pulled up on him for quite a while.
While she crawls towards us now, she pipes, "Haaaa-i, hai, hai, haaai, haaaai" so we always know she's coming, and it's the absolute cutest thing. Along with "DaaaaaaD... Daaad! Daaaad!" and various other "words" and sounds, she's getting verbal quickly!
Lucy and her hair are just about the cutest thing!! My little guy is a day or two older then Lucy and he is a bit of a wrecker too!! He is also exploring the world with his mouth, everyone is constantly doing a finger swipe to see what he shoved in there!!
ReplyDeleteElizabeth prides herself on being able to convince Lucy to remove trash from her mouth with sweet words 😂
DeleteShe is too cute. She is so much like my fourth with the clinginess/neediness ...and the wrecking! (Except since Sam is a boy he is way too interested in killing himself via electrocution/plugging and unplugging whatever he possibly can, climbing on the table and falling off, reaching for dangerous things, ahhh!).
ReplyDeleteI'd love to hear about how you guys handle teaching and enforcing chores for the kids. We have one child who complains, and not just a bit of whining but like full-out weeping, when asked to do the same simple, everyday chores she' s honestly been doing for almost 2 years. :/ We've been really trying to keep things positive and implement strategies from "How to Talk So Little Kids Will Listen" but it's soooo constant and sooo trying. I know you have some sensitive kiddos too and would be interested in how you deal with this. Consequences, making it fun, yelling, etc....nothing seems to work with this one!
Ack the climbing!!!
DeleteWe get a fair amount of whining with chores, but they generally have to be completed before any privileges—so somebody who wants to watch TV at Grandma's house has to have all their chores done first. I think it's hardest with the oldest kids because it's not a regular part of life for them to see other kids doing chores! Sometimes we'll set a timer and race the clock, but honestly there's a fair amount of nagging...
Is Cecilia using a children's sewing machine in the photo above? Is that an Amazon find? I am curious about it.
ReplyDeleteShe is! Well technically it's just a mini sewing machine, but totally suitable for children. It was on her Amazon wish list and then went on sale for about $24 (usually still only $30) on Prime Day so I waited months to finally give it to her and she's been using it a lot!
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