Penis/Ginus

Aidan REALLY likes being safe.

So, the boys have been learning about all the body parts and are really GETTING the difference between boys and girls. Or at least that there IS a difference. The boys can MOSTLY say vagina, but of COURSE they know penis. Aidan asked me the other day if a girl in his class had a penis, and I said "No, ____ is a girl." and Aidan says, "Does she have a ginus?" Genius . . . :)

Brady seems like he is our existential kid these days. He gets that certain animals give us things (cows: milk) and certain plants give us things (oranges: orange juice). He asked me the other day "what animal gives us water?" That may seem a little strange, but I thought it was really cool that he is trying to put together where things come from and that something as ubiquitous as water must come from something! It's been a couple of months now that he has begun asking "Who made me?" My answer has been "Your daddy and I and God." This question progressed to animals and who made them, so my answer has been "God made them." Brady asks me in the mall the other day "Why did God make everything?" It pretty much stopped me in my tracks. These are the types of questions I really WANT to have an answer to, but I also know that his answer would probably be better than anything I can come up with. Our amazing friend Tom T. gave me some advice and a little insight that by the time kids are asking these types of questions, they have probably been thinking about them by themselves for awhile, so they may have some pretty interesting/insightful answers themselves. It's hard to deftly allow space for him to answer the question without feeling like i'm just trying to get out of answering it myself. :) But I will try. :)

Potty Training for Gavin. Well, i will say we are making BABY STEPS in this area. After a pointed discussion with his teacher at school about some choices made by one of the aides and our expectations, along with ensuring more open communication about what is happening at school, he has peed in the potty at school at least 4 times, though he has indicated more days than the teachers have told me. That is pretty exciting. Though when we offer for him to sit on the toilet, he pretty much always refuses and has said things like "I will pee on the potty at school." When we have said, "If you pee/poop on the toilet at home you will get a treat AND a sticker." it doesn't seem to phase him one bit. I will say that Gavin has now told us that he has a dirty diaper on 3 or 4 occasions. This is HUGE, since he has NEVER cared he had a dirty diaper enough to get it changed, so we are rewarding that with lots of praise and enthusiasm. While it isn't a big deal yet, I will say I will be delighted when he is potty trained. For him AND us.

In this arena, Aidan and Brady are on like Donkey Kong. It's been pretty awesome. Several weeks ago, Brady was REALLY regular about #2. Like every time he went to the bathroom, he would poop. At one point over the weekend, Curt says, "Brady, you are a pooping machine!" but that was about it. A few weeks later, after I am helping him wipe his bottom (meaning, I am wiping his bottom) Brady busts out with "Mom, I'm a pooping machine! What's a pooping machine?" I nearly died laughing. He thought he was pretty funny too and so he now says it after just about every successful trip to the toilet. After about a week of that, he had wiped his nose and a lone booger made its way to his finger. As I was getting a tissue to wipe his hand off he says "I'm a booger machine!" - Again, hilarious. Aidan and Gavin have picked up on this trend as well and Aidan has called himself a peeing machine, an eating machine (which he is) and today Gavin called himself a "Changing Machine" - after getting his diaper changed and a "Drinking Machine" at lunch. I love how each of them wanted to get in on the action.

The boys class had a trip to Pizza Express last week. I wasn't sure how jazzed i was about it, but they were able to make their own personal cheese pizza and we got some AMAZING pictures. It is amazing how differently the boys react to these types of situations. Gavin was immediately interested in what was going on and totally chill to have the lunch lady hat and apron on. He was ready to dive right in with the dough and the sauce and toppings too. Aidan pretty much grabbed on to my leg and said he didn't want to do it for the first 25 minutes we were there. I think he was a little overwhelmed by all of the people there (2 classrooms of kids plus all parents/caretakers). Brady hung back with Aidan, but was SOOOOO interested in what was going on. I think he was hanging back to help Aidan out, not because he was feeling shy. In the end, everyone made their own pizza, had their EARLY lunch with friends and got some ice cream (yes, at 1030 AM - what can you do?) as part of the deal.

