I had no trouble with math growing up, pronunciation and spelling on the other hand. I thought being good at math/science over spelling/writing ran in the family(well through my dad), but my older sister turned out the opposite(and is a good artistic, whereas both my parents do not really um do art) and my elder brother has a weird mix of the two, he is good at English and math, but doesn't get science.

I kind of ran off topic there.

Children seem to often talk to me randomly in public(old people aswell), I guess I am not very threatening looking(so they feel safe talking to me). this brings me too ;I have a pair of fox flats(they are from modcloth and basically have a picture of a fox face on the toe area) and I was in line at a shop one day and a kid in front of me kept looking at my shoes, and finally said " Why are you wearing foxes on your feet, foxes are mean for coats", I explained to her they are not real foxes(she would have been only around 3).

Recently my Dad asked my little sister if she had been good. Her respond was "is that a question or a statement?".

Today my youngest brother was helping me bake cookies and I asked him how much cookie dough he had eaten. He said "not too much, 2, 3 bites". Plus two baked cookies.

fk, your kids are so cute!

SnowAngel

SnowAngel

I was recently making chocolate balls with my nephew and I almost regretted it because he just kept stuffing the cookie batter into his mouth and I was seriously afraid he was going to get sick from it. But I guess kids don't get sick from stuff like that, because he's never been healthier

My niece and nephew have been having some behavior problems recently, she's already four while he's only two so she can get very annoyed when he tries to join into her games and sometimes she starts pushing him. Once, I heard some angry shouts and came to see what was going on. My nephew was standing on the floor, crying while my niece was crawling all over the couch, building a tower out of pillows. I of course asked her if she had hit her brother and she replied 'no, he hit himself'. So I turned to my nephew and asked if his sister had hit him, and in between sobs he answered that she did. My niece didn't lose her head even though the truth was out. Before I could open my mouth to reprimand her, she quickly grabbed his hand, loudly stating, "come, we can play together, I can share with you, you stand here and help me build.' Of course he calmed down right away and was very happy and my niece looked at me all bright and happy,obviously proud of what a kind, sharing, older sister she was. That little girl is very smart and very sneaky but at least they made peace and played happily together, so alls well that ends well

I was just thinking 'I need to come post in this thread again, it's been a while.' I see it's been exactly a year to the day since I last posted! Wow!

Well, lets see. Evan in a nutshell continues to be busy. He loves Curious George, mechanical devices (especially if they can be taken apart and dissected), climbing trees, making patterns with random toys and especially refrigerator magnets, and he's lately been into spelling out words. He started a special preschool this year to help him catch up on his speech as he's still about a year behind, but he's getting there. He mostly repeats what he hears so he will often talk in third person. "Evan, what do you want to watch? HMmm.. Lets watch George." But he's come a long way since school started.

Ariel has the worst case of Momma's Girl syndrome I've ever seen. Where Evan is only slightly shy, Ariel will cling on like her life depends on it. If we're somewhere that she anticipates being set down she immediately bursts into tears. But at home she has embraced toddler life to the fullest. She has the makings of a potential girly-girl as she loves to put bracelets on her wrists and wears those around. If she sees herself in the mirror with a headband or hat she'll leave it on because she thinks it's cute. Unlike Evan she is progressing at a normal rate with her words and knows quite a few. Also unlike Evan, her words are not perfect, they're mostly vowel sounds, so you have to understand the context of what she's saying. She has a favorite book, 'Yellowstone and Grand Teton -- Babies!' that we read about 5 times a day. She's obsessed with a picture of the fox kits in there.

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d150/ ... iyykva.jpg
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d150/ ... x7qfev.jpg

The Saga of Halloween Costume Drama

Part 1 - Wednesday Night Gymnastics
It all began this past Wednesday night. Evan has gymnastics and the day before Halloween the kids dress up and do a spook walk, so that was our costume deadline. We had asked Evan multiple times leading up to Halloween what he wanted to be, but he gave us a different answer every time. One of them, was a dinosaur. So we found this cute costume online at the last minute and ordered it and it was supposed to arrive Wednesday.
Well, gymnastics rolls around and no costume, Evan and I spent ages arguing about even going. I kept telling him he'd get candy, no go. But as the minutes ticked by, we finally agreed on going, but not on a costume. Evan had been promised a dinosaur and it hadn't arrived. I called my husband and he made an emergency trip to Target and the ONLY thing they had in Evan's size that was also flexible (that he could do tumbling in) was an ice cream cone. So my hubby snagged it.
My husband walks in the door ready to turn around and immediately head to gymnastics and Evan suddenly announces he will go in his pirate costume from last year. Fine. Whatever. That works.
(Oh, and Evan's dinosaur costume showed up about 30 min after he left.)

