One Down, One to Go

R is paci free!!! We started at the end of June cutting little holes in the end of their pacis in hopes that they would lose interest. At the time, R was becoming really attached to his paci and was demanding it at times other than nap and bedtime. When I started making the holes bigger and bigger every night, he would get angrier and angrier that something wasn't right with his paci. But all of a sudden, a couple of weeks ago, he threw them all under his bed and has not asked for it since. We thought L would be the first to give his paci up, but he is still attached to one (Green Paci - he calls it), the rest he no longer touches. I'm hesitant to cut another hole in his last remaining paci, because he still wakes up in the middle of the night and his paci helps him to go back to sleep. Right now sleep is much more important to us than one last green paci.

This past weekend, the 4 of us went to the balloon festival not too far from our house. It was a last minute thing. I had mentioned it to Greg the night before but when I said that it started at 6:45 am, he said no thanks. R woke up at 6:15 the next morning and I decided that I would take the boys, and Greg said he would join us. We didn't actually go in the festival because there was a long line of cars to turn into the parking lot, so we parked on a near by street with a few hundred other people and watched from the side of the road. R really liked it, he kept saying "ba-oons." Afterwards, we went to breakfast at a really neat little place in Littleton and the boys had Fruity Pebble Pancakes with whipped cream. They ate the whole thing.

Below are pictures from the balloon festival. R's favorite was the pink Energizer Bunny.

I read an article in the newspaper about people waiting to put their kids in kindergarten until they're 6 (R and L have summer birthdays, so I'm already thinking about that - as an educator and seeing really immature young middle school boys, I'm leaning toward waiting until they are 6). The article said it is more of an intellectual discussion than in practice, most parents put their kids in kindergarten at 5. They interviewed a kindergarten teacher who said that all she really expects from her students at the beginning of the year is recognize at least 10 letters, count to 10 and know a few colors (plus be able to get their own lunch in the cafeteria). Based on that criteria, L is ready to go. He knows (truly knows) all of his letters - he loves to spell out words, he can count to 30 and he knows all of his colors. R isn't quite there yet, but he is close. My dad said that the teacher probably said that so parents of kids who can only do these minimum things won't feel bad :) At any rate, I'm excited for the boys to start "school" next week. I think it will really be good for them to do learning centers and to hang out with other kids again.

R and L's new favorite books are the "I Spy" board books. R is really quick about pointing all of the objects out and L has the whole book memorized so he can read it to himself in his bed.

I've been trying to get the boys to start singing songs (I haven't really worked on that). L knows the ABC song (although he tends to skip L-N), but that has been about it. So we've been singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. R loves it. He says "Tinkle, Tinkle" and he doesn't sing the whole thing but he chimes in with the last word of each refrain(?), like star, are, high, sky and so forth.

Ileave you with 2 more of L's cars that he has drawn this week, they are getting better and better and now I finally have one that we can keep and put on the refrigerator.

One more thing, I want to thank Greg for being so kind and sweet by getting me some Blue Bell ice cream at a little candy shop in Denver last week. One of the things I miss most about Texas is Blue Bell. The ice cream here is awful, I've tried all the brands (including the national ones) and they all fall well short of Blue Bell. There is one place in Denver that sells Blue Bell by the scoop and Greg brought me home Mint Chocolate Chip and Cookies and Cream (my all time favorite). Thank you!!!