Milestone...

Big bro has taken to purposefully calling me "Mom" these days.  Not Mommy, just Mom.  If he says Mommy, he corrects himself, to say Mom.  It's a sad day for me...  

His nickname for me is (was?) "mommy with the long hair".   He is "' insert name here' with the short hair".   Big Daddy is "daddy with no hair"  (he's self-inflicted bic bald these days).  Somehow "mom with the long hair" just isn't the same!

Yummy in the tummy

lil'bro enjoyed his avocado. It was not as big a hit as the squash, but he seemed to enjoy it and had no apparent reaction to it. Yesterday, we started apples. None too soon, I guess, as a bit over a week ago lil'daddy, lil'bro and I all went apple picking. There is still a large drawer full of apples in the fridge. At first a little hesitant during their introduction, it appears apples are now also a hit. I haven't pulled out all the apple recipes yet, but I'm starting to feel the Jones for Cocoa-Apple Bunt Cake.

Here are some pictures of our apple picking adventures...

















Just to clarify so that no one believes that I am feeding lil'bro raw apples. That is not the case. I washed any that he was handling in the pictures and the apples that I prepped for him were peeled and cooked. I tend to follow the advice given at the Wholesome Baby Food website and of our pediatrician. The website's recipes are very easy to follow. We made our own baby food for lil'daddy and we're going to try to stay that route for lil'bro.

As an aside... lil'daddy took the pictures of lil'bro and I. I think he took great pictures of us!

Guess what's for dinner lil'bro

lil'bro is taking a nap and lil'daddy is playing on the Noggin website. As I was watching over his computer usage, I figured I'd send a lil'bro food update from my phone.

I mentioned in a previous post that we've started introducing solids. A week after starting with oatmeal cereal, this past wednesday lil'bro had his first taste of squash. Specifically, he had baked butternut squash and he LOVED it! If he was unhappy for any reason, it was because we couldn't shovel it in fast enough for him. A few days have gone by and there hasn't been any apparent reaction so today we will move on to avocado. ...where is that camera...

October Update

It seems we've been real busy around the "One of Three..." household. Since my last post, Mommy got sick with a fever. lil'daddy had croup. lil'bro got shots, started solids & was baptized. At this point, we're all feeling well [daddy crosses fingers] and things are starting to come back to normal.

Through lil'daddy's introduction to solid foods, over 3 and a half years ago, Mommy and I documented each new food introduction with calendar markings complete, in many cases, with supporting photos. 5 days after starting our first introduction of oatmeal cereal with lil'bro, I've realized that I never marked our calendar. In fact, we didn't even take any pictures until a couple days ago!



Here are a few photos from the baptism.





lil'daddy continues to amaze me with his reading. I had mentioned previously that we've been reading the Magic Tree House books. More specifically, I was reading most of the pages while he read the prologue, the first page of a chapter and the pages with pictures. This was about every third page or so of a 60-80 page chapter book. Occasionally he would read a few chapters on his own. At this point, we've read all the "regular" Magic Tree House series books and all of the "Merlin Mission" books save 3. I know this because he keeps track in a Magic Tree House Passport that we've downloaded.

We've added a new book series as well. He is reading the "Roscoe Riley Rules" chapter books completely on his own. I think they're very funny and lil'daddy gets such a kick out of them! The books are basically told from the perspective of a 1st grader who tells the story of how he wound up in time-out for something he did that was well-intentioned but snowballed out of hand. Each book is 70-80 pages long. Some of the titles are: "Never Glue Your Friends to Chairs", "Never Swipe a Bully's Bear", and "Don't Swap Your Sweater for a Dog". Unfortunately we've read #1-#4 and #5 in not due to March '09.



Our problem seems to be finding chapter books that we feel are appropriate for a 4 year old to read on his own. Honestly, I know we are so fortunate that lil'daddy is so interested in reading and that he's progressing so well in his reading skills. I guess we could have worse problems.