Part 2 - Friday Night Trunk or Treat
Friday night our church was hosting a trunk or treat (for those who don't know what that is, you just have a bunch of hosts park their cars in a parking lot, decorate the trunk of their vehicle, and hand out candy). Evan announced he wanted to go as a pirate again. Cool. We assumed Ariel would be happy going in one of her million dress up princess outfits, or something like that. Evan's all ready to go, but Ariel completely melted down on me when I tried to show her the outfits she had to choose from. I finally popped her into a pink and leopard print tutu with a tail and ear headband. I thought I'd never hear the end of the screaming. So I pulled her back out of it and planned to stay home with her since she showed no interest in going. But with the realization that Daddy and Brother were going to go get candy, she announced she wanted to go and she wanted to wear that dumb Ice Cream Cone costume. So it worked out.

Part 3 - Trick or Treating at Family's Houses
Drama free night. Nothing happened.

Part 4 - Evan's School Halloween Party Monday Morning
Would have been drama free except Evan ate too many cookies and threw up on his pirate costume.

Part 5 - Official trick or treating.
Soooo.... with the pirate costume off the table, we were back to square one negotiations with Evan. After much debate, he announced he would wear his dinosaur costume... from when he was two (he is four). Well, he still fits into it but the legs are a bit short so it does look kind of funny.
After seeing her big brother in a dinosaur costume, Ariel (who is two) announced she wanted to be a dinosaur too. So we stuck her in Evan's brand new dinosaur costume and pinned up the legs so she wouldn't trip and wipe out.

The end.

That is so funny FK! Although probably not for you. It makes my day seem tame. I had 20 3-4 year olds in costumes. Then we had to take them all out of their costumes for snack/outside time/lunch/nap. After nap we had to put them all back into their costumes for a parade for their parents. It was a harrowing few minutes when we walked them around the outside of the school. It is challenging to keep 19 preschoolers in a line and close together - especially when two of them are in cardboard tractors (straps resting on their shoulders and their feet coming out the bottom.) The day did really go well for Halloween.

Your story, with its many twists and turns, made me laugh multiple times, fantasia. I sympathize with the fallout from Evan's cookie eating; I remember eating so much Halloween candy one year that I grimly declared that I never wanted to eat chocolate ever again as long as I lived. Good thing I didn't keep my word on that one.

deep breath, blows dust off thread

Little sister, holding up an open cookbook: SnowAngel, how would you like this?
Me: What is it?
Little sister, grinning: Beet and goat cheese dip.
Me, rolls eyes: No.

Little brother, after seeing the beginning of a murder mystery film - on the TV a house: The guy who lives there is a little stiff.
Me: groans

Three siblings were having a Bible discussion in the kitchen one day.
Scarlet: Why were there two letters to Timothy?
Littlest brother: Because he (Paul) ran out of paper.
Little brother: Paul had too much to say for one letter.

SnowAngel

Oh goodness, it's been too long! The last time I posted in this thread, I was only talking about my nephew! I have a niece now, too, who just turned 3, and my nephew is now 6.

I don't think we knew this when I last posted here, but my nephew has been diagnosed... I think the official terminology is that he's "on the autism spectrum". So it took him until he was well into 3 before he started really talking, he's still struggling with figuring out appropriate social behavior, and he gets overwhelmed by too much noise/stimuli quite easily.

On the other hand, he is an incredibly smart kid. He loves any kind of building toy, especially LEGO and Duplo. One time, he was trying to replicate a design my brother showed him, which involved basically making a circle out of LEGO. This is harder than it sounds because of LEGO's shape, and for my brother to do it, he had to use a specialized piece my nephew doesn't have. My nephew's solution, was, in his own words, "We need to make a hexagon." Yes, HE said hexagon. He's 6!!

