Birthday, Santa, Boobies, and Letters

Dexter's laughing his head off because AJ's moving ahead and it's moving him ahead too.










It's November 17th. I'm starting to write this, but I don't think I'll finish because I'm waiting for the pictures that go with this post.

First off, since hardly any of this post, if any at all, is about Dexter, I'd better say something about Dexy now.
Still lots of smiles. Finally starting to have longer awake times between naps. His cruising is involving more and more one handedness lately. He likes to push things down the hall and walk behind them. The steps are long and draggy sometimes, but he's getting the hang of it. He just loves wrestling with AJ. I have a hard time letting them do this without 'going all mom' on them, but I try to let them have fun. They have the most fun in the tunnel down in the playroom chasing and pushing and tumbling inside and out. He's got 5 teeth, and the 6th is still trying to bust through. Luckily it's not bugging his sleep the last two nights.




Another Couple Cute AJ Sayings
While walking past the lingerie section at American Eagle...
"Hey, look Mommy, they have boobie stuff here!"
On the way to my friend Nancy's house down the street...
"Does Nancy live in Mission?"
"No, preschool is in Mission. Nancy lives in Abbotsford, just down the street."
"Oh, Abbotsford! That's where we live. We live in Abbotsford. Our house lives in Abbotsford, right mommy?"
"Yes. We live in Abbotsford, in our house."
For everything...
"Look at me Mommy! Watch this Mommy!" (yes, we've entered this phase)

AJ Went to a Birthday Party
A boy in AJ's class was turning 4, and AJ was invited to his party at the rec centre. It said it was a 'gym party'. I thought that meant that it was like open playgroup. Oops. Nope.
As I was dressing AJ for the party, I was trying to think of what I should put on AJ: Party wear, or casual wear? This was quite a dilemma, if you know me at all. What would be worse, being under-dressed or over-dressed. I figured, over-dressed is the better choice. (I could hear Auntie Erica whispering in my ear "AJ's always over-dressed."
Well, sure enough, the party is in the actual gym. It's not open play. The girl running it is running games of British Bulldog, tag, soccer drills, and such. AJ clammed right up, as it was a 'new' activity with 'new' kids. He ran a bit and rolled on some mats, and otherwise just watched.












Was he over-dressed?
Oh yeah, was he ever!!!
All the kids were wearing sneakers and sweats!!!
I don't even let AJ out of the house in sweats unless it's some sort of special 'outfit' that's like a whole matching pants and hoodie deal, but it's rare. REALLY rare. I was shocked beyond belief.
You're thinking to yourself, "Get over it Sonja. They were going to be in a gym."
But all I could think was, "This is a party!! Where's the party clothing?"
Nonetheless, great kids, great parents, great cake, great snacks for the kids and parents, and lots of fun.
My favourite part of the party?
When the parents were trying to get the gift opening part all set up and all the kids who brought gifts started opening them themselves to show Alexander what they got for him. Not just pulling stuff out of gift bags either. I'm telling you, they were ripping the wrapping paper. It was like a look into the future.
Loved every minute of it.
All in all. It was really nice to be out alone with AJ while Daddy watched Dexter.












This was an interesting part of the party. The leader was asking everyone his/her name and their favourite game. She didn't see AJ hiding there and as we were heading to the gym, AJ yelled, "Oh no! I didn't get to it! I didn't get a turn!" At first, I didn't realize what he meant, and then I clued in, and she did too. She asked him his name and his favourite game. Well, he's so shy. There was a bit of silence. A few repeated words, like 'my my my my name my my my', but patience is a virtue and AJ finally spit out, "I'm AJ. My favourite game is DON'T BREAK THE ICE". Yes, he yelled that part.












Christmas Photos
So, Richard and I (mostly me) still wanted to do another Christmas Family Picture for the Christmas cards. Richard had this 'cool' idea to put the camera on the tripod on the coffee table and we'd all lay in a + with our heads together for a picture. It was horrible.

I stopped the chaos. "STOP. This is ridiculous!!! Go put some jeans on, and let's do this sitting on the fireplace like I wanted in the first place! And... I want their shoes in the picture."

No shoes in the picture. The best one, Richard's head's cut off, and the next one is blurry because I was bouncing Dexter while the camera was trying to focus.

Here's the chaos...
#1
#2
#3

#4

















Naughty Mommy Moment?
I don't know if this is naughty or not.
But...
After finding out that TWO of my friends put there babes to bed with their soothers on one of the soother ribbon clippy thingies, I thought I'd give this a try too.
BEST DECISION I'VE EVER MADE!
Well, aside from saying 'yes' to marrying Richard and deciding to have children.


Proud Mommy Moment
As you all know, AJ's pretty good with his letters, letter sounds, drawing, and that sort of thing. He's not Einstein by any means, but he's a with it guy in this department.
It's been really neat to watch these skills develop over the last 6 or so months. Back in the summer, maybe July/August, when AJ was watching Super Why on tv, he started yelling the letters he saw as they found the 'super letters'. This lead to him 'reading out' letters in words when we'd be out places. You know, like, Home Depot this summer. We'd be walking in and he'd see the sign as we were pulling up and say, "Look, 'H', 'O', 'M', 'E'", etc.
Then, as I just wrote about a couple entries back, it was this same spelling but with him saying the beginning letter sound, like the 'k' in the word, 'kids'.
Anyhow, my point is...
It's neat to watch the steps progress.
Tonight, when showing Daddy how we organized his colouring books and stuff into magazine boxes, AJ noticed that there were some printing books. They weren't new, but I guess he hadn't seen them in a while. He asked what they were. I said that they were for writing letters. He asked if he could do some letters (please note it was about 8:30pm, already late for bedtime), and I wasn't going to say no to learning, so I let him sit at his table and gosh by golly if that kids didn't start tracing letters. I'll give him a break on the 's' and the 'e', but man oh man, upper case and lower case, even a 'q' and a 'b' and a 'k'. He could trace letters.
What's next!!!???? The pics from this aren't on the site yet.