Genius Child

Lexi has known the entire alphabet and has been able to to identify all of the letters independently since just after her second birthday. Fadia works on this with her a lot because she really enjoys it, so she has now moved on to learning "little" letters, learning about the sounds that the letters make, and learning about how letters make words, and you can sound out the word to figure out what letters make that word. We have also been working on writing letters since she's been demonstrating much greater control over the crayon and making things like faces, lines and circles for a few months now. She's been amazing me with the speed that she seems to be picking up on these new skills and every time she writes her name for me, it becomes more and more clear.

This morning she was writing on her easel and came running in to bring me over and show me what she had done. This is what I walked in and saw...

Do you know what it was that she was excited about?? The new pink crayon she'd found... When I asked her what she had written on the page she said, "my name" like I was crazy for having to ask and then followed it up with, "but look, mama! Look at this new pink crayon I found!!!"

The child is a genius...there is just no denying it. :)

Friday Fun

On Friday Lexi and I rode her bike to the playground. She can now pedal and steer the bike completely by herself all the way there and back. She has also mastered new equipment on the playground which she thinks is pretty exciting...and it is. :)

Later we went over to check out my Nana's house as new tenants were scheduled to move in on Saturday. My mom has always liked having pictures of the kids on the mantle, but Lexi is usually a bit camera shy and has given us a hard time. Not on Friday!! She was striking more poses than a model!



It was a fun afternoon.

Brownies

Tonight Lexi and I made brownies for dessert to celebrate Daddy's birthday. We also made rice pilaf with chicken because that is his favorite dinner. Once dinner was ready I put her rice at her spot at the table. She wandered over, took a peek at her plate and said, "Ummmm...where's my brownie? I'm gonna need my brownie!" We laughed for a minute and explained that we have to eat dinner first.
So, Miss. Never-Leaves-One-Crumb-On-Her-Plate eats her peas and about three bites of rice and declares that she is all done, and hands me her plate. Ahren and I finish eating our dinner and she looks towards the kitchen with an innocent little look on her face and says, "So, about those treats...can we have them now?"
I think Lexi wishes that everyday was some body's birthday. :)

Hump Day

Lexi on our way to Fadia's this morning: "Mama, what day is it today?"

Me: "Wednesday"

Lexi: "Hey! That's one of the days in my song, 'There Are Seven Days In The Week!'"

Me: "Yup, all of the days of the week are in that song."

Lexi: "I think I should sing it, are you ready?"

Me: "Yup, ready."

Lexi begins singing her song, which is always interesting because she doesn't know when the song ends...so she just keeps singing it over and over and over..."Sunday, Monday, Tuesday Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc., etc., etc.," until she pauses after about 17 verses and says, "I just had to take a break to swallow and breave" and then continues on for the rest of the way to Fadia's, while I'm getting her out of the car, and all the way in the door until she finally had to stop to kiss me goodbye.

Thank goodness for the swallow and "breave" break or she might have passed out before we got there!

Just To Comment On The Ticker...

It will go away on Tuesday, so I'll repeat in here that it currently states, "Mommy is gaining a pound a week. Lay off the cake women, you're not really eating for two!!"

Yea, so I just have to point out that at my visit last Thursday I was told that I had LOST a pound since my visit two weeks prior. I was also told that while this was okay, I was not to allow it to happen again. Since I was, by no means, TRYING to lose that pound, I am entirely unsure how I am to prevent it from happening again. However, while I am not eating cake, there is pie...and I plan to continue to eat that pie to my heart's content. At this point I could say something very rude and vulgar to the ticker at the top of my blog, but I realize that it would be a little bit crazy to pick a fight with a ticker that I, myself, linked to this blog. So, I'll let it go at that... :)

Well, What Then?

So, in about 8 weeks or so I am due to give birth to a baby, who we happen to know is a boy. The only trouble with this is that we do not seem to be able to agree on what we should call this little angel. We've discussed several options:
Jackson - there are soooo many Jacks, though I love Jackson and also J.T.
Zachary - I'm not sure I love Zack, but I love that he would be named after my Nana (whose maiden name was Zaccari)
Cameron - Too feminine, though I love Cam
Nathaniel - Eh...
Anderson - Don't like Andy...sounds like windows
Vincent - I don't think I could seriously call him "Vinny"
The list goes on and on...
Last week at dinner Ahren and I were discussing our options again, mostly going back and forth about our top two (Zachary and Jackson), but throwing a few more in the mix. Suddenly Lexi comes out with the suggestion that she thinks we should name him "What Then." HUH?? "What Then?" we inquired? "Yes" she replied. Hmmm...as we attempted to continue discussing...um...REAL names she continued to interject "What Then!! We'll call him What Then!" only getting more and more upset the more we ignored her insistence. So, finally we just had to end the conversation so that she could go back to calmly eating her dinner.
The next afternoon she was looking through the books on our bookshelf and pulled off the "35,000 Baby Names" book we have (which, even though we bought used, still goes down as the worst spent money ever as this book is full of 34,995 names that are even more ridiculous than "What Then"). She said, "Look Mom, here is the book that has names we can call my brover" "Yes" I said. Then she opens it to a page about a quarter of the way in, looks intently at it for a moment, and then jabs her finger down on the page and said, "See, Mom?? There it is! 'What Then'!"
Oh dear...well at least one of us has chosen a name she likes!