The Little Drummer Boy

I know every child goes through phases of obsession with certain things, but this phase has lasted for a good 3 months now. THE DRUMMING CONTINUES!! Cole drums morning, noon, and night. He drums in the car with his hands, at home with Tinker Toys, outside with sticks, you name it, he drums on it or with it. Our neighborhood has 2 entrances, one that takes you past a field with cows, one that takes you past the lake and ducks. The lake/duck way has fewer stop signs so I often go that way if I'm in a hurry or by myself. But when I started doing that Cole made it a point to tell me that he would rather go by the cows every time. Apparently I went the lake way too many times because now he reminds me EVERY time we pass under the Natchez Trace (which is 100 feet from the decision point of which way we're going) by simply hollering, "COWS!" Sometimes it's soft, most of the time it's loud. One day we were driving home from church and he had been drumming on a basketball that he was holding the whole way home. This time the hand drumming was accompanied by noises with his mouth...some unintelligible instrument interpretation. This had gone on without pause the 10-minutes we'd been driving so I was sure he wasn't paying attention to where we were. But sure enough, without missing a beat he yells "COWS!" and seemlessly continues with the drumming and mouth accompaniment.

In this picture he's set up his little "drum set" by the corner of the wall and the tv. Why the location, you ask? "Mom, I'm in the corner like Mr. Raf." The drum set at church is in a corner, and this was the best corner he found to set up his own set. He has broken both cds I gave him to use as cymbals from too much drumming. I'm hoping to find him a little set on a garage sale. It's a full-fledged obsession.

"Mom, you can bake cookies with me."

A few days ago I decided to let Mommy bake cookies with me, and I told her so. She had a recipe she wanted to try so we whipped some up. I'm a really good helper but Mommy always seems to be wound a little tight when we bake together. I don't know why. I'm really good at stirring, sometimes I'm so good that the flour goes flying or I miss the bowl by a little bit and dump the baking soda onto the counter. I try to assure her it's no big deal, but you know women...they get a little high-strung sometimes.
See? I even help her by telling her that I MUST do it by myself. She seems to think it matters if I get half a teaspoon of salt or a heaping spoonful. She must not know that all the great chefs don't measure exactly.

My boys - more funnies from the family

Daddy was gone one night and we needed an activity....a homemade trampoline! I left the room and came back to this, Cole telling Tyson all about the picture he was looking at. They fight a good half the time they're together, so this is great encouragement for my often-frustrated parenting spirit :).
Some funnies to brighten the day:
1. One day after Christmas Cole walked by the Christmas tree (which had shed a good 3/4 of its needles...not sure what I did wrong) and said, "Momm, we need to sweep." Me: "Why?" Cole: "Because there's all this....junk!" Me: "What is it?" Cole (after thinking a minute): "Christmas grass".

2. Cole asks EVERY DAY, EVERY TIME HIS CLOTHES ARE CHANGED, if he can wear sweatpants. He hates jeans, hates khakis, hates anything except sweat pants. He really is a child obsessed. If there aren't any clean ones in his drawer, he goes to the dryer and sorts through any clothes in there to see if just maybe there's some clean ones that haven't been put away yet. He was tickled pink when I showed him 1 pair of his shorts that are made out of sweatpants material and would rather wear them than anything else.

3. One day at lunch I came back into the kitchen to see Cole eating his raisins like a heathen. Instead of taking bites, he had a big handful and was chewing WHILE holding the raisins up to his mouth - there were too many to fit in his mouth so he just extended his mouth with his hand. "Cole, don't just hold the raisins next to your mouth!" I say. "But I'm eating all the juice," he says. Yuck, yuck, yuck. There should NOT BE JUICE!

4. Can't remember if I already said this, but Cole was 100% potty trained by Christmas, at 3 years and 2 months. He still wears pullups at night and nap, but otherwise he's a big boy!

5. One day I was again in the other room while Cole was eating his breakfast. I walk back in to find him sitting in his chair, tearing off bits of waffle and throwing them down to Tyson who is scurrying all over the floor to get each one, eating them like a little squirrel. Where do they get this stuff?

6. Cole's tender heart has continued from birth. One day a long time ago I forgot my purse in the house so I had to run back in after I put the boys in the van. Several weeks ago as we were pulling out of the driveway Cole asked, "Mom, do you have your purse?" "Yes, why?" "I was just making sure you didn't forget it," he says. He asks me regularly now if I have my purse and always follows it with, "I was just making sure you didn't forget it." The last several days I have been inundated with flowers that he picks me. The little white flowers that spring up everywhere get picked and picked and picked, always brought to me with much excitement. "Mommy, look what I picked for you!" I have to be careful because he asks me later in the day where my flowers are :).

7. One of the sweet ongoing things that Cole does is taking care of his stuffed animals. He used to have about 12 of them on his bed, and we eventually pared that down to 5 because taking care of 12 animals at bedtime just plain takes too long. He always wanted to set them up in a row, all facing correctly, along the wall of his bed. This had to be done one-by-one. He would take an animal, look to see which one it was, then say, "Bear, you sit right HERE" as he shoved it into place, "and Eeyore, you sit right HERE" as he gets shoved next to bear. Now we've moved past that but he still has to have the 5 animals covered with a blanket "or they will be cold!" His favorite animal is Piglet, so fitting. His personality is so much like Piglets :). Each night he would wrap Piglet up in his burp cloth, making sure it only came up to his neck, and if I laid too close to Piglet while I was singing him songs I would be reprimanded for "squishing him." And heaven forbid that I move the blanket in such a fashion that it go over Piglet's face, because "He can't breathe!"

8. Thomas started a little game with Cole where they would pretend that his stuffed Pooh Bear was eating honey in bed. Cole would cackle with delight while Thomas very seriously questioned Pooh whether or not he had been eating honey in bed at naptime. :)

9. Quoting from books is also a favorite activity of Cole's. He hopped in the back of the van one day and said, "I'm going to sit in the back while Ma drives!" - from Cars and Trucks and Things That Go. He does this in his bed while he's falling asleep. I listened one day to a page of quotes again from Cars & Trucks & Things that Go.

10. The memory of a 3-year-old is scary. We went to vote a few weeks ago but it was in a different building than in November. I didn't know that, so I drove through the parking lot of the old building. I had told Cole we were going to vote but he said he didn't know what that was so I assumed he didn't remember. But as we drove through the parking lot he said, "The last time we came to vote, I fell down in the parking lot." He was right, I could barely remember that he had taken a tumble in the parking lot on our way in. He hadn't even hurt himself, but he remembered.

These are a few of my favorite....books!

It's no secret that we love to read around here, but if you're like me you go into the library and feel like you may as well walk out because how on earth will you ever find the good books with so many choices? And if your kids are WITH you, why even try?

Let me encourage you to read the book "Honey For a Child's Heart" by Gladys Hunt. I already loved reading to my kids before I read it, but it really lit a fire under me to take the time to find them GOOD books, and MAKE the time to read aloud to them. It also convinced me of the good in reading them poetry, the necessity of fairy tales, the importance of reading them Scripture as a Christian parent, and singlehandedly 99% convinced me to let my kids do the whole "Santa Claus" thing. Interesting, huh? Santa Claus and Scripture right next to each other. You'll have to read for yourself but it really is a phenomenal book to encourage you to push against the "mile-a-minute" culture and make time to invest in your kids and help them embrace the wonder of childhood. So much of who they are and what they know is developed and fed by what they read and what is read TO them. I can't recommend this book enough on so many levels. It also has a bibliography by age in the back with book recommendations. This has become my library companion! Some of our favorites currently:

Tyson:

Anything by Nancy Tafuri - her illustrations are captivating for an 18-month-old

Anything by Byron Barton - same thing - great illustrations

Hide & Seek Animals - Sarah Davis - I thought we were going to wear the binding out before it went back to the library. Both boys love the way the illustrations are done.

