Three Things

Three things about each kid right now...

Bethany:
1.One of her favorite phrases right now is, "Can you even imagine?!"  She then launches into some thought process that sort of blows me away, conjuring up silly ideas or odd scenarios.  Mostly it's silly though. :-)  "Mommy, can you even imagine if Jack could run fast like Luke?!"  "Mommy, could you even imagine if I could swing so high and touch the cloud?"
2. Drawing.  The girl is an artist, but I think I've made that clear on my blog.  She loves to draw and color, and I keep buying how to draw books that probably help me more than it helps her! 
Today I just got Drawing with Children in the mail so I'll let you know how that one goes!
3. Spelling.  She's constantly asking, "How do you spell ..." and then we make the sounds of the word, and she picks the letters.  She calls me M-O-M, Ryan is D-A-D, and sometimes she'll spell Luke's name too!  I've been getting a lot of my portraits drawn by her with MOM written on the top, I'm just waiting for her to start writing me little notes!  I am in the process of pulling together a curriculum for her in the fall, even though she's not 5 before September I think we'll start kindergarten at home.  Loosely. ;-)
(And bonus #4.  Every dress or skirt she wears has to be to her knees at her demand request.  She's become very picky about her clothing, and I have bought a bunch of little bike shorts for her to wear under her skirts and dresses since "sitting politely" isn't her highest priority!)

Luke:
1. He's potty training!  He's been poop-trained for maybe a month or longer now, and pee training has been officially commenced for about a week now (after a couple of previous failed attempts) and yesterday he went all day without an accident!  Today he's had a small one but I don't care, it was a small one on the tile and I can deal with that.  The best part is that his cloth diapers were starting to leak because they were getting old, and Ryan and I were contemplating buying new diapers or leaving him in disposable diapers until he trained, now it's a moot point!  Yay!
2. NO!  He's been a little stinker lately, and it's fine for me to talk about it right now because he's napping. :-)  He's been so rough, pushing Jack and hitting Beth, yelling NO! at me.  I am doing my best to ignore it but there have been plenty of time outs.  I am at a loss, reminding myself that it's just a stage and praying that this one will pass quickly!
3. As much of a stinker as he's been, he's still quite the cuddlebug at night.  He's been doing very well saying prayers with me, usually offering his intentions for "people without homes."  It melts my heart!  I'm also teaching him how to say, "I love you," because for the longest time I'd say it to him but he's just kind of moan back.  Um, no, I want my little boys to not be afraid to show affection!  So we practice saying, "I love you" in silly voices and serious voices, and now when I tell him that I love him he usually says it back.  Not always, but we're still working on it!

Jack:
1. Jack is a high-speed crawler.  He just cruises along, looking around checking things out and then BAM, he sees what he wants, and he's off!  And he is so fast too, it makes me wonder if he'll put off walking because he's so efficient at crawling!
2. On a similar note, he is still putting every possible thing in his mouth.  He is obsessed with the dog food and I'd be lying if I said he's never had a taste of it before!  I sweep the kitchen floor at least four times a day but it still usually isn't enough because he always finds something.  Always.  He's so determined to get anything into his mouth that when he can't scrape something off the floor with his fingers, he leans over and puts his mouth on the ground to suck the floor.  It's truly gross.
3. He's cut his fifth tooth, the first one next to his upper right tooth.  I think six, on the other side, is due out within the week or so, and then hopefully we can start getting some sleep again!