I know I shouldn’t encourage this activity by taking pictures of them, because it’s only a matter of time before one of them (my money’s on Luke) gets their head stuck, but they were so cute last night that I couldn’t resist.

Adam: I want to lay down and watch baseball with you Daddy.

Dave: This is football buddy.

Adam: Okay, but we can still call it baseball.

So yes, bedtime is on hold while Daddy bonds with his boys watching some football.

We finished up the Letter L, and now it’s on to the Letter T for this week. I learned a lot last week about what does and doesn’t work for Adam (both in terms of his abilities and his attention span).

Last Friday I got out some dot markers (think bingo daubers for kids) and let him test them out. He picked the green one of course (“to why green is my favorite color mama”). After he got the feel of actually using the dot markers, we worked on counting with them.

I had printed out some pictures of spot-less ladybugs and let him decide how many spots each one should have (I did veto his suggestion of 100 though). Once he told me the numbers I wrote them below each ladybug and then it was up to him to make the correct number of spots with the dot markers.

Once properly spotted, he had me add legs to the ladybugs. Apparently, the lack of appendages really bothered him. When I first showed him the printouts and asked him what the ladybugs were missing (expecting him to say “spots”), he told me feet and arms. Once that was taken care of, he got out the crayons to color them. He is big in to the rainbow order lately and will sing the order of the colors as he is drawing (“red, orn-ange, lellow, green, blue, in-a-go, and violet too!”).

Luke has been a busy kid lately too. Last week helped me load the dishwasher. Unfortunately I didn’t see his contribution until the dishes (and his jar of food) had been cleaned.

Today after a few desktop activities we moved in to the kitchen and made play dough.

Now I know the store bought stuff (play “doh” if you will) is non-toxic, but I felt better making it from ingredients found in my kitchen (since I was pretty sure Luke would eat it). Plus, this gave Adam and me a chance to do some “baking” together.  He helped me measure and poured all the ingredients into the sauce pan and then I had him go play while I turned the stove on and did the actual cooking.

We used lemon flavored jello as one of our ingredients – making it suitable for “L” week and slightly better smelling than store bought play-doh. Once it had cooled I got out a few cookie cutters and the rolling pin and we had a ball. Adam liked making snowmen and at one point made a sculpture of Papa skiing (sorry Dad, I didn’t get a picture of it before he demolished it).

Tired, morning-nap-less Luke liked it too.

Well, he liked playing with it at least – he wasn’t crazy about the taste. I’ve heard that it was pretty salty (apparently Dave confused “safe to eat” with “good to eat”).

Yesterday I caught Adam, Luke, and Pillow snuggling together while they watched cartoons.

Luke has been boycotting his morning naps lately. As a result, by the time lunch rolls around we have a very sleepy little man on our hands. You can see how tired his eyes look in this next picture.

Thankfully both boys still take afternoon naps. Adam has been fighting me on the word “nap” though, so I have to remember to call it “rest”. I show him the clock, tell him what time he can get out of bed, and leave him there with his cd player on and a few books. He generally falls asleep not long after laying down and will “rest” for two hours.

It will be a sad day when he really does outgrow that nap.

Adam and I started school yesterday. My goal is for us to do preschool activities at home each day. We’ll be focusing on a different letter and number each week. This week is brought to you by the letter “L” and the number “1”.

I think Adam was most excited about having his own desk to work at (thank you again Aunt Cathy!). We started with a bible verse, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16). And then moved on to words that start with “L”.

Then we sang “Mary Had a Little Lamb” and did an “L” craft.

We ended school with several “L” stories (“Llama Llama Red Pajama”, “Llama Llama Mad at Mama”, and an ABC book. We also looked at pictures of a lamb online, showing how it grew from 4 hours old to 12 weeks old.

All in all, I would say we are off to a good start. There are a couple of different websites I am gathering lesson plans and ideas from (thanks Becky for the suggestions). Today, in addition to repeating some of what we did yesterday, Adam worked on identifying upper and lower case Ls in a story I printed out for him, we practiced writing the letter “L”, and we did a lamb craft (his request).

I don’t think I’m going to push the writing too much though. He is still pretty young and we don’t know for sure if Adam is right or left-handed (he still switches hands frequently when coloring and eating). I don’t want to confuse him or force him in to one hand or the other.

I don’t plan on homeschooling for real (I have to help keep all those public school teachers in my family employed). But for now, I am having fun being Adam’s teacher, Adam is having fun playing school, and it’s what works for our family.

When we talked about other art projects we could do with “L” words he told me he wants to make a Luke out of poofy things (cotton balls I think?). Not sure where we’ll go with that one. I’m making sure to keep the glue well out of reach when Luke is around though, just in case his big brother gets any ideas.

The most amazing thing about that photo? It was the first (and only) one I took and it was taken with my cell phone. I just had to put Luke’s pacifier on my head and dance like a loon in Lowe’s to get it.

You’re welcome.

Dave took this week off from work, so this morning Adam and I ran errands together while Luke and Daddy stayed home. We had a list, complete with pictures, so Adam could keep track of our stops. I’m not sharing the list because I don’t want you all to be jealous of my amazing art skills (and because it’s still in the car).

Our last stop was the grocery store. I needed to pick up the ingredients to make a treat to take to my Wednesday night knitting group. Since we had such a short list, Adam was in charge of the cart.

He also was in charge of getting himself dressing this morning, in case you were wondering. The sticker on his arm is from the nice lady at the post office.

Last night when I told him that we were going to be running errands and that Luke would be staying home with Dave he got very concerned.

Adam: “Why Luke not coming too Mama?”

Me: “Because he is going to stay home with Daddy.”

Adam: “Is the post office scary?”

Me: “No, the post office is nice. You have been there lots of times.”

Adam: “If the post office is not scary then Luke can come!”

It’s hard to argue with logic like that. This morning though, he seemed fine with it being just the two of us and we were able to cross everything off of our list.

Adam had his first dentist appointment on Thursday. I was worried he would throw a huge tantrum (if you’ve ever had the pleasure of taking him for a haircut you know what I am talking about). While we were in the waiting room I was teasing him, telling him that he only had four teeth. He said, “No mama, I have twenty teeth”. I’m not sure where he picked that up from, but I later learned from the dentist that he was exactly right.

He was definitely nervous, but the hygienist was awesome with him. She explained everything she was doing and was incredibly patient with him. He let her clean all of his bottom teeth and half of the top ones before he clamped his mouth shut and said, “I don’t like this anymore. I all done.”

He did let her floss his teeth, which surprised me. When she showed him the dental floss he said, “Papa use that too” and opened his mouth. I don’t think he was as impressed with flossing once she started, but she worked quickly and by the time he decided he was done, she was too.

In the end he left with mostly clean teeth, a new winnie-the-pooh tooth brush, and favorable impression of the dentist (which I was very happy about – especially since we’ll be going back in six months).