The Big Red Barn - Margaret Wise Brown - this is one of my top 3 favorite children's books for kids under 5. Both boys have adored this book.

Cars & Trucks & Things That Go - Richard Scarry - both boys could look at this for hours.

Cole:

The "Arthur" series by Marc Brown - I cut out parts of his sassy little sister, but Cole loves these stories.

The "Arthur" series by Lillian Hoban - I would think these are over Cole's comprehension, but he loves them. I loved these as a child.

Anthing of Peter Spier - a lot of his books are wordless, his illustrations are amazing. Cole PORES over these pictures.

Duck on a Bike - David Shannon - happened upon this one in the church library. We read it so many times that one day in the car I heard Cole quoting almost the entire book word for word to himself complete with sentences like, "Duck was peddling faster now." It warmed my heart :).

Anything illustrated by Mark Teague - he illustrates the popular "How Does a Dinosaur" series written by Jane Yolen. Cole loves these books as well as others that Mark Teague illustrated and wrote himself.

The "If you Give" series by Laura Numeroff. Tyson loves these as well.

The Happy Lion - Louise Fatio - another treasure from the church library.

The "Olivia" series by Ian Falconer - I would think too "old", but he loves.

Alvin Tresselt's books, especially "The Mitten".

"Inch By Inch" by Leo Leonni

The "Frog" series by Mercer Mayer - wordless, fantastic illustrations

The "Thomas the Train" series by Christopher Awdry. I was skeptical, but he reads any of these over and over.

"Deep in the Forest" by Brinton Turkle - another wordless one, amazing illustrations

"Sector 7" by David Wiesner - wordless, a little too old for Cole, but brilliantly imaginitive story told with clever illustrations - I explained each picture and he loved it.

Gladys Hunt says that you need to get acquainted with authors and illustrators to make your reading aloud most enjoyable. I agree! There are reems of children's books published that hold ZERO interest for kids, but when you find an author that has the gift of writing through a child's eyes, look for more of their stuff! They're few and far between.

We also use the bibliography out of "The Read-Aloud Handbook" by Jim Trelease. It's SO helpful to have a list of what I'm looking for when we go to the library, and to end up with books we love instead of books that don't interest the kids or have a story-line I don't want them hearing. What a joy books are!

Getting my craftiness on!

For months I've been planning the best way to get my jewelry, particularly earrings, in a viewable storage system so I can see them. After lots of "planning", I finally took some old junky picture frames that I already had, took the glass out and put wire mesh in, and spray painted them. TaDa! Now all my earrings plus necklaces and bracelets are nicely "viewable" :).

Daddy time!

If I'm not available to read Tyson a book, he finds someone else who is.
But Daddy can't lay on the floor for more than 30 seconds before we hear, "Wrestle Time!!" and both boys are jumping, sitting, rolling, and pummeling him. They love to play "Steamroller" where they roll across the floor yelling, "Here comes the steamroller!" until they run into someone. Thomas is a great dad, he gets down and wrestles with them almost every day when he gets home from work or after dinner. Cole talks during the day about how he's going to wrestle daddy when he gets home.

My Second Little Bookworm

Few things in mothering give me more pleasure than reading aloud to the boys. Tyson will follow me around with a book yelling, "Read! Book! Read! Book!" I turned around one day to see him quietly paging through "Have You Seen My Duckling?" by Nancy Tafuri, one of his favorite books, pointing things out and talking to himself.

While we're on the topic of ducks, we took a walk to the duck pond by our house recently only to find when we got there that Tyson had gotten hold of the bread we brought to feed the ducks and had eaten 2 of the 3 slices already. Thankfully it wasn't moldy :)