Eric's teachers usually post different ideas of sensory or other activities to try at home and one of most recent suggestions was sand. It occurred to me that we had an entire box upstairs of kinetic sand that we did with Olivia all the time when she was this age. So we pulled it out one weekend and both kids seemed to enjoy it.
Given the success of the sand, the next weekend it was super rainy so I brought out a playdoh kit I had been saving for just such an occasion.
Both of them were super intrigued by this kit -- so much so that they both refused the plan to get donuts for breakfast and then come home and play with it! This kit has been worth the money for sure - they played with it ALL. WEEKEND.
We also enjoyed Olivia's Field Day at school. Olivia is on the Purple Team so we all wore our purple that day.
(Side story: Having Olivia as a big sister, Eric is really interested in hair bows. He always notices Olivia's bows, even asking her the other day "New bow Yah Yah?" when she was wearing one he had not seen before. So, on the morning of Field Day Olivia had woken up early and was dressed before Eric even woke up. She went into with me to wake him up for school/work and he immediately noticed her big purple bow and asked her for a "boo" (blue) bow. She got him one which he LOVED! I have no idea where he got this but he told me "Its a man bow!" and now refers to it as such.)
This year she knew what to expect and was counting down the days! We woke up that morning to some pretty dreary weather but luckily it all cleared up by the afternoon and we had a perfectly rain-free (and HOT!) day.
I knew it was going to be a good day when I got this text from our babysitter, Katie, that she was Olivia's Upper School Buddy!
Matt and I took off work early and headed up to watch the festivities and hang out!
Olivia won the cake at the cake walk so we all had cake for breakfast the next morning!
Matt is back playing tennis on Saturday mornings so I'm always looking for activities to do with the kids. One morning I heard about Touch a Truck at a local park. I had no idea what to expect but decided to try it. Oh my gosh! It was crazy -- at least 20 huge trucks parked on the lawns of this beautiful neighborhood park, tons of people, food trucks, music, and lots of kid friendly activities. Both kids had fun (though I think Olivia had way more fun than anyone - including her - expected!). Eric was a little nervous about all the people and once it got super crowded and they started letting the kids do the horns/alarms on the fire engines, he quickly declared "Rheric's scared. No horns! Home! Home!" (PS. I absolutely LOVE that he tells us his emotions. Really he only knows sad, happy, or scared but I say that's good for 1 year olds!)
Olivia had her 7.5 birthday a few weeks ago. We of course celebrated with a cookie cake and a new LOL Dolls nightgown.
At 7.5, Olivia is seeming so old and mature to us. She is still really liking school and excelling at reading, math and spelling. She has made a few good girlfriends that make school much more fun. Outside of school I would say her favorite thing is gymnastics. And she's pretty good at it - tumbling and cartwheeling all over the house and furniture ALL THE TIME. We are also taking piano lessons after school which I think has also been a favorite of hers. She is of course a sweet and thoughtful big sister to Eric, always aware of him and worried about making sure he's safe. She loves him unconditionally even though he can be a stinker to her at times. Matt and I still spend most nights sitting on the couch and rehashing the day -- most of which is filled with stories of Olivia and the funny and smart things she said or did. She is intuitive, thoughtful, creative and silly. She loves her family so fiercely and is walking a bit of a tightrope right now between baby and big girl. I think there are definite moments of jealousy and longing to be a baby like Eric who seems to get away with much more than she does and doesn't have the responsibility of school/homework/chores. We try in those moments to kindly and firmly help her find her way and try to reward her with moments of "big" -- staying up a few minutes late, big sister date nights, playdates with her friends, and recently she has started cooking a few meals here and there. The other Sunday we were welcomed to "Olivia's Quesadilla Cafe" where she prepared quesadillas made to order for lunch! We love this girl SO big!
And, as for Eric, he is really living his best life too. As always, I sort of marvel that he is growing up surrounded by so much love and attention. Not that Olivia wasn't the exact same way, but I think most parents are obsessed with their kids. I feel like Eric is a little different in that he has a sister who also is crazy about him. (Aunt Naz - if you're reading this, I can't image the love/smothering you felt from 2 big sister!). From the way he sleeps to watching him eat a cupcake, the 3 of us are still just smitten with every little thing he does.
