Two BIG Milestones

I'm so sorry that it's been so long since I posted last. However, I have two great things to brag about.

First: Colwyn has started drawing recognizable things. I am SO pleased. We do lots of art projects but not necessarily a lot drawing. However, the other day I saw him fiddling around with a travel Magnadoodle. I went to peek and saw that he had drawn a circle with a long line coming down from it, and two lines coming out horizontally from the bottom of that. Woohoo! Colwyn's first person! So when I exclaimed joyously at his genius, what did he do? He erased it. :) He'll draw people like that consistently, and if I ask him if they need anything else, he'll draw hair, eyes, and a mouth. Sooo cute. He also drew a fence the other day.. a bunch of horizontal and vertical lines crossing each other.

The other thing that, traditionally speaking, I should be excited about, is that Colwyn now says the ABCs correctly. Previously he would say, "H, I, Kel, O, M, N, O, P, etc." But today he said it all correctly. I'm pleased that he picked it up, especially as I hadn't spent more than a few minutes here and there helping him. Honestly, what's the big deal if he doesn't know which order the letters come in right now? It's not like I'm asking him to alphabetize his books or anything. :)

We picked up some new books at the library today, which of course means returning the old ones. I'm always sad to see books that have become our favorites go back. Of course, our favorites always get checked out again (this week, Colwyn asked for Gruffalo, and I picked up two of Jane Yolen's "How Do Dinosaurs.." books) but I still feel oddly sad. I guess I just find it so amazingly cute when the boys get excited about books, and when Colwyn memorizes parts of them and reads along with us. For instance, Colwyn's favorite out of the last batch was Captain Flinn and the Pirate Dinosaurs. There's a part that he loved reading to us, and he incorporated it into his pretend play a lot. It goes, "'I'm going to cut you up into little pirate sausages and put you on the barbeque and eat you up, with much too much ketchup!' he added." I could have cried at his cuteness every time he said the "he added" part.

But we did get some good new books this time. I chose a Maurice Sendak book, In the Night Kitchen, which I found to be a little strange, but Colwyn loved. I also picked up a book of Jack Prelutsky's poems, Monday's Trolls. My 5th grade reading teacher loved Jack Prelutsky and I still love his writing. What else.. oh, we really liked David Shannon's Duck On a Bike.

When I was at the Hallmark store getting a card for Mom, I saw a paperback version of Blueberries for Sal and picked it up. Later I was talking to Doug and Kristine about the book. Doug didn't realize what book I was referring to right away, so Kristine teased him about how he didn't know what Blueberries for Sal was. So I told her that I had said to him a few months ago that we really needed to get some Robert McCloskey books for the kids, and he had no idea what I was talking about. So Kristine responded, "Who's Robert McCloskey?" Ack. That totally underscored my point about making sure we tell the kids who wrote each book as we read it. Colwyn now tells us that Dan Yaccarino is his favorite author (which, to be honest, is probably still jsut because he likes saying Yaccarino, though we did get another of his books from the library last time, Unlovable.

Anyway, enough about books. We've been working a LOT in the garden, too. But, you know, it's half past midnight.. maybe I'll write about that tomorrow.