MamaBlogga

Today is Rachel’s half birthday! She’s 18 months old! And we celebrated by going to Nursery one whole day early!

But first: I wrote last week about her signs. In the last four or five days, Rachel has picked up three new words, probably the most important in a baby’s vocabulary: Mama, Dada and . . . NO. Noooo. No. No. She can nod, but she just loves her new word so much that even when the answer is yes, she says, “No.”

It’s a little annoying sometimes, but as she was protesting getting dressed the other day, I realized that she’s never been able to exercise control like that before. It’s not that she doesn’t want to get dressed (she didn’t fight me at all), it’s that she wants to be independent.

Except for, of course, when she doesn’t. I was a little worried about her starting Nursery since she’s had a bit of separation anxiety lately. Hayden, however, was very excited for Rachel to go to Nursery, so the whole family walked down to the room with her after Sacrament Meeting. With Rebecca demonstrating, we washed her hands with sanitizer.

She was a little unsure of what to do—or whether she liked it—until I showed her to the “hors d’oeuvres” on one of the tables: a pile of pretzels and a pile of marshmallows. I stuck a pretzel in her mouth and she was sold. She climbed into the nearest chair and didn’t care whether we were there or not.

Rebecca still has a month left in Nursery, so we charged her with helping Rachel. The Nursery leader told us afterwards that Rebecca would sometimes look around for Rachel, saying, “Whewe’s my baby?” (At first they thought this was a doll until they saw she meant Rachel.)

Ryan, who normally takes Rachel during church since I’m in Primary, had the same experience, basically—he’d have a flash of panic, wondering, “Where’s Rachel?” and look around for her before he remembered.

Rachel handled it best of all. I had to pop in twice for other Primary stuff and each time, she was busy participating (if a bit timidly). She didn’t even notice me. She even colored her picture.

After church, Rebecca reported that she “‘Tected Wachew and made soy [sure] nobody take her and bees her new mommy” at Nursery.

But I think Rachel herself summed it up best. I asked her if she had so much fun in Nursery. She answered with a very solemn, “Noooo.”

Rachel loves to wiggle and shake. The other day I watched her waggling her head all around. “I love your dancing,” I told her.

She smiled, and either blew me a kiss—or signed thank you.

---

Rachel’s middle name is Diana; she’s named after my mother. Growing up, my mother had a nickname she absolutely hated: Banana Cake. (I only tell you this in the strictest confidence. Do NOT use this against my mother.)

Rachel doesn’t really talk. For a couple days, she said “Out” a lot. She has managed to hold onto “Uh ohs!” whenever she sees something on the ground. But her signs are really picking up. She’s gotten really good at Thank you, and also learned please, apple, baby and:

Rachel, banana.

I also love how she signs music:

The “official signs”: banana, music.

Ryan and I were talking last night about how Rebecca didn’t really talk until she was at least 18 months old. In fact, she hardly ever even made noise until she discovered screaming at 8 months. Even her laughter was quiet: scrunching her nose and sniffing.

Yeah, those days are a distant memory now. But with the cute things she says, I guess it’s okay.

---

Rebecca got her first real haircut!

Just kidding! (Silly you.)

---

We bought a bag of Reese’s minis for Rebecca as an incentive. “Are dey gowd?”

“Yes, they’re gold.”

“Are dey gowd doub’oons? [Doubloons] . . . No, dey are just gowd.”

---

Rebecca gets her middle name right about half the time; the other half she thinks her middle name is the same as Hayden’s (a mistake he’s just learning to correct). But she knows Rachel’s middle name, apparently because I say it so much. She even knows what it means:

“Waychew Deana [Rachel Diana] means ‘Come hewe!’”

---

“Good job, Bex,” I told her as we were cleaning up.

“No, I not Bex. I jus’ one Becca!”

---

During Rachel’s nap one Saturday, I left the other kids playing on the computer while Ryan went to church for a bit. When I came back from my shower, Rebecca announced, “We take gooood cawe of Wachew, Mommy! We takin’ good cawe o’ ouwsewves.”

Rebecca the ice princess (note the hat and the tiara)

Hayden isn’t just reading—he’s writing, too. He was rambling about putting a period at the end of a sentence, and I stopped him long enough to understand that he knows what a period is.

Then I found this in his backpack: illustrated and written by Hayden himself.

It says “I ate spagetti.” AKA “I a A.” Note the table, plate, and fork in the picture.

So I promptly sat him down at the table and had him write a sentence, using two sight words, a word from a story we’d read that afternoon, and a word he could sound out.

Then we sounded out/practiced his full name on the back and left the note for Dad on his pillow. He was pretty pleased (and surprised!) to get it.

Happy Halloween!

We almost didn’t do a family costume this year, since initially Rebecca wanted to be a princess and Hayden wanted to be a ghost. After flirting with the idea of pirates, finally Hayden settled on . . . KING, “for Princess Becca.” (Becca, however, insisted she was “Princess Beyya” and also from Princess and the Frog. Got me.)

Rachel’s sticky gem tiara lasted longer than half her earrings—but still not very long.

I made Rebecca’s dress, and you can read more about that over on Wayward Girls’ Crafts (if that doesn’t work, I’ll be along to fix it soon!).

Here’s the royal family. If Hayden’s the king, I guess I’m the Regent. No way I’m letting my five year old rule the country. And I just realized our royal orders are worn opposite. Oh well.

At the end of the night, we handed down our tiaras for a little while:

And where was Ryan? Well, mostly he was running the church Halloween party, but when you caught a glimpse of him, he was part of the entourage, too.

Head of royal security, of course. (And yes, it was his idea.)

What are you doing for Halloween?

I’d post a video of Hayden reading, but I still don’t have a way to upload videos from my video camera to our newer desktop. Barring that, here is a list of words Hayden read (yes, READ) one evening last week:

Sounding out bat black cat block cut                 pin pen pan cob cap cub cup pup up yup nap

Sight words like see can no go am he and at it yes I love you

challenge word: pumpkin

Sentence: I can see like you.

(The sight words came from a school list, and from words I know he knows already; everything else I made up. They’re working on sight words at school, which mystifies me to some extent. When I hear “sight words,” I assume you’d focus on words that aren’t phonetic, and then focus on phonics for the rest of the words. The first sight words Hayden learned [I, am, can, see, like] follow regular phonetic rules. While there’s definitely something to be said for the feeling of accomplishment at reading a whole word, it seems more worthwhile to focus on teaching broadly applicable phonetic rules. I mean, the only reason the kid can read is because I’ve been teaching him his vowel sounds. </rant>)

I’m suitably proud of him. I might be praising him a bit too much. The other night, after he put together a toy, he sighed in satisfaction and said under his breath, “I’m always a genius.” He turned to me and added more loudly, “I’m always thinkin’, Mom!”

Yep.