This month Brett:
- needs constant attention. He can sometimes play on his own, but there has been a lot of time where he needs to have someone interacting with him constantly which is both sweet and exhausting. Mostly because one of his favorite things to do is play pretend, and in the words of Blake, "It's just not my thing". I was so excited when Blake was old enough to ask to do art and crafty things but Brett is a totally different person. He asks to play teacher a lot and will pretend to be different tv show characters and super heros etc. He also tries to get someone into his trap by asking if we want to play a board game and then if he starts losing he'll get all upset and mess up the game board.
- can write his name. I asked him to sign a birthday card he was making, not thinking much of it, and the next thing I know he said "Mom, I don't have room for the Ts so I'll have to put them on the front" and wouldn't you know it, he wrote every single letter (and it would've been in the right order if there weren't a sticker in the way). He is getting really good at writing all kinds of numbers and letters these days which is one way of keeping up with Blake I think.
- counts backwards from 12. I'm not sure where he learned it (if it wasn't from Blake) but he'll count down before he "blasts off" or starts any performance. If he gets stuck, he'll start right back at the beginning and repeat it until he gets it.
- always asks for a password. He likes to get in the way of someone going somewhere and stretch both his arms out to the side and say, "what's the password?" and you have to answer before he'll let you pass. Most of the time the answer is Poop, sometimes Zip, and sometimes you just have to ask him and he'll likely give you a hint before telling you what it is so you can pass.
- tells me how full he is by pointing to his tummy. When he's hungry he'll say he's full up to just above his waistband. When he's full he says he's up to his chin. After each bite it can change a few inches on the scale. When he wants dessert, he magically always has room.
- finally loves going to school. He wanted me to walk him into school for the first few weeks, then one day he decided he wanted to do drop off in car line like most of the other kids (and that's how we drop off Blake at school). From then on he has been such a big boy about heading into school without me. He is very familiar with the routine and it's wonderful to get 10 more minutes of time to myself (since you have to park in the far lot to walk kids into school). He skips and/or runs into school now which is really cute.
This month Blake:
- got a great review at his parent teacher conference. His teacher said he basically has mastered every item on the kindergarten checklist so there's not much that he has to work on really. After doing some digging, we've figured out that based on the reading levels in his school district, he is basically reading at a second grade level so there isn't much there to challenge him. I'm so glad he is a "follow the rules" kind of kid because he gets a lot of recognition for being responsible and respectful and doing the right thing even though he has to be pretty bored when it comes to daily lessons.
- will follow the diagram to build his snap circuits. This is huge because he always wanted help from someone to build anything which kept me from making dinner or some other task that I needed him to entertain himself while I did it. It is so exciting to watch him read the experiment and then follow the diagram and build it all on his own.
- calls me Mama. I think the boys (and Chris) picked this up from the Berenstain Bears books. The little way they say it, like it's a slang word, is so adorable.
- loves doing math equations for fun. If nothing else is going on, or we're in the car, it seems like Blake has to be coming up with a math question. Mostly addition but since he's been learning how to multiply (he asked to learn this at home) he'll quiz me or ask to be quizzed in the car. He's even getting the hang of adding 4 digit numbers with carrying digits over to the next place. He really wants to learn division so we've gone over the basics with him but I think we've finally convinced him that he needs a much better understanding of all the other types of math before we move too far into that.
- officially moved into a booster seat. His carseat was getting snug and he was at the highest setting and about to grow out of it so we found a booster seat that he really seems to like. It is strange using the seatbelt in the car (instead of the 5 point harness) because it isn't smooth when it goes through the little guided hole in the high back part of the booster, but it is nice that he can at least get out of it easily and quickly in car line.
Pics:
Blake putting together one of his Snap Circuit projects.
I had searched all around the house to put these bath toys into a complete group (so I could get rid of them because I thought they had outgrown them) and then of course they wanted to play with them.
We went to the Blooms And Berries farm again this year and had a great time. The boys favorite part was this water pumping station. I think next year Brett will finally be tall enough to see what he's doing. We also did both the children's and big corn mazes and the boys did really well.
Then we took the hayride out to the pumpkin patch for a few pics.
This one was so crazy looking.
Our tractor pulled hayride.
We brought home a couple small pumpkins to decorate with paint. (They always seem to have a ton of seeds so we save them for the second round of pumpkin seed baking - yum!)
And the final products. Here is one side.
And the other since they were decorated the whole way around.
The boys making a road for their cars to drive on.
Brett loves building things, so this was his block tower.
It was too cold outside to carve the pumpkins this year so we had to do them indoors. Blake clearly loves the smell of pumpkin...
Brett is always ready to jump right into messy things.
Blake had to at least do a small scoop.
And our carved pumpkins. Blake wanted Iron Man to go with his costume I think.
Chris wanted a classic witch on a broomstick.
And Brett decided on a My Little Pony which was pretty intricate so it didn't work perfectly. I just haven't made it to that level of pumpkin carving mastery.
And all together.
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