Here Come the Questions

"Mommy, what does 'comfort' mean?" after hearing the word on the radio.

"What does 'suicide' mean?" after hearing the word on TV (that's Daddy for watching that TV program.....)

"Why is this cheese flat?' when he was unwrapping a piece of sliced cheese.

Collin is asking more and more questions especially about what words means.  He is learning a letter a week at school, how that letter is all around him in life and sentence structure.  Instead of guessing what I meant (or ignoring me all together ... which still does happen), he listens and then asks questions about words I or someone else near him used.  I love this and enjoy explaining the words to him and then watch his face and see him thinking about what I just told him. 

"Fart begins with 'F' right?"

Collin is learning letters, syllables and rhyming in school. Each week, they work on one letter of the alphabet.  With this letter, they color the letter, sound out words that begin with the letter and even bring a show-n-tell that starts with the letter.  The show-n-tell is fun for them because they bring it in a bag that has 3 clues.  The kids have to guess what's in the bag based on the clues. 

Last night during dinner, I talked to Collin about the letter they were working on this week.  I knew it was "F" based on the email the teacher sent that morning with an update about the class.  I started with:

Mommy:  "Collin, I heard you were learning about the letter "F" this week in school.  Does "chip" begin with "F"?
Collin:  "No"
Mommy:  "Well, then does "table" begin with "F"?
Collin: "No" as he is sounding out the word table
Mommy: "What about "feather""?
Collin:  "Yes, that does begin with "F".  What about "fart"?  That begins with "F", right?"  He then starts laughing so hard that he farts....which made him laugh even more.  I love my boy! 

"Come Find Me Mommy!"

Collin has loved to play hide-n-seek since he was 2.  This love has not changed.....just the seeking has gotten harder.  He has found some really good hiding places and also learned to not talk to the seeker when he is hiding.

His favorite spot is under the bed.  This is also where is wet towel and occasionally diaper will end up.  I now have to look under the bed when cleaning his room or if there is a smell.

Last night was no exception to wanting to hide.  I am sure it was because it was close to bed time and he knew it.  I followed him down the hall as he was running to his room.  By the time he got to his room, he was well hidden.  Where did that stinker go?  I was just behind him.  I did finally find him under the bed.  Since he did that so fast, I asked him to show me how he does it so fast.  He was happy to do so.  He got up and started from the door to his room, ran around to the front of the bed, dropped to his belly, and then head first, inched his way quickly under his bed within 20 seconds.  "That was fast!" I told him and he was really proud of that.  I then put pillows in the way of that entry and asked him what he would do if there were pillows in the way.  Thinking he would enter from the side, he surprised me when he ran around to the front, threw the pillows out of the way and made it under the bed in seconds again.  Hmmmm......this kiddo is determined to hide and get to his favorite spot.  He liked the "what if" game and then blocked the side of the bed. 

We played for about 15 minutes longer before it was time to go to bed.  Daddy came home about this time so this was another welcomed distraction for Collin....and it worked.  We did not have time to read books so I laid with him in bed while he played "dead" which is another favorite of his...and he is really good at it.  You would think this would wear him out because he was shutting his eyes and being as still as he could but it didn't.  He did finally relax and fell asleep. 

Sleepover!

Timmy spent the night last night!!!  After work, I met Aunt Lisa to pick Timmy up and take him home for what I hoped to be an enjoyable night and Saturday for both him and Collin.  Timmy was asleep when I arrived and slept all the way to our house.  When we arrived, Collin ran out of the house to help Timmy and I get out of the car.  "I can help you unbuckle him Mommy".  After that, the boys were inseparable the rest of the night.  They played really well together and barely stopped to eat dinner.  They started in the playroom, played with Play Doh at the kitchen table, played in the playroom again, ran around the house chasing each other before it was time to have cake at the Jureks for Randy's birthday.  All of that happened within 1 1/2 hours of Timmy and I coming home.  At this point, I could tell that I was going to pass out early tonight (which I did not to my surprise).  After coming back to the house, the boys wanted to watch a movie and did fall asleep in the playroom where they both stay through the night.  Ahhh....quiet....until 6:45am.

The difference this morning was that the boys played together for about 20 minutes until Collin came to get me so I could help rebuild the train track that broke.  I did and slipped back into bed for another 20 minutes when I was woken up again.  I stayed up this time.  After they downed 3 homemade pancakes each, we got out the Halloween decorations and started to put them outside when Daddy joined us.  Then, they wanted to paint the pumpkins.  I thought this might last at least 20 minutes but they got tired of it quicker than it took me to set it up.  They wanted to play outside.  I joined them and cleaned the backyard because it had been at least 3 months.  Lots of pine needles everywhere.  This is when they finally got on each other's nerves. 

