We've been working on a little bit of French with John Paul, mostly just because he's REALLY interested in "Wuds in Fwench!"  His greatest successes have been body parts and numbers - he can already count to 20 on his own. 

While walking up the stairs to take a bath, he started counting each step.  "One...  Two...  Fwee..."  Then he stopped, turned around and looked at us, and continued, "Un...  Deux...  Twah..."  All the way up to twenty (skipping 16, Andrew reminds me), on his own! 

Andrew considers this a failure.  I think it's hilarious.

Facebook

Most of my facebook statuses are John Paul related.  I kind of figured that it'd be a good way of keeping track of the amusing things he says/does.  But I realized that it's really hard to go back and look at old status updates!  So I'm going to start copying and pasting here so I don't lose these gems.  We'll start with this week and work backwards.

7/27:  Our dinnertime conversation: "What dooooes HOST say? This-a my body. What doooooooooooes Chayiss say? This-a my bwood. What doooooooes chicken say? Buh-buh-buh-buh-CAWK!" Because, of course, transubstantiation and animal sounds go hand in hand.

7/26:  I don't understand why John Paul loves to get dirty so much. Yesterday he picked up a giant handful of dirt and stuck half of it in his mouth. Today he found a mud puddle at the playground and decided he needed to explore it with his hands and feet (while chanting, "Dirty, dirty...").

It may have been a mistake to teach him to wash his hands at the sink, since I'm pretty sure that's what inspired this obsession.

7/25:  Recap of yesterday:

"BasIWka!" "Yes, we went to the Basilica" "Shews and sand. SHEWS AND SAND!" "And then we played with shells and sand at the aquarium." "Matt. MATT MATT MATT MATT!" "Yes, we saw Matt." "Pweeeeeeeeeeeeez!" "And Margaret?" "Mawgwit. Mawgwit. MAWGWIT! Fish song!" And then I had to sing the goldfish song over and over... Glad that's what sticks with him about our visit to Baltimore.

7/23:  John Paul's new favorite toy: Number flashcards from the dollar section at Target. Ah, simple pleasures...

7/22:  John Paul just declared, for the first time, that he and Cecilia are "fwends." THIS is a serious milestone in my book!

7/21:  Yesterday John Paul decided to give the ampersand at Barnes & Noble a hug and a kiss good bye.

I think he might be a little overly friendly...

7/20:  Apparently getting shots is not at all traumatic - John Paul keeps giving himself more shots with his syringe saying, "Shots! Bwaaaave (brave). Bandaids!"

7/19:  I turn my back for 15 seconds and Cecilia has crawled across the entire room. This is not fair.

7/18:  Dearest son: I should not have to retrieve ham from the back of your neck during lunch.

Love, Learn some table manners already!

7/17:  John Paul decided to sing the entire Ave Maria during the Sanctus at Mass today. Too bad he automatically associated Latin with the wrong prayer!

7/16:  And the birthday party is over. Remind me to get this kid a bottle of sprinkles for his next birthday and nothing else...

7/14: 

This morning's "good" ideas, courtesy John Paul:

1. Crawling under the jumperoo while Cecilia is playing in it.

2. Jumping next to the wall with crayons in hand.
...
3. Going to book club naked (this one was NOT accomplished, thank goodness).

Ah, to understand a toddler's mental processes...

(A note on this one:  One of his "good" ideas later that day was to eat about 20 cherries, pits and all.  We discovered the next morning that cherry pits pass through toddlers with nary a care!)

7/13:  John Paul's current new favorite foods: Water chestnuts, capers, and bamboo shoots. Seriously.

(My favorite comment:  "Your son may be a panda.")

7/11:  Andrew Hill is encouraging Cecilia to crawl. I do not approve. Luckily, she's only managing to scoot backwards and rock back and forth on her hands and knees. Maybe the next baby will be a little slower?

7/10:  "Aw" moment of the morning: John Paul, upon meeting a new priest and shaking his hand, "Kiss-a pwiest!" Then he leaned in and gave a very small kiss on the cheek.

7/7:  ‎6+ hour road trip - Cecilia's first time in the car for such an extended period of time. Could not have gone better!!! 10 minutes of crying max, 3 naps, and she managed to nurse while in the car seat. Win!

(Note:  The trip back was not as good...)

7/6:  Playground in the rain = fun for toddler, not fun for mom. Home and VERY wet. NOW what are we supposed to do with the rest of the morning?

