Strider was
trying to whistle like Daddy the other day.
After trying for a minute, he pointed at his mouth and proclaimed, “It’s
broken!”
My list of
favorite words has been growing. (Recent
additions have been “Childcare available, and “ok, Mommy.”) Now I heard Strider walking away from me as
he was going to follow through on some instruction I had just given him,
saying, “Whatever you say Mommy.” Didn’t
know he even knew that phrase, but I think I’m going to encourage that one to
be more common!!
Rayna is
definitely more feminine than Strider was at this age. When she bounces in her Jumpster, her little
toes point down then out, just like a little ballerina. (I remember Mom and Dad
saying Karin used to do that, but I never believed them – until I saw Rayna do
it!) Strider used to just hang around in
the Jumpster, sometimes jump roughly a little, but saw little point in it. Also, he used to scratch furiously with his
nails – grabbing his face, or someone else’s.
Rayna likes to touch faces, but she does it nicely with the flat part of
her fingers so it doesn’t hurt! And
while Strider used to like to shove both fists in his mouth when he wanted to
suck on something, Rayna just daintily plugs in one little thumb and is
content. Funny how different they are!
Strider has
fallen FIVE time on his chin over the last few weeks. It currently has a massive bruise on it
(looking a bit like a goatee from far away).
It bothers him to look at it, but I didn’t realize how much so until we
found he had taken down the little mirror in his room because he said he didn’t
like to see it!
Yesterday a
few different times when Rayna was sitting on my lap on the floor, Strider came
up and hugged us both and said, “My girls.”
Maybe I’ll have to add that to my list of favorite words too.
APRIL
There is a
commercial on the food network (tv) that Strider likes. It’s for worcestshire sauce or something, and
the big voice says, “I made you juicy!”
So Strider plays a game where he says “I made you____” whatever (silly,
happy, etc) One time though, I
responded, “I made you Strider.” He
quickly got very serious and said, “No, Mommy.
God made me Strider!” Then after
a pause, “But…. Who made God??”
Rayna
apparently forgot to go to “Angry Baby Class.”
When she gets mad, she doesn’t make noise! She just scrunches up her face, tucks her
chin into her neck and strains all of her muscles. She does this if I’m trying to feed her a
food she doesn’t like, if the sun is in her eyes when we’re going for a walk,
etc. Pretty funny looking, but not annoying
to listen to!
Strider is in
a funny phase. He knows when he
shouldn’t do something, and he knows I shouldn’t catch him doing it, but he
doesn’t know enough to not tip me off.
So sometimes he comes up to me and says, “Mommy, go over in that room.” I ask him why, and sometimes he tells me it’s
because he wants to whatever the thing is I told him not to do!
One day
during naptime, I heard Rayna start fussing in her crib. I gave her a few minutes and pretty soon I
didn’t hear her anymore. I came up about
10 minutes later, and found Strider in her crib with her! (He had heard her crying, left his room –
which is strictly forbidden, but apparently the temptation or need was too
great – and climbed in with her. The 2
of them were happy as clams just looking at each other and smiling!
The big
fascination around here for the last couple of months, at least for Strider,
has been our parking lot, and the cars in it.
Every morning it’s the first thing he does – immediately get out of bed
and stand at the window to check and see who’s car is still here. Then all day at approximate 5 minute
intervals, he runs to the window closest and checks, and then gives us the full
report. (“Miss Joanne is at work. Mr. Mark is home though!”) He’s started to learn the different models of
cars, but for a while he was calling 2 cars across the street “the bumps!” They are Jeep Wranglers, and I guess he was
referring to the tire on the back. He
also says a car is upside-down if it parks backwards. So it’s so funny to hear him coming running
up to us saying “The bumps are back! And
the Taurus is upside-down!”
One of
Strider’s famous phrases these days when he’s mad about something is, “It’s
tired around here.” Pete and I have
started using it too – must be said in a pouty voice of course.
Rayna was
very sweet for her baptism. She fell
asleep right beforehand (she had a fever too) so for the first part of the
ceremony she was sleeping. But as we
reached the important part, she must have sensed something, because she
suddenly woke up and looked around. The
pastor took her and started to put water on her head. She gave him a funny look that said, “What
do you think you’re doing?” but then quickly followed it up with a big
grin. Then she couldn’t take her eyes
off of him, playing with his hair and smiling like crazy. So cute!
