1, 2, 3, Throw the Ball!

We started the morning by running laps around living room, hallway, and dining room.  (By ‘we’ of course, I mean they – Abby and Shawn!)  I don’t know where all the energy comes from, but I think they finally wore themselves out! 

(It's my first attempt at video editing with a new program.  Now, I know how to do captions.  My next task will be to figure out cutting and trimming!  ...Sorry, this one is so long - it was too late at night for more experimenting.)

I love the “1, 2, 3, 5!” counting (around 3:12 and 3:54)!  I’m not sure what happened to 4, but it’s been missing for a while.  It’s a challenge to get Shawn to say it at all these days!  Hopefully, 4 finds its way home before too long.

Throwing the balls and running circles around me must not have worn them out too much.  They had plenty of energy to get them through a Family Play and Learn class at Gymboree.  The equipment was still set up to pretend it was a farm from last week.  Shawn and Abby love how Miss Elizabeth gets involved in the pretend play with them.  She got all the kids to squeeze under a structure so they could be animals sleeping in a barn.  It was pretty funny to watch them all try to squish under the shelter of a small parachute draped over a monkey bar set up.  Then, she sang a song that went something like this:

The (little pigs) are sleeping.  The (little pigs) are sleeping.
Please be very quiet.  Oh, be very, very quiet
If you wake them, If you shake them,
Then they’re going to (oink, oink, oink, oink, oink)!

When the “animals” woke up, all the kids would jump to their feet and shout out their proper sounds.  Miss Elizabeth must have run through this routine at least a half a dozen times with different animals that the kids suggested (most were farm related, but not all).  They had a blast. 

This evening, I had a victory on Freecycle!  I got a stack of chunky, wooden puzzles!  Most were perfect to give Shawn and Abby new challenges, but there were even a few that could wait a few years (like the states of the US)!  I think I have enough now that I can have a rotation of a couple of puzzles at a time so they don’t get burnt out from doing the same ones over and over.  (That’s what was happening with my limited selection before.)  Gotta love Freecycle!

T is for Tanner, Trucks, Tunes, Toys, and Teddy Bear

It was a rough night last night.  We didn’t sleep much.  Shawn and I slept in a little, but he still woke up on his own in time for our swimming lesson.  Again Raj suggested we skip class and sleep in, but with both of us awake in time, it didn’t make much sense.  We didn’t get to the pool early enough to get in before class started, like we normally have been, but we got there just as they were taking attendance.

I wasn’t very impressed with the swimming lesson today.  We had a lot of play time (a.k.a. down time)!  The water was cold – 83F water, 85F air, which sounds warm enough, but kids’ lips were blue, chins were chattering, and limbs were shivering.  A few of us asked if temperature could be turned up, but management said no because lap swimmers complain it’s too warm to do their exercises.  So, I guess our babes will get hypothermia instead – sure, that’s reasonable!  Grrr….

Tanner’s mom asked me if we were going to sign up for the next session of classes, but I haven’t been very impressed by this one, so I don’t think so.  The only real benefit that I’ve seen from these lessons is it’s at a set time each week, which actually gets us to do it.  If we don’t have an activity scheduled and on the calendar, then we’re not likely to do it, whether it’s something in the community or a playdate.  So, saying that we can just go to the pool this summer sounds great and logical, but if we don’t actually plan it, it’s not likely to happen.  Maybe I’ll look for swimming lessons through a different group, like the park district, and see if we get anything more out of it.

When Shawn woke up from his nap, Raj and I heard him talking to himself – something about a truck and a house.  We opened the door to find him sitting in his rocking chair, reading The Little House, “I’m reading stories in the rocking chair all by MY self!”  What a character.

Shawn has been very vocal today.  He sang Baa, Baa Black Sheep while playing with his farm.  Throughout the day, he sang many other songs, some real and others made up (or perhaps medleys of a few real ones).  He can now fill in the missing words when we sing I’ve Been Working on the Railroad, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, A Tisket, A Tasket, Frere Jaques (in English though), Humpty Dumpty, You are My Sunshine, Merrily We Roll Along, and a few others, which escape me at the moment.

Shawn’s also getting very quick at putting together his chunky puzzles.  I may need to see if there are any new ones available on Freecycle.  He never really showed much interest in the puzzles before, other than playing with the pieces individually.  I think he’s learned a little from Abby, because she loves doing puzzles and is very fast to put them together. 

Surprise!  Shawn knows the letter T.  He’s been pointing it out in different contexts all day:  on Dadda’s flavored water bottles, in his books, on the computer “buttons”… I’m not sure where this came from, but I guess we should run with it!

While Shawn was playing for a little while before going to bed, he pulled out a teddy bear and an empty plastic box that’s made to hold wipes.  He proceeded to tell us that Teddy Bear’s diaper was dirty and he needed to change it!  He laid Teddy Bear on the ground, pulled out pretend wipes from the box, lifted the bear’s legs, and told us that he was cleaning up Teddy Bear.  Raj and I just watched and giggled.  I love his imagination.