Hug Twice

I don’t know where it came from or what inspired it, but CJ has started doing a “magic” trick for us.  It started when he got some M&Ms on an outing with Daddy.  When he came home, he held out both his hands to me, closed into fists, and told me to “pick the M&M!”.

Picked a hand, and he opened the other, which had an M&M in it, and giggled and giggled.  And then proceeded to close his hand, and ask me to pick again.

I picked again, this time picking the hand he had just shown me had an M&M in it, and he excitedly opened the other hand (which also as it turned out had an M&M in it) and giggled and giggled.

Pretty slick. If he’d thought to pick the same color M&Ms for both hands I might have even been fooled.  But even so, it is so cute it makes me want to just eat him up.  Or, the M&Ms. 

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One of the things we have been working with Alexa on is pointing at things in books that we ask her.  Like, “Where’s the sheep?” and she points at the sheep.  Except, she doesn’t.  Well, she didn’t.  For months and months we have been working on this with her and she just didn’t get it at all.

Until the obsession with Elmo began in earnest.  She’s always loved that furry little red guy, but recently she has become downright obsessed with him.  And then she started pointing at him.  First the stuffed animals, then a little play-plate set we have with Sesame Street characters on them, and then in books.  And then she’d make *us* point at Elmo and happily scream “ELMO!  ELMO!”.

And that quickly led to her pointing at other things we asked her to.  From sheep to cows to bears to mice to balls and more, she points, she identifies, and she “helps” you point.  The sweetest thing ever was watching her with her brother this morning looking at a book, and he would ask “Where’s the ball?” and she would point and yell “BAAA!”

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This was my son’s newest refrain for the past week or so.  Every time we reminded him to clean up after himself, be it toys, books, dirty clothes, or whatever, he would say in the whiniest voice possible “But cleaning up is so booooooring.”  Not that that got him out of cleaning anything up, but he was a total pill to deal with.

Then yesterday it magically stopped.  He cleaned things up, didn’t whine, and was generally a much more pleasant little guy to be around.  After a while I dared to ask why, and he says “Miss Sally (his teacher at school) told me to stop saying that.”

Not that I didn’t tell him to stop saying it 500 other times or anything…

The magic of teachers. 

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We have been playing a lot with Play-Doh here lately.  The kids love it, it encourages tactile play, we can do it indoors when the temps outside are sub-zero, and it makes a huge mess.

So, my husband’s not that in favor of it.  Not a fan of mess.  But play with it we do.

Sometimes (okay, a lot of the time), pieces escape our notice and fall behind something or under something.  We try and find it all and put it back in the containers, but hey, we’re not perfect.  CJ came across one of these pieces a few days later, and of course, it was hard and brittle.  He got REALLY excited and brought it to me and exclaimed “My Play-doh!  It turned to wood!!”

I’d have called it stone myself, but it did make him really happy. 

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Alexa has finally started labelling things she wants instead of simply screaming and pointing.  Which is a vast improvement in and of itself.

The tricky part is, now that she can ask for things (not everything, but many things), she thinks if she asks, it must be obeyed.  Even if she’s already had 3 bananas, she’ll ask “Nana!  Nana!” and expect one to materialize.  Oh wait… did I say ask?  Demand, more like. 

On several occasions, I have been lax enough to let us run out of something because I was not aware there would be a marathon of consumption.  Like… bananas.  or apples.  Or granola bars.  And then?

Well, there is no wrath like an Alexa scorned.  lol.

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