He also got a building toy for Christmas which uses magnets and comes in certain geometric shapes - squares, rectangles, and importantly, three kinds of triangles. I recognized them as right, equilateral, and isosceles triangles, so I decided to teach my nephew their names so that when he was asking for pieces, I knew what kind of triangle he wanted. I decided to call the isosceles one an "ice" triangle, and before I could even come up with an explanation, he took the one I was holding, turned it upside down so it looked like an icicle, and said, "Oh, because it looks like ice!"

One more story about my nephew before I move on to my niece. (This one's second hand, so I probably don't have all the details right.) A few months ago, he went through a phase where he was scared of the dark and monsters. He's still really into monsters, drawing them and intentionally inserting them into stories, but for a while he seemed to think they were real, no matter how many times you told him there were no monsters in his closet. Despite this, one day when he and his sister were getting for bed, she was upset, so he went into her room, looked in her closet, and declared, "Don't worry, there are no monsters." Awww!!

Now my niece. Like I said, she's three, and despite being a very clingy Mama's girl for about the first year, nowadays she's fiercely independent. To the point where it's kind of a problem sometimes. You have to catch her interest before she's willing to go anywhere or do anything, and she's quite happy going off and exploring all on her own. This was kind of a problem when she was very little because, unlike her brother, she's not generally very noisy (she certainly can when she wants to be), so she's very good at just disappearing. We have a running joke that, referring to classing RPG classes, her brother is a bard and she's a rogue.

She's utterly fearless, too, which is something I hope she doesn't lose for a long time. I mean, yes, it'd be nice if she developed a sense of self-preservation, but I love her endless confidence. We went to a festival this past October where there was a lot of music, and there was a sort of "dancing square" in front of the band. She was having the time of her life dancing to the music. Sadly I wasn't here for this part, but apparently when the band stopped one song in order to introduce the next one, she walked up to the stage - apparently came just shy of actually walking on the stage - and demanded, "Keep playing!" The band thought she was hilarious.

She talks easily as much as her brother does, and though her vocabulary isn't quite as good, it's getting there! She's known all the animal noises for quite a while - New Year's Eve/Day going into 2018, we kept her entertained while her parents were getting packed up by making dragon noises with her. She can do the standard kitty, doggy, etc., but quite possibly the cutest animal noise she makes is frog. Or maybe fish ("blub blub blub"), but I'm biased, I taught her that one. Sadly, she's less likely to do it if asked these days - going back to that whole fiercely independent thing.

I was wondering if you might mention your niece and nephew in this thread, Rya.

I missed the "keep playing" last fall, but happened to be there when the band finished its set and began packing up. She was on her way to the stairway leading to the stage but just watched them take things down.

I might be biased, but I think one of her cutest animal noises comes when she reads Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do You See? (which teaches kids colors and animals). When she gets to the sheep, she says "Baa ram ewe" (from the movie Babe). I take credit for that.

Having three kids who are no longer so little I have loved reading through some of these. I have many stories and I am sure I will sit and write them soon but have a proud moment with one of mine that was a good learning experience for us both.
We just moved to Illinois in Jan. It was a huge transition and having a child who deals with anxiety we were really worried. We have explained over and over to them about being kind to people no matter what, and really be kind to those who need it.
So, first day of school in new town mid year. My middle sees a little girl being picked on by what she says is the school bully. She remembers we need to be kind so she kindly asks him to stop and hopes that will solve it. Well this made the bully keep going on the poor girl. So my 10 year old says (very kindly she wanted me to know) that just because she is the new kid does not mean she will not punch him in the throat if he doesnt back off.

Needless to say we had a good talk on how to handle bullies, and he did back off. The girls parents actually called us thanking Morgan for doing what she did.
I think there is a lesson in here somewhere.

Conversation in kitchen about who does and doesn't like feta cheese.
Little brother: Is there a blessing for feta?
Other siblings: God bless and keep the feta far away from us.
It was a weird conversation.

SnowAngel

Are your siblings fans of Fiddler on the Roof, SnowAngel? They were actually paraphrasing a line from it.

Yes, they are and they love to paraphrase movie quotes. And change song lyrics. I really should write more of them down because they are hilarious.

SnowAngel

When my son Evan was a baby, he had his top four baby teeth all come in at the same time. And now his top two adult teeth pushed out his top four baby teeth at the same time... except for the center front left tooth that's hanging on by a thread.

We told him he needs a straw hat and banjo.