Daley Ponderings

More than a month's worth of notes...

10/3 - Joy's diaper was dry all night long.  She went in the potty three or four times.  This was exciting to me and so the next night I prepared to be diaperless.  I spread a waterproof pad, with towels on top.  But she and I are so wiggly during the night, it was hard to keep the towels straight and then she was cold without anything on her lower half and when she did wet the towels, changing them was a pain.  So, we're not ready to go diaperless yet, but we do have success with pottying in the night.  However, recently (read: several weeks) Joy has been screaming in the night, whether it's changing her diaper or putting her on the potty.  I found that if I'm aware of more subtle movements I can nurse her before she screams (but that is her first vocalization) but I am at a loss for the hygiene part.  Do I just put her in a paper diaperand undo all the work and awareness of needing to go?  Or do I persist in hopes that she'll stop screaming before we both go insane with the sleep interruptions?  I need to go look at forums for suggestions.

10/5 - Joy got her uppder left lateral incisor.

10/5 - Jonathan, "I don't feel like Dad-o is a grandpa, 'cause he still goes up on roofs and stuff."

10/7 - Jonathan's caterpillar made a cocoon.  Since it's still in there, I'm guessing we're waiting until spring for this guy.

10/7 - Faith was trying on my glasses.  Walking around, she'd look down and exclaim, "That looks like a pit!"  Then, looking in the mirror, "I look like Mommy."

10/7 - As we drive away from the border guard into Canada, Jonathan pipes up, "I wonder if she'd be interested in this suitcase we've got jam-packed full of spy stuff?"

10/8 - Joy started waving at the baby in the mirror.

10/8 -  Joy turns her head when you say her name.

10/14 - Joy top right lateral incisor.

10/17 - Joy beginning to cruise along coffee table.

10/18 - Noah, "I love garlic.  There's nothing better to put on your meat than garlic."

10/19-20 - Jonathan and I had a frustrating day in math with Roman numerals.  Then in the afternoon, Noah saved the day.  He used our big poster to quiz Jonathan and by passively observing, I discovered what he did and didn't know.  The next day in school I was able to put that knowledge into the lesson amd we had a great time!

Jonathan is definitely an auditory learner.  I don't know how his teachers would deal with it in school, but one of the nice things here is that I can let him sing "14 + 27 = 41" as much as he needs.

10/20 - Jonathan has been enjoying his Lucky Luke book and likes to act out the scenes.  He especially likes to be the judge.  So he was talking about confiscating some property and I had to interrupt.  He pronounced it, "confisticated".  It was like an early birthday present.  Why? Because I pronounced it that way until college because somehow no one corrected me until then.  I may be crazy, but at least I'm bringing my children along with me.  (:  But I did correct him and told him the story, which he thought was funny, too.

10/21 - My 32nd birthday.  A very fun day.

10/22 - Faith pronounced forehead, "head-fort"
 
10/23 - Dinner table lessons on debt (National and private), credit (cards and the principle), debit cards and bank accounts, monthly spending, etc.

10/24 - Jonathan worked with Daddy on adding four-digit numbers.  It was cool to watch how he thought of it.  If there was something like 1977 + 1979, he would add 1000+1000, then 900+900, then 70+70, then 7+9.  He kept all the various carrying numbers in his head, but usually got the right answer.  He had a hard time understanding the traditional method, because he wanted to think of the 900 as 900 and not as 9, but eventually he got it.

10/27 - Joy had a bath with Faith.  It was fun to watch her figure out how to sit and move in the water (this was the first bath she has had where I was not in the tub with her on my lap).  At first, she kept falling backwards, but she learned how to lean forwards and then reach for toys and eventually stand up.  By the end, I didn't have to hold her at all, but just keep spotting hands near her.  So fun!

11/1 - Joy started standing for half a second unintentionally.

11/3 - Joy can open cabinets now, so back on go the locks.

11/3 - Joy makes kissing lip smacks.  So sweet!

11/3 - Joy walked across the living room pushing the empty block bin.

Yesterday (11/12) she stood up for about 3 seconds.  It's funny how different babies are so different.  Jonathan walked at just one week shy of nine months.  Noah, at eight and a half months was nowhere near walking (he took his first step at 11 months, I just looked up.)  Now, Joy is quickly approaching the walking stage and she is 8.5 months.

Faith counts consistently like this, "1,2,3,4,5,6,9,10,11,12,13,14,19" and then random teen numbers until she's tired of it.  Sixteen sounds like "hickteen" (: