Pulling My Arm

I know I probably sound like a broken record (is that expression outdated?), but I enjoy the children's expressive language development. At the dinner table yesterday evening Nadia asked me to "pull her arms down." She was really asking me to roll up her sleeves so she woudln't get food on them. That little faux pas cracked me up! She also was really into the word "reason" yesterday. She used the word All Day Long. For example (while coloring), "I picked blue for no reason." Sometimes it's so hard not to laugh!

Ian has been improving by leaps and bounds. The number of words that he pronounces completely correctly has really been improving. Here are some of the words he says that I think anyone could understand: play, door, car, shoe, apple, no, ball, wall, read, eye, bye, whale, wheel, toy, Nadia, uh oh, wow, rain, water, mail, cookie, Ian, and morning. He used to call Nadia "Na," but now he calls her Naia. He says three syllables, but the "d" is missing. That is exactly how Nadia said her own name when she was this age! I think the next area he needs to develop in is to start saying two words together more often. It's still very rare for him to say more than one word at a time.

Paul began his trip to Italy yesterday. He drove to State College, flew from there to Detroit, and after two more flights and a bus trip, he should have arrived at his hotel in Trento, Italy. I tried calling him at 2:30pm today, which was 8:30pm in Italy, but he hadn't arrived at the hotel yet. His journey took more than 24 hours as he had left our house around 2pm yesterday. In honor of his trip, I checked out two books for Nadia that take place in Italy at the library yesterday (Madeline and the Cats of Rome and Olivia Goes to Venice). Paul's parents came up to our house this afternoon. We went up to the mall to visit a Petco (Ian said "wow" many times while looking at the fish tanks) and Hooplas and to have dinner at Friendly's. Paul's mom had brought up some coconut milk yogurt, and this meant I was able to feed Ian solid food in a public place for the first time in a long time because he can eat that without crying. If the yogurt wasn't so expensive ($2 each), I'd feed him a few of those every single day.

Ian has been waking up a bit earlier lately (such as 6:30am), but he just fusses/whimpers for a couple of minutes, and if I don't go get him, he's quiet for another 30 minutes. I've been sticking to the "rule" of not getting him prior to 7:00am. Nadia has been back to taking a nap every day. Whew. On Thursday Ian's nap was only 10 minutes long. Ugh. Yesterday he cried for 20 mintues and then slept for 30 minutes. Today he cried for 20 minutes and then slept for 25 minutes. Yesterday I got him right after he woke up. Today I let him cry for 15 minutes as Karen had said he needs to learn soothing skills and should stay in his crib for at least one hour. I have a hard time letting him cry at the end because he doesn't seem to be learning anything from that experience. I have no trouble letting him cry prior to his nap.