My Three-Year-Old Can Read!

Perhaps the celebration is premature, because he hasn’t read any stories or books yet, just individual words.  But he’s doing a great job.  He knows all of his basic letter sounds (you know, just the short vowels and just the hard consonants) and can blend three or four of them together into words.

But mostly I had to take this video and do this post today because, well, it’s the last day I’ll be able to say “my three-year-old can read”.  Yep.  He turns four tomorrow.  Wow.  How did that happen?

(Click on the image above to see the video, as well as a few others of the girls.)

Reenactments

For your viewing pleasure, I attempted to get the kids to reenact some of the things I talked about in recent posts.  Click on the image above to see a video of Ruth walking and backing up into her chair.  Also, you can see Emma talking about the disciples on the boat.

Our Little Foof

It seems like most of my posts recently have been about Luke and Emma, because that’s where all the interesting conversation is now.  But Ruth has been up to so much lately as well, so I need to take a moment to post about her doings.

First, she has tons of words now.  Of course, most of them require inside knowledge or an interpreter to understand, but they count anyway:

- Mama
- Dada (or Da-DOOOH – especially right when he gets home from work)
- Emma
- chguck (Luke – pronounced with a very German-sounding guttural beginning blend)
- bebe (baby)
- bah (ball – plus sign)
- ba-ba (Bible)
- boo (book – plus sign, pronounced like “book” without the “k”)
- mih (milk – plus sign)
- wah (water – plus sign)
- no
- no, no
- noooooooooo (no, emphatically – usually addressed to a sibling)
- goo mah (thank you, mama – or anyone)
- muh mama (yes, mama)
- pah (potty – plus sign)
- duh (done – plus sign)
- uh-huuuuuuuuuuuh (yes, emphatically!)

I’m sure this doesn’t cover them all, but these are the ones I can remember off the top of my head.  She’s also much more involved in communication and understanding what is said to her.  The other day she found my garden gloves and brought them to me asking to have them put on her hands.  When I put them on her, I said, “Go show Luke!”  She toddled off down the hallway calling “chguck!”

Today I asked her to go get a new diaper.  She walked all the way from the kitchen (where I was) to her room, got the diaper and brought it back to me.  By the time she rounded the end of the hallway within view of the kitchen, she could hardly walk for giggling with pride over her accomplishment!

She loves to participate in whatever tasks we are doing.  When the kids are getting dressed in the morning or ready for bed in the evening, she’s constantly picking up pieces of clothing and handing them to their owners, putting shoes away, taking diapers out of the basket, putting diapers in the basket, taking more diapers out of the basket – whatever seems productive and similar to what we are doing.  It’s hilarious to see her pick up Luke’s or Emma’s shirt or sock, go toddling across the room to the appropriate person (yea, she knows) calling his or her name, handing over the item and then saying “Goo mah.”  Now this is her way of saying “Thank you,” so I’m not sure if she’s prompting a response from the recipient, or if she thinks this is also the way to say “You’re welcome.”  We’ll see.

She’s also really good at giving “squishy face smiles” upon request.  She’ll stick out her chin, smile really big and scrunch up her nose and eyes.  Priceless.

Her walking is really kind of funny.  It looks like her hips and thighs remain stationary while her lower legs kick out from the knee.  Yesterday she was trying to sit on a child-sized chair in the children’s room.  Normally she would climb into a chair face-forward and then turn herself around.  But yesterday she was trying to sit down by backing up into the chair.  It was the funniest thing I have ever seen.  She was doing her little leg kicks, but not making any backward progress, just basically kind of marching (or dancing or waddling) in place.  She kept looking over her shoulder to see if she was any closer and finding that she wasn’t!

The Miracles

Recently in family worship, Matt has been reading through the gospel of John and teaching about the miracles of Jesus with discussion and review spanning several days.  Here are some collected comments …

Matt: Do you think five loaves of bread and two fish would be enough food for 5,000 people?!?
Luke: Yes, I think so.

Matt: How many fish did they have?
Emma: (holding up any number of fingers) Two!

Emma: They had five breads and two fishes … but you can’t eat fishes because they swim in the water.

Luke and Emma: Jesus was multicating the food!

Every time Matt would say, “The feeding of the 5,000” Luke would add “people” as if there had been an oversight on Matt’s part.

Emma: They were in the boat and they saw God coming and they were (makes a “terrified” face with hands raised by shoulders, body shaking). [wish I had a picture]

Luke: If it had just been a fake Jesus or a statue or something, it would have sunk right down into the water.  But it was the real Jesus.

And last night, our friends Andrew and Merike Mericle came over for dinner.  In preparation for their visit, Luke was overheard coaching his sister as follows …

Luke: (in his most didactic, paternal voice) The Mericles are coming to our house.  Now, this doesn’t mean that Jesus is going to be in our house doing miracles.  It means that Mr. and Mrs. Mericle are coming to have dinner with us.

Enter at Your Own Risk

On a few occasions, Luke has been able to unlock and open our front door with some assistance.  I wasn’t aware that he could do it completely on his own … until yesterday.  I was in my room at the end of the hall when a visitor walked down the hallway, let in by Luke!  I hadn’t even been aware that someone had knocked!  Thankfully, it was my mother, so all was well.  But after this, we had a conversation about opening the front door without permission.

My main point was that we don’t ever, EVER open the door without permission from Mama.  I stressed that we lock the door to keep ourselves safe and we shouldn’t open the door for anyone without checking with Mama first.  However, a secondary point was that Mama would rather not be surprised by a visitor (even someone we know) when, for example, she is using the bathroom.

Today, while reviewing the guidelines, Emma, summed up the importance of the second point this way: “Yes, because [someone]* might come in and make you un-modest!”

*Name withheld to preserve the innocence of the (randomly) accused (male) family member.

It's a Girl!!

We had our ultrasound this morning!  I have pictures, but my scanner is not cooperating, so I’ll have to post those later.  But I wanted to share some of the stories surrounding this big event.  Ruth (16 months old) stayed with my mom, and Matt, Luke (almost 4), Emma (almost 3) and I went to the appointment.  The ultrasound tech was fantastic.  She zoomed in on shots and “rewound” and played things back in slow motion, pointing them out to the children.  They got to see our little lady opening and closing her hand and opening and closing her mouth.  Really beautiful.  The lips and the fingers looked so clear.

The ultrasound tech was having a hard time getting a good look at the “gender area” because our very proper and modest daughter had her legs closed, but each time the tech could get a view of that area, she kept saying, “I think it’s probably a girl.  I don’t see anything there.”  Once she overheard Luke whisper to Matt, “But it could still be a boy.”  She said, “Your sister seems so quiet!  Surely she couldn’t give you that much trouble!”  (Thankfully, the children were exceptionally well behaved and quiet.)

By the time we left the ultrasound, we knew the gender with much more certainty (apparently she’s not so modest after all).  I asked Luke how he felt about having three sisters and he said, “EXCITED!” (and sounded so)!

We headed to my Mom’s house to pick up Ruth.  When almost there, we said to the children, “Well, we have some news to tell Nannie, don’t we!  What are we going to tell her?”  And both of the children shouted “We’re going to have a new baby!”  Hmm.  We’ve known this much for about three months now.  “And what else??” we prompted.  “And everything is OK!” Luke said.  You know, he’s right.  That really was the best outcome of the ultrasound.

So we pulled up to Nannie’s house without having actually arrived at the end of our discussion of what it was we really wanted to tell Nannie.  When we got inside, the children gave Nannie the same peripheral information, until finally, Luke said, “Oh yea, she doesn’t have a p*n*s!”

Later on, I let Luke call my brother and sister-in-law to tell them the news.  When Uncle Ryan asked, “So, what happened at Mommy’s doctor appointment today?” Luke began a very thorough answer.  “Well, the lady told Mama to lay down on a bed.  And Mama did.  And then we sat down in these chairs.  And there was a big screen up on the wall.  And we could see the screen, but Mama couldn’t see the screen because she was lying down …” (at which point I interjected that yes, I could see the screen) “ … and Daddy was with us and we brought some books to read …”  And I think he would have gone on like this forever, but he got interested in something else and wanted me to take over the phone call, so I promptly shared the awaited news.

