dressing for bed

Tim can dress and undress himself for the most part.  It just doesn't always have the result that we'd like.

Scooby Doo has been around for a long time and has gone through at least three theme songs.  I don't know this one, and may never learn it, as Tim makes up the words as he sings.

street names and making faces

Mommy where are we going?

To GG’s house.

We’ve never been on this street before.

No, we haven’t.  It’s a short cut to Drake, the street that we usually take to go to GG’s.

What’s the name of this street.

Research.  (the street has a large bend in it, almost like turning on to a new street)

And this must be Road Street.  As we approach the stop light.  And that is Car Street because of all the cars on it.

Silence for a minute while we turn on to Drake and drive about a block.

What street is that Mommy? (all the way to GG’s house)

He really thinks he's pulling some crazy faces here.  I think it's pretty tame compared to what he'll probably be doing in six months.

fore!

learning to read

We're in no rush to teach Tim to read, but he's interested and willing.  The promise of a new toy with the mastery of each book is a big incentive.  Like potty training, we're trying to let him guide us on the skills we tackle.  This worked when he wrote his name at two, much to our surprise and pleasure.  I'm happy to help him learn to read because studies that I've read indicate that children who learn to read early have greater success at learning other things in school, and Tim has always liked books. 

I first learned of the Bob Books last summer from a woman I met at the library.   She was with her son who looked about the same age as Tim.  Tim had picked some books to take home, and we sat down next to the mother and son to look through them.  The boy told Tim that he liked one of them and then offered to read the book to Tim, which he did.  I thought maybe he'd memorized the book, but he actually read it.  I asked his mom how old he was and when she said 4, I asked how he'd learned to read.  She showed me The Bob Books, and I checked one out.  We tried a couple of times but without any interest or success.  I checked them out again when we traveled to South Africa, thinking we could try them on the long flights or layovers.  Again, no interest or success.

Last week, we tried again with great interest and success, so I bought the first set.  It's a phonetic system for learning to read and very popular right now.  There are 12 books of about 6 pages in the set. Each book focuses on two or three new sounds.  Tim has loved the ABC song from a very young age, but it doesn't do much to help with the phonetic alphabet.  It would be a real accomplishment if someone could write a song as catchy as the ABC song using phonetics.

real skis

Last summer we were 'picked up' at a bar by a couple with two young kids.  They use their son to meet what they hope are interesting people.  We were eating dinner at our local on the patio.  Tim was playing in the grass next to us and a little boy about his age joined him.  When we discovered who the parents were we chatted while the boys played.  When we left, we exchanged phone numbers.  They've become good friends in part because they boys are nearly the same age, Jonathan is about six months older than Tim.  They live nearby, which is handy.  They lived in Germany for two years, so when we all get together we reminisce about life abroad.  The reason they are mentioned here is because they let us borrow Jonathan's skis and boots and Tim had his first go on a real ski slope: Four O'Clock run at Breckenridge.


It was awesome.  I speed up, then slow down.

Instructors substitute 'french fries' for slalom and 'pizza' for snow plow, and we were quick to use their wisdom.  I won't say that Tim mastered it.  But he enjoyed the exercise and will do it again.  We hope to put him in ski school next winter.