Late summer lately

Lately: James

At 2.5 years, James is my fireball, sweetest toddler companion, mortal enemy one minute and best snuggle bunny the next.  He has grown up so much, so I wanted to have some thoughts down on who he is and how things are going.

He is clever and works hard.

He can recite the alphabet and recognizes all uppercase and lowercase letters.  He even tells me words that the letters are for (likely memorized from a book or learning toy, not from knowing the actual letter sounds, I think).

He easily counts to 10, and counts to 20 but usually skips 13 and 15.  He recently has started pointing and counting objects accurately (up to 10) instead of just rattling off counting numbers.

He is forward-facing in the car now (by Stuart's preference, we turned him for our recent road trip).  Whenever we drive around town, he narrates the entire way by telling where things are located or where to turn to get to different destinations (he definitely has his mama's sense of direction and easily maps out places in his mind).  Like, even if we have only been somewhere once or twice, and we drive near it, he will be like "oh, that's the dry cleaner's," or "when this light turns green, you turn here to go to Ms. Kayla's house." (He loves to tell me when the lights are red vs. green and totally gets confused when we go right on red!)

(He is still my big helper in the garden!)

He adores his brother and they have the best time together.  That's not to say that there aren't 1,000 physical altercations between them every day (almost always instigated by James), but they play together and love to do silly things to make each other laugh.

We are definitely raising a reader, as the command "Read a book" ("please" - we're working on this, ha) is the most common thing that comes out of James' mouth. Before nap/bedtime, when he first wakes up, while he eats, when he is sometimes interested in sitting on his potty, in the middle of building a giant block tower/castle or train track, etc... Reading is always on his mind. It's hard to say what his current favorite books are.  He gets hooked on one or two and wants to read them over and over for a few days, then changes it up. It's a good combination of new books and old favorites, which I love (just like him - a good mixture of sentimentality and curiosity).  Lately it has been Dr. Seuss' The Lorax and Fox in Socks, along with a couple of Berenstain Bears books.

He is less interested in artsy things as he once was, but it may be because he has a tendency to chew on markers/crayons/miscellaneous craft supplies, so his craft sessions are short-lived.  But, he LOVES to sit and play the guitar with his daddy.  Stuart has taught him how to hold a pick and how to strum, and James asks to play every day.  I plan to get him his own little guitar for Chriatmas from daddy. 

Mealtimes can be challenging and are hit or miss, seemingly dependent on his overall mood of compliance for the day.  Favorite foods are fruit (#1: watermelon), bread (#1: sourdough) and carrots (raw). Foods he tolerates regularly: cheese, yogurt, avocado, green juice/smoothies, oatmeal, bagel and cream cheese, beans, pasta. Most commonly requested lunch: quesadilla (whole wheat tortilla microwaved with cheddar cheese and rolled up) or grilled cheese.  Foods that are always a fight: meat, most vegetables, baked goods, most new things.

He communicates really well, and has started to use more abstract concept words like also, probably and too correctly (rather than just nouns and verbs).  He learns new words all the time. We have done a little memory work, mostly from his little toddler Sunday school lessons. He has memorized Luke 2:14 ("Glory to God in the highest," and Psalm 9:1 ("I will praise You, O Lord, with all my heart").  We are working on 1 Corinthians 13:4 ("Love is patient and kind") as we are able to have deeper talks during times of discipline.

Love you, Jamers! You are my most favorite "big boy!"

Florida 2015

Several weeks back, as we sat at home celebrating our 5th anniversary, Stuart told me that he had a gift for me, even though we had decided we wouldn't do gifts for one another.  He had a week of vacation coming up later in July, but had a couple of interviews planned that filled up the week.  We were planning a big, family road trip to travel to all of the interviews... at least we would get to spend some time together.  Well, my gift was that he cancelled the later interview scheduled for that week and was going to take us to the beach on our first-ever family vacation instead!  Truly, best gift ever.

So, we drove south to Birmingham over the first weekend of his vacation (which I also have photos from but those will be in another post...) and then drove on to the Emerald Coast at Miramar Beach, FL.  We spent the week lounging in our condo, watching TV (! because we don't have one - James thought this was awesome.  Also, by the end of the week, I was very glad we don't have one at home!), but mostly walking out to the beach and playing in the sand.  We would go down almost every wake time, every day, and play until the boys were worn out.

James had a GREAT time playing in the sand, though he did not like the "cold" water.  Samuel had less fun, and his favorite part was sitting in the shade of the umbrella in mama's lap.  He also didn't mind sitting right at the surf line, also in mama's lap.

Thank you to Stuart/daddy for such an awesome trip!  (More photos to come after this post...)