Eric and I have been enjoying our Fridays together. He found baby Stella (which Olivia had forgotten about in favor of her American Girl Dolls) and loved on her just like Olivia used to!
He doesn't really play with any toys -- his true love is still books. But he has recently gotten into Daniel Tiger. Matt got him some of the figurines from the show and I thought he might like to put them in the train. So I set the whole thing up and he played with it for about 2 minutes before declaring "No like" and then just went about lining up the figurines next to the train.
So we mostly enjoy our Fridays by staying in PJs and eating breakfast on the couch or in his room while we read lots of books. His current favorite is Penguin and Tiny Shrimp Don't Do Bedtime!
A few Eric stories for the memory book:
1. He still calls himself "Rheric." Other cute ones are "bup" for up; "mammalmal" is animal; "wewwow" is yellow. He says Daaanel for Daniel Tiger and haaaand for hand in a way that almost has a British accent? Its adorbs. He says "boppin" for open and "bobble" for bottle. He is 100% adamant that he will absolutely not under any circumstances drink milk from a cup. Cups are for water. The only civilized way to drink milk is warmed up in a bobble. And, don't even think about giving him a "yittle" bobble. He needs it in the big bobble.
2. He has decided that I belong to him and Olivia can have Matt. He is constantly saying "My mamma. My mamma. Yah Yah Dada." Sometimes he will say it randomly just to make sure we are all on the same page. But if Matt tries to pick him up or if Olivia tries to hug me, he will yell it and freak out!
3. On this same page, Eric likes to troll Matt sometimes by calling him Matt sometimes. This is another one that we aren't sure where he picked up. But every now and then he will just refer to him as "Matt" and this infuriates Matt. He's all "Eric. My name is dada. Call me dada." And Eric's all "No way Matt."
4. The kids had some weird fight the other day over which one of them was "cute." Probably my fault because basically everything either of them does I refer to as "so cute." So Olivia, being the diplomat that she is, decided that Eric was "cute" and she was "pretty." Eric now takes that as the gospel and will announce to anyone he knows and completely random times "Rheric cute. Yah Yah pretty."
5. He basically still refuses to eat anything other than junk. I can put the juiciest most delicious fruit in front of him and he will throw it on the floor without even trying it. But offer him a cupcake and you can barely get the wrapper off before he's licking it! I have immersed myself in childhood nutrition blogs/podcasts/books to try and get some help. One trick I thought was interesting was to tell your kid they can always spit something out if they don't like it. Because I think the thing with Eric is that he's just stubborn. The kid wouldn't try mashed potatoes which I think he would love if he would only put it in his mouth. So we told Eric that he can always put it on his tongue and spit it out if he doesn't like. Obvi a huge backfire -- he now spits out everything and tell us "Okay to spit it out!" happily as he does.
6. We were at a birthday party recently and the kids were in the Jolly Trolley. A little girl tripped next to Olivia so she picked the little girl up and was carrying her to the front so she could get out. Eric saw this and went into near hysterics "No! No! My Yah Yah! My Yah Yah!"
7. We are working on numbers and letters with him. He knows about 3/4 of the letters and can count to 10!
8. He is mostly a happy, easy-going little guy but when he wants something and can't have it or when he does something he knows he isn't supposed to do, he always reacts in the same way. Pouty lip. Eyes averted. I was taping him the other day when he was mad that I wouldn't give him crackers for breakfast and was able to capture it!
10. His favorite word is probably "mine." He says it for things that actually are his (his water), things that are questionable (me or Olivia?); and things that are flat out not his (the slide at the park). This love of "mine" takes all forms -- "my did it!" or "my do it!"
11. Pockets. He is obsessed with pockets (pop-its) but thinks any opening in your clothes is a pocket. He will stuff things up his shirt sleeves, down the top of his shirt and up the bottom of his shorts/pants claiming they are pop-its.
But the best part of Fridays is when we pick up Olivia and usually take her for an after school snack and park-date!
And, last but not least, we baked and decorated some Easter cookies last weekend. Olivia helped me cut them out and bake them so they were ready to decorate when Eric woke up from nap (hence the bed head). Think both of them ate as many decorations and frosting as they used to decorate the cookies!
No comments:
Post a Comment