All About Two

I just realized the boys seem to have a thing for the number two. If you ask how much something costs, Ethan will say "two dollars". If you ask him the time, he'll say "two o'clock". And for some reason they both say "the two bears" instead of three, even though it's their favorite book du jour, along with the "two little pigs". their favorite part is "chinny chin chin" and "huff and puff". Isaac is also obsessed with porridge, thanks to Goldilocks. He'll ask to make some but then he gets upset if I suggest Goldilocks might come eat it.

The time thing came up because Ethan is nearly impossible to get to nap these days. It's an hour or more process of him first lying quietly, then running around his room playing with trains or whatever, then going pee pee three or four times, and on and on. Today, he got in our bed, kept looking at the clock and saying "two o'clock", then "time to sleep". Then he would be talking to me, then stop and order me to close my eyes and sing "lullaby" to me. Yeah, THAT'S what would help me sleep :)

Ethan also made me laugh tonight when we were at the park and Jack was teaching them to do long jumps into the sand. Isaac was very serious and jumped as far as he could. Jack was drawing a line to see if he could beat it. So Ethan drew a line for himself very close to the jumping point, then jumped over, applauding himself. I guess he's figured out it's easy to be successful when you lower the line :)

Isaac on the other hand has a thing about his nose now. He likes to smell everything. Occasionally he pronounces his daddy stinky, or something in the kitchen. He also pronounces food as good based on its smell. I'm not sure what kind of career there will be for a professional smeller (a chef like his uncle?)....

Safety Patrol

Last week was safety week at preschool. The policeman couldn't make it, but they enjoyed the fireman's visit. They still talk about fire and what to do. Isaac drew a picture of fire today. Let's hope though they really understand it's really dangerous. They practiced shouting "fire" and they know if their clothes catch on fire, they do the "stop, drop, and roll." They just noticed the smoke detector upstairs so I've been telling them if they hear that noise to go outside. On Friday, they came home telling me all about how they have to hold mama and daddy's hand to cross the street (of course t hey believe it if the teacher says so). They learned the word "stranger" and that they don't talk to them. They had also made books in school with green, yellow and red light which they practiced at home with their "train". Isaac would hold the book and tell Ethan red or green and vice versa.

They have been extremely polite lately too. I'm amazed at the number of times they say "thank you, mama" spontaneously. Tonight I was getting them each a juice popsicle since we were out of fruit (our usual bedtime snack) and Isaac said "thank you", then added "xie xie." They told me too that daddy is Chinese. Though I'm still not sure they really know what that means!

I'm sure there are more funnier stories I'll remember when I'm more awake. Tomorrow morning it's flu shots hopefully for all of us but at least for them before school and we have to take our car to the shop so it will be a very early morning. But we're used to that...

Vocabulary humor

It seems Ethan likes to try out new words every day. Yesterday, the word of the day was "forgot", which comes out as "got". It's fun to see them learn how different words work in different situations, rather than the one-word-fits-all approach. He used to say "missed it" to mean forgot. Of course yesterday he was saying "forgot" when I hadn't really (i.e. I hadn't got a chance to finish sorting their summer/winter clothes so there was a pile on the floor, which he thought I "forgot" rather than just didn't have time for!), but still. Today his words are "handsome" and "pretty".

He is also practicing the days of the week, though he is stuck on Monday and Saturday. Yesterday, Sunday, he kept insisting it was Monday. He finally by the end of the day got Sunday and this morning when he woke up, Jack asked him what day it was and he pointed his finger up and said "Saturday", then paused, said "No, Monday". Jack asked what day will it be tomorrow and he said "Tuesday." I think they are actually learning something at school :) His other favorite expression is "not today". I asked him if he needed to go pee pee and he said "no, not today". Of course he will use this to try to get out of anything too.!

Isaac of course has some funnies too. We started using a booster seat grandma gave us. Isaac especially is fond of it, but he calls it his "rooster". The other day when Ethan sat it in, he started screaming "Ethan, that's my cock-a-doodle-doo!". He also drew a pretty amazing dinosaur that is being used by my mom's art teacher colleague as an example of preschematic drawing (yeah, I had to look it up too).

Meantime, they do seem to like school, even if it seems they are perpetually sick with something. They like the big running around mat they have in their classroom (more like a gym set-up). It can be hard to actually find out what they did in school. They often have different stories about it like Isaac will tell me they played basketball, while Ethan will say "no, not today." But they talk more and more about their friends, learning their names. I wasn't sure what to do on Friday when I went to pick them up. They were still sitting in circle time and Ethan was sitting next to a girl and he was looking at me then would lean over and kind of kiss her on the back of the head a couple times. Neither the girl nor the teacher seemed to notice so I didn't make a big deal of it, but I certainly hope that's not a sign of things to come!