"I will wear the hair net and plastic apron, but you can't make me like it. "Aidan is his mother's son.

Gavin is just too sweet.

No really, too sweet - giving friend Te'a a kiss.

"OK, so maybe this is more interesting than i thought it would be" - Aidan

Flatten my own dough? AWESOME! - Gavin

Hey, look at all of these kids doing the same thing! They don't mind getting their hands dirty . . . - Aidan

Thank you for showing me the "right" way to do it - Brady

I won't eat cheese the rest of the time, but i love adding it to this! - Gavin

I am my father's son - cheese must be placed equidistant from every other piece of cheese on the pizza. - Aidan

BOOM! CHEESE! - Brady

The final product - we ate our granola bars with a little more gusto than the pizza, but ended up having a great morning! (BGA)

Well, since Curt found us a house in his whirlwind trip to Iowa City we have begun talking with the boys about what our new place will be like. They have been telling us what they are looking forward to (with Aidan being the MOST vocal about the lawn mowers). They are looking forward to living near their mowers, grandparents, cousins noah and gabe and snow. I wonder what they think our new place will be like - they will be next door to their cousins and grandparents with a foot of snow and their mowers at the ready?!

Gavin does the magnet puzzle!

B and G goofing around a little in the car

Proud parent alert - the boys are TAKING OFF on their letters and numbers. On 18 March Gavin wrote a legible "S" and "5" on the bathroom wall (in the tub) and could distinguish which was which for me. He also says as we are reading one of our dinosaur books, "That's a deinonychus."And he was right, that was what was written under it, even though it could have been some version of a TRex for all i could tell. The best part about that for me was how clearly he articulated it, especially since he seemed to speak without any enunciation for quite some time. We knew he had it goin' on, we are just excited to see how his language is developing by leaps and bounds. I do think his arabic class helps that as he LOVES it (he just plain loves school in general), but he also likes repeating after our Spanish language CDs, and trying new words out he hears people say in other languages. One of the many gifts of having friends who speak Spanish, German, Russian, French, Swedish and Arabic (and of course who are teaching their kids as well!). Amazing.

Gavin the cowboy doctor (no, he doesn't treat cowboys, just dresses like them)

Brady and his lego cane.

And the story that both thrills me and breaks my heart a little bit. So, we have two books that mention bullies/bullying. One is focused on it and the other just has it as part of a rhyme. Several mornings ago as I am changing Gavin to get him ready for the day, Brady is sitting on the floor waiting to get lotioned up and dressed. He says to me "Mom, what's a bully?" So I explain a bully is someone who is very aggressive or who says something mean to someone to try and get their way. Then Brady says, "Mom, am I a bully sometimes?" I nearly died. But the truth is, sometimes, he really is, especially with his brothers. So I said, "well, honey, yes, sometimes you are a bully. I know you are a good boy, but sometimes you do and say things to try and hurt your brothers or scare them to get your way." (inside I was doing a deep breathing exercise) Then I asked him when he thought he was being a bully and he tells me "well, sometimes when my brother has a toy I want and I hit him, or scream at him or try to take something from him." and I told him that yes, that was when I thought he was being a bully too, but that there were LOTS of other times when he wasn't a bully that he asked for turns and shared with his brothers and did and said kind things to them. I also told him that I knew he loved his brothers and didn't WANT to hurt or scare them, but that sometimes it was really hard to be patient and kind to others. The whole time Brady sat there with sort of a sad look on his face, but very earnest and sincere in the conversation. As Curt said when I shared the story with him, we'd rather him feel a little sad about it now, but possibly change his behavior than be 10 years old and have kids not want to be friends with him. It's still really hard to see him sort of sad and down like that, but talk about expressing his emotional intelligence - WHEW!