We took the children to Cracker Barrel for lunch and while there, we talked about names.  Emma suggested we name her “Jesus”.  Although we agreed that that is a very special name, we didn’t think it would be quite right for a little girl.  She then suggested “Jacqueline” or “Evadne” (names of twin girls in a family of our dear friends).  Luke thought “John” or “Peter” would be a good name.  (I promise, he knows it’s a girl.)  Matt suggested to Emma that perhaps we should name the baby “Daddy”.  Looking right at her Daddy, she said, “No!  That’s a man!  Daddy is a man!”

It’s funny, with the first three children, we had first and middle names for both genders picked out long before the ultrasound.  This time, here we are with nothing … or not much.  Though we didn’t intend to create any type of pattern with our children’s names, it has been pointed out to us that Luke, Emma and Ruth are all names with four letters.  Also, as Uncle Ryan (the physics teacher) pointed out, we’re due for a two-syllable four-letter name this time.  Any suggestions?

Feeling the Excitement

Matt and I are excited to be attending our first homeschool convention this weekend.  The kids are picking up on the energy, too.  Partly, I think this is due to the things that Mama has talked about wanting to buy for them at the convention (a new map, some new math manipulatives, etc.) and partly due to their own fun plans: the girls are going to stay with Nannie and Pop-pop (my parents) while Luke has his first overnighter with Nana and Papa (Matt’s parents)!

This morning as we looked at the calendar and talked about the fact that today was Wednesday, Luke made the connection that tomorrow is Thursday and was literally wiggling with excitement about his adventures.  When I (yea, a mushy Mama-moment) said, “Luke, I’m gonna miss you,” he could barely spare a whole breath to say, “I’m gonna miss you too Nana is going to take me …” and on he rushed with his thoughts about the trip.

Tonight, as we were putting the kids to bed, Emma was cuddling her baby doll.  She said, “I’m getting her ready, because tomorrow we’re going to the home convention!”  Such a little Mama.  And (apparently in her world) that’s what Mama’s do – they go to “home conventions”.

Tiny Talk

I love how Emma drops the “s” from the beginning of some of her words.  So today, we had a “nack” at the park, and then this evening, we sat on the porch to watch the “torm”.

Sometimes on the weekend, Daddy makes us hamburgers for dinner, or, as Luke calls them, “han-ga-burs”.

I’ve also had a few funny middle-of-the-night encounters with my children recently.  Last night, Ruth woke up coughing around 11:30 or so.  I carried her out to the kitchen for a sip of water.  She was very sleepy, mostly resting her head on my shoulder – it was very sweet.  Rhetorically, I asked, “Who’s my sweet baby?”  With her head still on my shoulder, she raised her hand!

The other night, I was awoken at about a quarter to three by a frantic, frightened someone calling “Mama, Mama!”.  By the time I got into the children’s room, I couldn’t notice anyone in obvious distress, so I asked who had called.  Emma’s little curly head popped up and she said, “Oh, I was crying because I thought there was kickens [chickens] in my bed, but … there wasn’t.”

Oh, Fiddle-de-dee

After lunch yesterday Emma hopped down from her highchair and I had to stop her on her way out of the kitchen so that I could wipe her face and hands.  As I did so, I noticed that the side of her calf was bleeding from a many-times-scratched mosquito bite.  I pointed it out to her.  She’s obviously not one to be bothered by such things as her response was “Oh, we can take care of that to-MY-yo [tomorrow].”

Pool Play!

On Thursday, Nannie surprised Luke and Emma with a new pool (an early birthday gift). They spent three straight mornings playing in it while Ruth was napping. It was great to see them enjoying themselves so much, because I wasn't sure if either of them (Emma especially) would be afraid of the water. Not at all!  (Click on the picture below to see more.)