Family Fuller

This is very weird but let me just quote what Colin was saying while playing with this tank we just found a couple days ago during a toy clean up:

“Mommy this tank stole the money and was in the town so no one could vote for Obama and he didn’t win the election.”

I have no idea how he came up with that idea or where he has ever heard about what a tank is for, why it would prevent people from voting or why he would even relate it to the election. Very strange. After I reacted to it, he said “don’t worry it was just a joke. Was it a bad joke…sad?” I said, well when you get older you might understand why it is a scary joke.

Anyway – let’s just hope things stay under control for a week, just 7 days!!!

On the home front Holden has a cold but is still is crazy self. Today he was working on some art projects and somehow managed to slip on his chair, whack his lip on the table and fall to the floor. He had a bloody lip and got it all over my coat. He cried hard for about 2 minutes then was right back up on the chair back at work.

On a lighter note – the other day while driving home from dinner the mountains were out and Chuck and I were telling the boys how we never grew up around mountains and weren’t they beautiful? We said Colin you should never take them for granted and Colin replied “Oh, I am going to take these mountains out for granted.”

I have written a couple blogs about Colin recently so I think Holden deserves his time too. Holden is 20 months now. I can’t believe he is getting close to 2. It has gone amazingly fast and yet I still feel like he is a baby. I think that is in part due to he is the youngest and that he doesn’t say much at this point.

I try very hard not to compare Colin and Holden, but it is hard. I feel a lot more confident in Holden’s physical abilities than I did with Colin at this age. Holden goes to the park and walks and balances on high walls – freaks me out but he can do it. He climbs up everything, things Colin just learned to do last year.

However Holden doesn’t say many words. He uses “baa” for truck, boat, digger and ball. There is a slight variation in it but only the family can tell. He says “mama”, “dad-dee” and “col” clearly. He also says “ca-ker” = cracker, “nack” = snack, and “co-kee” = cookie, so you can see where his priorities are, family and food.

I think it is just a speaking issue because I can tell he understands us. Yesterday I was talking on the phone about taking Colin on a bike ride and a couple minutes later Holden came over to me with his bike helmet. He also follows 3 or 4 part directions.

I think I also may have a skewed version of what normal speech is at this age. When I go back and read blogs about what Colin was doing I am astounded. Colin knew all his letters, could count to 10 and was speaking in sentences. He knew hundreds of words at this point. Plus one of Holden’s friends who is the same age is speaking really well right now.

I am honestly not that worried, I can tell by the things Holden does that he is smart, it has just gotten extremely frustrating for him and for me. He is stubborn and particular except he can’t communicate well so it makes it worse. Plus I think he is getting upset by it. We were looking through books this morning and I was asking him to point at objects. If he couldn’t find them he would shake his head no and slap the book and if he could find them and say them he would be very pleased with himself. I also am very curious about what he has to say so I can’t wait for him to talk!

On the Colin front, he seems to be very sensitive all of a sudden. He was watching a cartoon the other day and the mom had to go to an overnight business meeting and her daughter was sad. When I look over at Colin he was crying – broke my heart. Then at a play we went to yesterday some pirates were being mean to other pirates and I noticed Colin was getting upset. Later on he told me he was OK and his eyes “weren’t wet anymore.” Then today I dropped him off at school and he started crying saying he didn’t want to stay and he wanted to come with me – this NEVER happens – he usually just gives me a hug and kiss and says bye. I have heard that 4 and 5 year olds start to understand more things about the world and have greater fears and empathy so maybe that is what is going on…then again maybe he is just getting a cold

Alright, I am off to work on the doors to my cabinet (8 months later).

Colin has a great vocabulary but he sometimes gets words wrong, however it is so cute I don’t want to correct him.

“I want Barack Obama to with the collection” = win the election
“granilla” = granola
“bitamins” = vitamins
“water balls” = water balloons
“grill” = girl
“hear-e-o” = hero

Sometimes he tries to use words that are a little bigger than him…for example, Holden didn’t want to repeat something we asked him to say and Colin said “I think Holden is too impressive” but he meant nervous.

Last night I while I was making dinner Colin and I had the following conversation:

Colin: I want to play with my catapult fire ball toy.
Me: Sure, I will get that down for you if you clean up the living room first.
Colin: I want you to help.
Me: I can’t, I am making dinner. If you want to play with your toy you need to clean up the living room.
Colin: That’s not fair. That’s so not fair. You should help me.
Me: Colin, I didn’t make the mess you did and it’s yours to clean up. Is it fair to me that I have to clean up after you?
Colin: Yes.
Me: Do you help me with my chores? Is it fair that I have to do your laundry? Do you want to start washing your own clothes?
Colin: Yes
Me: Great. Do you think you can do it yourself?
Colin: Yes, with some help from my mom.
Me (laughing)
Colin: I made you laugh. You’re laughing…I hear you. (in other words you aren’t going to make me clean now). I am going to tell you a joke. What is the junkyard pee-pee head garbage pee pee poop bring to the pee-pee (insert nonsense words here) in the junkyard?
Me: Colin I don’t want to hear a joke about pee and poop.
Colin: It’s not a joke about pee it is about junkyards.

To that I had no answer and by that point I couldn’t remember if I had put enough water in the rice or what step I was on in the recipe and Holden was hanging all over my legs. Colin is pretty good at outsmarting us with his 4 year old logic.

You would think with 24 hour news, the paper and Internet we would be sick of hearing about the election and bailout, but I really can’t get enough. In fact yesterday I actually turned on CSPAN – how crazy is that? Now I know we must talk about it all the time because this morning when I got up I turned on CNN. Obama was giving a speech. Holden (who really doesn’t say many words yet) started watching and when everyone clapped so did he and then he pointed at the TV and said “a-ma-ma” which is what he says when he points at our yard sign as well. I don’t even need to go into what Colin says and thinks, he is a huge Obama supporter

Colin started preschool 2 weeks ago. He loves it, but within the first 5 days he came down with a fever, 3 days later Holden had a fever, then over the weekend I caught a cold. It stinks. They were fine all summer, 3 days at school and bang we are all sick. Plus, it revived my Holden health paranoia. This was his first fever since the seizure back in April and I will say I didn’t freak out as I could have. I didn’t even give him Motrin for the first hour or so because I wasn’t convinced he did have a fever. It did go up to about 103 that night though, but he got through it fine. I am dreading the winter though.

I really need to blog every day because each day the boys do something I think is great (or not so great) and I am sure I will remember, but I don’t. For example, Holden was eating a baby box of raisins right beside me. He just finished them and he said “mo-mo” while doing the “more” sign. I am trying to get him to put more than one word together at a time so I was asking him “more what?” and he then said “mo-mo” and the sign for please. The first time he has said (or signed) please without prompting, probably because I had just had a little talk with Colin about it 5 minutes before.

After he was done with the first raisin box he said “ga-ga” which is garbage. I said, we recycle the box so just go put it on the counter which he promptly did. I just walked back through the kitchen again and noticed he put the second raisin box up there. And right as I am writing this now he took Colin’s box and put it on the counter – he is so cute.