Girls

Isaac and I had a good conversation in the car. I think that this is the beginning of many more open communications between mother and son. It began with me asking about a female friend at daycare. He told me that she pushed him. Then he mentioned another girl who has pushed him. We talked about how to respond to pushing (I was careful not to mention that we should not push back for fear of the power of suggestion-he does not need any suggestions for that). We discussed and practiced say: "Please don't push me" (he did great). Then he said the following:

"Girls aren't good for me. I don't like to play with girls, they push me. Boys are good for me. They don't push me. Boys are fun to play with."

YES!!! Just the attitude that we have been aiming for. Keep those girls at a distance until his twenties. I suspect that we still might have to resort to our original plan of assisting the development of social awkwardness (should not be hard since we can easily lead by example there), wearing the same clothes for the whole week, and wearing a coat at all time to cover said clothes.

When I grow up, I will be...

Tonight we were looking at a picture of Jesus as a boy and talking about him growing up. Isaac said that he is going to get bigger and become a horse. I asked him what he will do then and he said live in a barn, eat hay and become a cow. He proceeded to rattle off all the other farm animals that he will become after that. I think it might be tricky to impress on him that being born in a stable/barn is not the greatest thing in the world. Maybe next Christmas he will understand that Jesus was not the luckiest kid in the world in that respect.

A Witch

Isaac and I were just discussing William's imminent transition to crawling (or at least it seems reasonably imminent). I asked Isaac what William will do when he starts crawling, in hopes of helping him anticipate the toy-snatching that will ensue. He replied that William will not be a baby and that he will be a witch. Who knew?

Yesterday morning, Aleks woke up before the boys and began to hear odd noises upstairs. First he heard Isaac singing to himself (Old McDonald and some other classics). Then he started to hear the bear singing in William's crib. William is not capable of pulling it to make noise, so he got suspicious. Turns out Isaac had woken up and climbed into the crib with William. He was talking to him and telling him to wake up. Aleks got Isaac out and the amazing thing is that William still remained in the crib and slept a bit longer. William has become a much deeper sleeper since we put the boys in the same room.

In other news, we recently went to the zoo and had a nice time. Isaac is a bit animal aficionado, so this was right up his alley. William did not complain.

We headed to Ithaca for Thanksgiving and had a nice time. This shot came from after Aleks got back from a run and was doing pushups. Isaac wanted to join in and insisted on being without his shirt, too.

This week Isaac's animals had a party in the train station. It doesn't get much better than that for a toddler.

We celebrated Aleks' birthday this week. Isaac helped blow out candles and open presents.