After eating very little for lunch, we left for Collin's soccer game in the Jeep.  Timmy loved the wind in his hair. While the kids practiced 20 minutes before the game, Timmy and I practiced soccer too.  He is really good with the ball!  Collin noticed I was not watching him and ran over to give me a 5 minutes warning.  He wanted me to know the game was about to start and I needed to watch him play.  Timmy was not interested in sitting still so I let him play games on the cell phone so he would sit next to me.  Collin did fantastic during the game (of course, because it involved running) and even scored a goal.  After the game, we met a few team mates for ice cream before Timmy had to go home.  Collin and I came home to watch a movie and relax.  He feel asleep within 30 minutes and has been out for almost two hours.  I guess that means he had fun with Timmy.  Maybe we can make this a monthly thing.

Playing with Play Doh at the kitchen table

I think the boys did a great job with the decorations

Timmy did not get much further than this with his pumpkin

Collin showing off his pumpkin before he grew tired of painting.  I am sure it had to do with Timmy not sitting there anymore.

My little jokester.  I love him!

Jeep ride on the way to soccer

Pumpkin Patch

I am not sure his reason why but Daddy let me know before I got home that Collin wanted to go to the Pumpkin Patch....tonight!  I knew when I got home and the first thing he asked was "Can we go to the Pumpkin Patch?" that he was not going to forget his request from earlier that day.  Grandma H was at the house because she took him to gymnastics.  After he showed me a hand stand attempt twice which was more like a cartwheel, we loaded up in the car and headed to the Patch.  Grandma H said she had never been so it was good that she was able to join us.

We have been going to this same Patch for 3 years now.  Collin is a pro at it now and knows the purpose of being there.  He wanted to pick a pumpkin out for our house, Grandma H and school.  I was also going to get one for Mimi but they were low on good medium size pumpkins.  After climbing on the cart he has to climb on every year, we set out to search for the pumpkins we wanted to take home.  Collin was really particular this year and explained that the pumpkins had to have a long stem on them.  I usually like ones with little ones or even without a stem so this should be fun.  After about 20 minutes of looking around, we selected a good group of pumpkins and brought them home.  He will decorate them this weekend.  He is really looking forward to that. 

Great bunch of pumpkins!  Collin can tell you which house each one of these belongs to. 

Grandma H pointing out a good pumpkin.  I think we did end up bringing this one home with us.

He kept coming back to this one because he could see what the pumpkin looked like inside.

See the foot Grandma H?  It's back there!

Cousins at the Museum

It's been about a year...or at least a long time since Timmy and Collin have been back to the Children's Museum together.  There was no question that they had a great time.  They covered a lot of ground during the almost 3 hours that we were there.  It's hard to say what their favorite part was.  I would say that they both really liked the water area outside because that's where we spent most of the time.  Next, I would think they liked climbing around the ... oh.... I have no idea what it was called.  See the pictures below.

Because I am racing in the morning, the plan was for Collin to spend the night with Mimi.  When we were getting ready to leave, I gave him the choice of coming with me to go to work and then home or going with Aunt Lisa to her house and then Mimi's house for the night.  He did not even hesitate to say Mimi's house.  I had to steal a kiss from the stinker when I loaded him into Aunt Lisa's car.  She said that he did not nap on the way to her house.  I thought for sure he would based on the hard play at the museum and his soccer game before that.

This is where Collin hung out most of the time.  He loved opening and shutting the doors to allow for water to build up and then flow into the next bin.  He really did not like it when another kid came up and messed up the system he had going.  He did stand there long enough to have the area to himself several times.  Surprisingly, he did not get very wet doing this other than from the other kids splashing water around him.

Making animal footprints in the sand

Pausing for a puppet show

This is the climbing thing I cannot think of the name of.  It is three stories tall.  We are at the bottom in this picture.

Collin checking out Timmy's groceries

Notice Timmy's food priorities are all of the cake and seafood. 

Great shot of Collin dumping the broccoli once he figured out what it was

First time for him to try the rock wall.  He has not been interested before.

He stops at this every time.  This shows the difference between solid, water and gas by how the pom poms float in the tube.

Timmy picking out his animal to take care of at the vet

Giving the animals something to eat

How much does Kitty weigh after eating so much?

Oh no, someone needs some oxygen!  That was how I was feeling at this point.  Time to feed Momma soon!



Computer Class

Collin has always liked electronics including computers.  He loves looking at pictures, watching videos and tyring to play his games.  He does need help controlling the computer mouse sometimes but it getting better and better at it.

On Mondays, he now has computer class.  Daddy has signed up several times to be the computer parent to assist the teacher during Computer Lab.  Yesterday was Daddy's first day to volunteer.  He said he had a great time observing Collin in class and helping out the other kids.  He heard "Collin's Daddy" a lot during the hour he was there.  He said that Collin was real attentive during class and was one of the few students that was comfortable with the computer, the mouse and what he was was supposed to do during lab.

Here he is sitting on the floor listening to Ms Hansen give instructions before they began the lab (he's the blond in the middle on the right looking at the picture).