Nate Nate

Odds and Ends

--Nate added Q to his Word Wall today.  His Q words are Qween, Qwiet, Qwilt, and, my favorite, Qwaperation.  Which means, according to Nate, "When you do something good."  I guess they haven't covered the whole Q-U thing yet at school.

--Off to Fairyland today, where both guys scrambled to the top of the crow's nest.  For a guy who used to have motor planning issues, Nate is pretty nimble.  I will never, ever get tired of watching him climb.  For his part, Jonah enjoyed playing captain and hogging the wheel for most of the day, as well as getting everyone on board to help dislodge the ship from the many icebergs it struck.

--After 5 years of waking his parents up before any reasonable person would want to be awake on the weekends, Nate has finally found something to occupy his early mornings.  He wakes up, trots off to the computer, prints himself a few pages of sudoku, and has at it.  Such that when we wake up, there are a dozen completed pages of sudoku scattered throughout the house.   Actually, there is always a scattering of a dozen pages of something or other throughout our house, but the sudoku is pretty great, as it currently involves minimal parental involvement.  

--I wish I could have known that Jonah, the human kissing machine, would wake up one day shortly before turning 3 and decide that he would never want to be kissed again, because I would have appreciated the kissing a little more.  Right now the best I can get is that his little hand puppet will pretend to kiss mine.  Luckily, Nate still likes to be kissed constantly.  Or at least, he doesn't complain.

What is the bus driver's name?

Nate was just doing a workbook page with story problems about a candy store.  He now knows how many jawbreakers, caramels, and fireballs Rosa, Gene, and Rudy bought, even if he doesn't know anybody named Rosa, Gene, or Rudy and, as a discriminating candy-eater, doesn't have the foggiest idea what a jawbreaker, caramel, or fireball is.  The last question was "write your own story problem about the candy store." 

Nate's story problem:  "I found 16 jawbreakers.  I ate 2.  How many did I eat?" 

(Posted by Daddy.)

Another Future Member Of The SPCA

Nate and I were admiring the beautiful turkey he made in art class.  "And," I pointed out, "we're going to eat some turkey tomorrow, right?"

Nate laughed.  "You can't eat real turkey, Mom!  Then it would be dead!"

Ulp.

"You're right," I assured him.  "I was just kidding!  We only eat pretend turkey."

Any chance that could come back to haunt me?

The One Where Jonah Decides To Get Everything In Before He Turns Three

Apparently panicked at the thought of turning 3 with anything remaining on his to-do list, Jonah decided to blow my very tired mind by doing 600 new things this week.  First, he started wearing underwear for reals.  Jonah has dabbled in underwear before, but this time, he meant it: other than one accident while deeply engrossed in playing Uno with Daddy, he has been dry for a week.  Tonight, as he sat on the potty, I told him that I was very proud of him.  "Yeah," he agreed.  "I proud of me myself."

Next, Jonah decided to kick the whole reading thing up a notch.  No longer content to read "cat," "bat," and "hat," in the past few days he has sounded out "gallop," "balloon," and "No Smoking."  He's learned that "oo" is ooooo, "ch" is CH', and sh is shhhhhh.  He's also perfectly happy to sit and read word after word in a sentence, if you write them out for him.  Who would have thought that a kid with that much energy would also be into silent sustained reading?

At some point, it occurred to Jonah that if he can read it, he could also be writing it.  In the past 24 hours, he has written "pop," "stop" (with backwards s and randomly scattered across the page, so v cute), and tonight, "NATE."  (He writes "Jonah" a lot, but it's usually unrecognizable, since most of the letters are backwards and the A looks a lot like the H.)

And finally, tonight he did my favorite thing of all: he drew four pictures, one for each member of our family, and they were awesome.  Faces, smiles, hands with fingers, two feet, hair.  Unfortunately, he drew them all with yellow highlighter on white paper, so they're not exactly easy on the eyes or the upload, but they are really cool.

Nate also had a first today: his first study date.  Gracie came home from school with us, and it was ridiculously adorable when they ran into the house and busted out their homework together.  Clearly, Nate's kind of girl.  They did a math worksheet and a phonics page, and they took turns spelling words to each other.

After that, Nate, inspired by his friend Jules, decided to write a book.   It is entitled "I Am Brave Because," and it was written "Lomely by Nate."  Lomely, apparently, means alone, or only.  This is in contrast to yesterday's book, which was words by Mommy, elustrasions by Nate, of his best-reading novel, "Counting to 500 by 10s."  I Am Brave Because reads as follows:

"I am brave becase I did water the plants

I am brave beacuse I did be respectful

(And, as he got sick of the project and wanted to finish) I am brave because I did good work I am good"

We're clearly plagiarizing something with the format, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

Entrapment

We've had a few talks lately with Jonah about the colored stripes he keeps applying to the walls with crayons and markers.  "Jonah, do we write on walls?" "No."  "What do we write on?" "Paper and workbooks." 

Today we took a Magic Eraser and some soapy sponges to several of Jonah's graffiti works, which admittedly put me in a big of a sour mood.  So we did the talk again.  "Jonah, do we write on walls?" "No."  "What do we write on?" "Paper and workbooks."

When we were done cleaning up, I wanted to test the theory.  "Jonah," I said, "let's write on the walls!"  "YES!" he shouted.  Then he saw the stern look on my face.  "Jonah, do you want to write on the walls with me?" "No," he whispered, busted.  Then, after a second:  "I was just kidding." 

Hopefully we've trained him to listen to the cricket on his shoulder saying "no." 

Posted by Daddy.

The Bowling Dance

When we bowl, we all twist and lean in an effort to will the ball toward the pins, right?  Nate's bowling dance is just a little more pronounced: 

Sorry for the grainy cell phone video.

Posted by Daddy.

Happy Belated Apple Day

 

 

   

 

Posted by Daddy.

Puppy Love

I feel pretty good about the fact that Jonah Butler is so full of warm and fuzzy love that he feels the need to express it to his cute little friends.  Today we had a playdate with Jonah's bff, his favorite person in the world besides his brother: Jessica from preschool.  Jonah looooooooves Jessica.  Every day, he tells me about playing with Jessica and holding her hand, unless she was out sick, in which case he laments her absence.  Apparently, she was out sick all last week, and when Teacher Amanda noticed a dejected looking Jonah on Thursday, she asked what was wrong, and he sighed and said, "I miss Jessica."  So it was not all that surprising today when, in the middle of a fun playdate, Jonah gave her a big hug and announced, "I love you!"  "I love you too, Jonah!" enthused Jessica.  "We love each other!" he beamed.

I mean, awwwwwwww.  Why can't it be that easy for everyone?

   

It's Easier To Read When You Can Actually Speak

Today we left the house without Jonah's sippy cup, so he was borrowing my Thermos of ice water while sitting in the back of the car.  "Tuh-Hhhh-Ehh-Rrrr-Mmmm-Oh-Ssss," he sounded out from the lid.  "T-hermas."

"That's great reading!" I enthused.  "But when you have T and H together, it's 'th! th!  THermos!'"

Jonah considered this.  "But," he protested, looking at the cup, "it doesn't have an F!"

Me, Myself, and Myself

Jonah:  "I love my mommy, I love my daddy, I love my brother, and I love my other brother!"

Me:  "Aw, that's very sweet!  But Jonah, you only have one brother, Nate.  You don't have another brother."

Jonah:  "Yes I do, silly billy!  I my other brother!"