Michael talking in his sweet, precious, 7-year-old sleep

Wow, this is true wireless. I like it!

more sleeptalking

Maybe we should have tried to cut the...not the...squirrels.
(Sits up)
Let's get back to the playroom.

Oh, right. (Lays down)

It's a busy sleeptalking night for Michael

This place is GREAT. Oh i don't know it's called...umm.. Clonkers? Umm...

Curse you, bat squirrels! (Mumble) bat squirrels.

Everybody go through a square! Wee! Woah. (Sits up, looks at me) Oh great, no more secret compartments. (Lays down) One more. (Snoring)

michael talking in his sleep

(Grinding teeth) "I saved the Bobo's life!"

Bobo is his Webkinz monkey that Miss Lisa (Raynah's mom) gave him.

Out of curiosity I looked up the definition of "bobo." In English it's a combination of the words "bourgoisie" and "bohemian."

In Spanish it means stupid, silly, dunce, dolt. In Spanish theatre lingo it means "clown" or "funny man."

Michael talking in his sleep, age 7

"It's a traffic area, trust me. You should go through yourself."

He said this at 5am in Casper, Wyoming at the LaQuinta hotel. Soon it will be time to wake up, eat breakfast, and drive 4 hours to see Grandma June & Great Grandma Lila before we get back on a plane to Maryland this evening. What a full dy it's going to be!

Michael talking in his sleep

"I know the problem, she has all the paperclips!"

Michael's idea of a balanced life (?), illustrated in a pie chart.

♥April bit a heart shape into her plum♥

At the Baltimore Zoo

April playing at 1st Class Gymnastics

Springtime at Chesapeake Bay

Snow! Playing outside and playing inside...

Above Michael models a winter romper that he's had since he was 1. He's now 6 1/2 years old. He dug it out of his closet and was in the mood to wear it. (I really need to update his closet). The tag on that outfit says 18 mos. When he was little I cut the sleeves so that his hands would peek out. I just think it's funny that he still "fits" into it, but the legs are a bit short.
April enjoys the snow! This is shortly before the snow got too deep for even an adult to walk in it. (As I write this we've got 3 feet and counting outside...we're snowed in!)

April talks to her daddy on the phone while he's at work.

Snow!

It snowed all day Saturday, totalling 2 or 3 feet! John made an igloo. The kids played.

April's 3 years and 2 months old

Michael said, "Let's make the number 4!" So Mom & Dad helped them get into position. They were playful, and April held the position happily. This is April on her first day as a Sunbeam! And Michael's a CTR 6April fell asleep on the way home from church wearing her coat and sunglasses, so we laid her on the couch when we got home just as she was. Even though she was asleep, it looked like she might have been watching us from behind those dark glasses. But she didn't move for an hour or so, truly asleep.

April likes to play with the Upwords tiles, and look how she can arrange the letters to make sure they're facing the right way!


April was in daycare from June-November. But since we moved in November, we're going to try the stay-at-home mommy & April thing again. The good things that came out of daycare were:

April learned a routine,
she started drinking cow's milk since everyone else was drinking it there too,
she developed friendships ("that's my best friend Olivia!"),
she had structured, stimulating, age-directed activities
she was cared for by people who are trained and qualified and genuinely love children (not all biological parents come equipped with those things)
and she learned how to count to 10 in Spanish from a real Spanish speaking person (rather than learning it from TV, like I remember learning it as a child, and how Michael learned it from Dora).

April is smart, smart, smart. She's attuned to people's behaviorial innuendoes, finds humor in the least discrepancies.

She's in her second month of gymnastics classes, and she is truly a natural. She tackles the balance beam as though it's as natural as walking in a straight line on the floor. She's learning tricks on the beam already, like hopping forward with her feet together, doing scales (in ballet terminology they're arabesques). In the last class they taught her how to mount the high beam properly.

On the floor, she's learned two ways to get into a handstand position, and her arms are strong and supportive and her body is tight. She follows directions without any problem, and she has fun the whole time! The gym has a tumbling run too, and April loves that thing. They've also got a foam pit, which is tricky to maneuver around in, but April likes the challenge.

Michael's 6-1/2

In December Michael mastered tying his shoes. Yay! Good job. It just took awhile for my patience to synch up with his willingness to learn. And now finally, he's joined the ranks of shoe tie-ers.

Also in December he became immersed in a chapter book for the first time. Junie B. Jones, First Grader at last!

We went to the library yesterday evening, and Michael is currently engrossed in another chapter book: Magic School Bus - Amazing Magnetism

Hooray for reading! Michael & April are so much more well-mannered when they spend their free time reading than they are when they watch TV. Another hooray for reading!

In November we moved about 15 miles away from our last residence, so Michael had to start at a new school right after Thanksgiving. He really loved his old school; he had lots of friends. Whenever we'd walk home from school, we'd hear from far and near, little children calling out, "Hi, Michael!"

At 6 years old, a very adaptable age, he's doing fine at his new school. We look forward to new friends and new faces for playdates and sleepovers. But the nice thing about only moving 15 miles away, he still gets to keep his old friends for playdates and sleepovers too :)