How did you grow today?

It is late Sunday afternoon, and we are in Sophie's future room clearing out the remainder of what used to be a craft room and catch-all for our household.

We are discussing what to do next and where to put the furniture once it is reassembled, and Cole is in the alcove where the changing table is (loaded with things still on their way out--stacks of magazines, Isabel Blooms, etc.), trying to move it.

He is obviously getting frustrated with the changing table and, likely, our lack of assistance in moving the table to wherever it is that he feels is a better place for it.

I ask him what he's doing and get, "I trying move it."

I ask him where to and get a bit of a rant about it that is hard to make out.

To this point, he has been trying to pick up the table and move it forward, against its length. He lays into this effort some more while we continue to talk about the room and our lack of motivation against the seemingly insurmountable list of to-do work and the ever shortening time (8 weeks) before Sophie shows up.

From the alcove we hear, "Look! I do it. I do it."

Cole has abandoned his headlong shoving of the table and adopted a more effective approach, lifting the end and pivoting the table on its long axis. He is obviously thrilled with his ability and success. Once he has cleared the table from the wall enough to access the back, he ends his Herculean effort and comments gleefully, "I getting my 'eeps n' ow-ns."

We look at each other confused, as he climbs behind the table, continuing,"Teacher Tracy tell me at school. I going 'eeps 'n ounds."

Two things are of note here: 1) he tends to associate a lot of what he knows and thinks to doctors and teachers. The teacher thing has been happening for a while, perhaps because we use the "Teacher Beth" card a bit too much, as in, "Teacher Beth wouldn't be happy to know you're up late on a school night." The doctor thing is more recent and likely the result of the numerous visits to the OB/Gyn, and often manifests itself as, "My doctor say I can't eat it," (referring to one of Melanie's dietary restrictions, and 2) the addition of a consonant makes the difference sometimes.

In this case, a "d" meant that he was growing in leaps and bounds, which made his announcement clear and adorable all at once.

Apparently, Teacher Tracy (one of three) has been remarking to Cole in school (you know, back a couple of month ago) how he has been growing in leaps and bounds. Hence, his being able to move the table translates into a moment where he was "getting" the leaps and bounds.

Up until that moment, I wasn't sure what that phrase meant. Now, I think I do.

Picnic with Cousin Liz

Thought I would post some pics from the picnic we had a couple weeks ago with Cousin Liz. We went to a nature center near our house - it is so peaceful there! They also have a great playground in addition to the usual trails and exhibits. Here's some pics!

Okay and this next one is the resident wild turkey - just in case you've never seen on up close...

And here's just a whole bunch of ones I snapped of Cole that day...

Mail's Here

Cole has learned a lot while in preschool this year. He's great at letters and numbers. Cole's always been imaginative but now he links it to real-life scenarios that he's observed throughout his day.

While playing yesterday, Cole gathered all of his palm-sized sponge letters and placed them in a sand bucket. Then he went to various points in the living room and placed a different letter at various points in the room. He opened cabinet drawers, reached up high for shelves and table tops and each time he'd call out my name, daddy's name, cow or baby and say, "Mail's here." When he was all done he presented the empty bucket to me and said, "Mama I delivered all my letters!" I know we're biased but Scott and I thought this was pretty clever of our little man.

Baby Kicks!

Cole and I are sitting here relaxing - waiting until it's time to pick up Scott at work and a certain little one inside me has been kicking nonstop for a good while now. I think it's been about fifteen minutes but it's probably been more like five...either way - it's very persistent and I'm loving it. Oh and for a word from Cole just know that the bridge mama is growing (we don't know where the bridge idea came into his mind but it's stuck) is getting bigger or rather the Mama Bridge is getting bigger.

That's all for now!

A New Kind of Day

This week Cole and I have carved out a new sort of routine. When he gets home from school we have lunch and then make our way up to his room where, as he so sweetly reminds me each day with one hand on his heart, Cole has toys. Today though we didn't play with the normal set of toys. No today I was informed it was time for school and I needed to take my seat. Then it was time for the Hello song which I of course should know but sadly do not. Teacher Cole was quite disappointed by this but tried his best to teach me. It involves the word Hello of course and the name of classmates and apparently has some different interpretations. In one rendition some hand waving came into play, in another some complex clapping, and in a third the shaking of an invisible 'thing'. The fourth version seemed to be a combo of this Hello song and the more familiar (to me at least) Name song - meaning there was patting on the legs in a drum-like fashion. I tried to make up words and even tried to sneak in the Name song but this just made Teacher Cole cluck his tongue and move on after giving me one final, "Sorry, Mama," accompanied with a look that told me I am so last year. Note to self: Email Teacher Beth for the lyrics to this Hello song.

Teacher Cole, it turns out, is very strict. Once the singing portion of class is through you are to clean up and play with toys. Only not really seeing as every toy is his. Also, if you would like to read that's fine but again, all the books belong to him so 'sorry' they belong on his pillow rather than in your lap. He will read the books to you but he likes to skip ahead to the last page and then slam it shut and again say, "Sorry, all done."

This all reminded me of why I didn't like school so much. Never enough reading time.