7/5:  Note to self: Undress the toddler BEFORE drawing the bath.

Someone has not yet learned that socks + bathtub = rather wet & squishy...

7/3:  "Wayzin say? (What does a raisin say?) EEEEEAT-A-ME!" I'm going to consider this his first joke ("You. Are. Fart." just doesn't qualify for me...).


That's all for now - I'll paste more of them later, primarily for my own archiving purposes.

6 months!

Cecilia is 6 months today!  The greatest challenge that comes with this age is convincing John Paul that Cecilia is NOT "Faff munfs ode" (five months old).  He is rather upset that we keep correcting him...

She is 27.25 inches (94th%), about 16.5 pounds (64th%) and her head is in the 93rd%.  At first I freaked out a little that her weight is so low compared to her head and height, but then I realized that it's still above average...  She and John Paul both have tended to be long and lean, not a whole lot of excess chunk on these kids.

The nurse practitioner told us that we should be giving vitamin D drops and iron-fortified cereals.  I smiled and nodded.  Not gonna happen.  I don't understand this whole vitamin D trend - it's really not proven to be beneficial except in places where there is very little exposure to natural sunlight.  And don't even get me started on baby cereals...

Our first *real* foray into solid foods (in which she was given food that she was actually capable of consuming, rather than chewing/sucking on) was today.  I think this series of pictures sums up the experience:

"Finally, something BESIDES toys while I sit in this high chair.  Wait, this feels like FOOD!"

"Hmm...  I like it inside this teether thing...  But it's still pretty hard to grab."

"I mean, this fork is pretty tasty...  But I knocked the peach off before I had a chance to taste it."

"WAIT!  Hold up you guys, I got something in my MOUTH and it is not a fork..."

"THIS DOES NOT TASTE GOOD!"

"GET IT OUT OF MY MOUTH BEFORE I PUKE!"

"Well...  Maybe I'll try a little more..."

I think she managed to get a little bit down her throat.  Not a traumatic experience, not a rousing success.  I'm thinking we'll try banana tomorrow, but we'll see what we have lying around that's ready to be eaten.

10 signs you're raising a precocious 2-year-old

10.  His favorite shape is a trapezoid.

9.  He can be kept occupied for an entire shopping trip with addition flashcards.

8.  His favorite playground activity is marching on the equipment while chanting the ABCs.

7.  He corrects his teacher in music class for singing the words to a song out of order.

6.  His favorite way to postpone naptime is to name as many saints as possible, asking for intercession ("Sane Joe-fuff, pway fo us!  Sane Ann, pway fo us!").

5.  He likes to read adult books solely for the page numbers ("Sheven...  Twenty-nine...  NINETY-FWEE!!!")

4.  He bursts into song in the bathtub, serenading us with, "Math Is Everywhere!"

3.  He is difficult to get in the car at home because he's busy calling out the numbers of every house on the street ("Numbah sixteen house!  Numbah twenty house!").

2.  He refuses to color like a normal child, instead handing a parent the crayons and demanding that certain numbers, letters, or shapes be drawn for his entertainment ("Pay-wa-gwam! (parallelogram)  AND hegasson (hexagon).  Numbah six!  J!  Lettah K!  Lettah H!").

1.  He brings his mom a magnadoodle several times a day asking for more "Addin' pweeeez!" (more adding, please!).

A trip to the nature center

Okay I'll admit it, if you told me the local nature center would be FUN, I probably would have laughed.

I don't really like getting dirty, I don't particularly like animals or anything like that...  But John Paul has forced me to seek out opportunities that aren't necessarily what I would think of as fun.  He had a lot of fun at the aquarium, but I knew that we could find free fun for him that was similar.

We headed to Hidden Oaks Nature Center in Annandale this morning.  He LOVED it!

They have a large outdoor play area, but it was too humid for me so we stayed indoors. There was still plenty to do! John Paul immediately climbed up into the observation tower.

There were a few turtles and snakes in various enclosures (he may or may not have been more excited about the turtle cutouts...).

A giant hollow log that both kids could crawl through!

Large cuddly stuffed animals.

A felt wall with all sorts of animals to stick on.

TONS of animal dress-up costumes.

A mirror, Cecilia's personal favorite...

And all sorts of touch-and-feel exhibits, books, and educational tools.  We'll definitely be going back soon!  Hopefully the weather will cool down some day so we'll be able to check out the outdoor area.  John Paul is a BIG fan of getting extremely dirty, so I'm sure he'll love it!