Belated.

I feel badly, that I haven't posted in awhile. I have been busy being an awesome mom. We are so excited for the new year and all the wonderful adventures it has in store. I feel like so many of my posts are about the children individually, but honestly they are all at such different places.

  Alex will be 1 years old tomorrow. I am saddened beyond belief that my last baby is easing his way into toddler hood. He is walking very well and walks everywhere. He says "mama" and "I" (his version of 'hi') consistently. He has learned to go up and down stairs. He plays with his fork and tries hard to use is correctly. Still not sleeping very well, we have spurts of great nights and spurts of sleepless nights. He loves his board books. He does not like new people, cries very hard if he feels I am leaving him. If I set him down to wash my hands or help a sibling, he gets very upset. We have chosen not to push it. We encourage new people to talk to him and give him time, he will warm up when he wants too. It has been very interesting to see who he chooses to like and who he chooses not too. When he likes someone he walks over to them arms outstretched, when held he will rub his face on theirs. Very cute.

  Jasey is continuing to test our limits. She will deliberately do things she knows are not okay, then deliberately refuse to listen when asked to stop. She is resisting redirection. Some battles have been easily conquered by giving her a similar outlet. She was choosing to cut things with scissors like her hair, the dogs hair, and brother's hair. She would lose her scissor privileges and upon earning them back would commit the same offense. Finally, I decided to give her some used worn out dolls and LET her cut their hair. Guess what? No more problems, in fact she will ask if she can cut dolly hair. In other situation where I felt she wasn't listening, but getting into things. I readdressed how I was approaching the situation and many times including her solves the problem. In stead of getting upset when she goes through my cupboards when I'm making dinner, I now ask her to face my cans of food and she is thrilled. I find it so interesting how some children find such immense gratification from purposed work.

  C.J. is learning leaps and bounds. He loves to try new things, and his independence is amazing. We have begun our 2nd semester at our home school co-op and he just makes friends and tries new things so easily. He is taking art and boys club. In boys club they made miniature catapults and made up code name, which is right up his ally. This month will start basketball and this year Dad will be his coach. We are all excited for that one. He remains very into anything army and we are encouraging this whole heartily. He has several real army pieces, cameo clothes, a compass that he learned to use. Face paint that we sat down and learned why it's used. He loves using it for dramatic play. He continues to get books from the library along the same lines. He has learned so much about the armed forces. This is child led learning.  I know he is learning when he is so into it, he is jumping ahead of the lesson, creating more complex math problems that are following the army story he wrote for English, that he was able to write after reading army books he chose.

I can't wait to see what this year brings.