Kid Fun

Today's conversations with the kids have been full of humor for me.  I love days like that when I find a lot of joy and entertainment in just being with them.  I thought I'd share some of my favorite moments here...

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I dropped some Father's Day cards at the post office after picking up J and O from VBS today.  An elderly man held the door open for us as we were leaving and said, "Ladies, first!"  So, J and I walked out and O tagged along with us.

There was a second set of doors at the exit and O quickly moved into position to politely hold the door for J and I and the elderly man.

He thanked O as he passed through the door and said to me, "Well, he's going to be a real gentleman one day!"

I said, "We're trying to work on that a little bit every day!"

In the car, I turned to O and said, "Did you hear what that man said about you?  That you're going to be a gentleman someday?"

O paused a moment before he said, "Well, maybe ... or maybe I'll be a doctor instead."

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J and N were playing on the homeschool laptop while I worked on some things at my desk and E played on the floor between us.  I do try to keep things picked up where she's going to be, but she always finds random bits of paper or whatever that I would never see if it weren't for her sitting so close to the ground.

J noticed E picking up something tiny off the carpet and swiftly got it from her.  Then she commented, "Taking care of babies is really hard sometimes!"

I said, "Yes, it is.  That's why you should wait till you've been married for a while before you have one."

N said, "Yeah, J, you should wait till you're at least 14!"

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Then, not as humorous, but still fun...

I'm amazed at how well E is learning to verbally express herself.  She's 10 months old now and I've been hearing her say certain words really clearly, while other ones come out kind of phonetically, but not well pronounced (a repetition of sounds, I guess).

When I tickled her feet the other day, she repeated my "Tickle, tickle," with "Tat-toe, tat-toe," and a repeated thrusting of her foot towards me, so I'd tickle her more.  So cute!

But today, she saw her Uncle C wearing a red ball cap and kept pointing at it and asking "That?" which I assume is her way of saying, "What's that?"

I said, "That's Uncle C's hat.  Red hat.  Hat."

She repeated clearly, "Hat."

I cheered her on and she repeated it and pointed a couple more times before she got distracted by something else.

A little later, she was looking at one of her books and in it was a drawing of a little boy wearing a red ball cap.  She pointed at his head and said very clearly, "Hat!"

I was so excited that she could make the association of a real-life hat and a drawn one, with a separation of time in between.

It's an amazing feeling to be able to take care of my nieces regularly and especially seeing what 7 to 12 months is all about since I missed that age-range with all of our kids.  It can be challenging at times, but it's so much fun, too.