Category: Updates about Andrew

Feb. 3: Andrew has been loving letters.  This morning, for example, he woke up at 6am when I was heading out to the gym.  I tried to convince him to go back to bed, but he didn’t want to go.  When I asked him what he would do to amuse himself, he said, “Write letters” and sleepily stumbled into the sunroom to his chalkboard.
Tom has been coming over most mornings the last couple weeks, and he and Andrew have been writing up a storm.

Andrew has been writing capital letters.  He’s writing lower-case letters.  He’s making letters out of play-doh and blocks and string.  He’s trying to read words every-which-way.  When the mood strikes with this kid, I need to be ready to go!

It’s been great having Tom over, because he’s a great teacher and follower, and he and Andrew have been having a lot of time to write together.  Sylvia doesn’t always make it super-easy to write with the little guy.  She wants to eat chalk!

In other news, both kids have been pretty sick this past week.  Andrew’s mostly better, but Sylvia is a miserable wreck.  Poor darling clearly feels awful.

Jan. 26: Andrew sure is a cute kid!  Tom came over this morning, and he and Andrew had a wonderful time playing and writing letters together.  Andrew has been tracing letters for the last month or so, and Tom was teaching him to free-hand letters.  They were having a blast.  It gave me a chance to clean the bathroom, wash windows, dust, vacuum, mop, and do meal planning for the week.  Thanks Tom!
I’ve been keeping a list of cute Andrewisms, and here they are:

• Andrew: “Mom, can you make me a pickle and cheese sandwich?”
  Me: “Uh, I guess so.”
  Andrew: “Are you going to have one too?”
  Me: “No.”
  Andrew: “You know, it’s good to try new things, Mom.”
• This has been an ongoing joke of Andrew’s for the last couple months.  While we’re eating a meal, he burps.  Then he says, “Excuse me!”  One of us will say, “You’re excused.”  He cracks a huge smile and laughs, “I’m not going anywhere!”
  It never gets old.
• On Sunday morning, Andrew woke up before Sylvia and (amazingly) entertained himself for a while.  After hearing him up for a while, I finally roused myself from the bed to go and check on him.  He was lying on his back on the bathroom floor looking up at me.
  Andrew: “Mommy, I am all alone, and I need someone to care for me!”
• We rented a Sesame Street Healthy Muppets video…kind of a work-out video for kids.  Andrew has loved watching it.  After jumping up and down along with the show, he came over to me and put my hand on his chest.
  Andrew: “Mom, feel my heart!  It’s pumping with joy!”
• After reflecting, Andrew said to Bryan, “I love all the adults in the world.”  He has some pretty wonderful adults in his life!

In other news, I had a large snafu with my camera last night.  I downloaded 200-some photos after which the computer crashed.  When it rebooted, the images were gone and I’d deleted them off the camera.  I’d be more annoyed if they weren’t all photos of the cats, Sylvia making crazy faces, and Andrew jumping off the chair.  I’m mostly worried that since this happened once it could happen again.  The thought keeps me up at night.

Jan. 20: I’ve recently re-introduced a quiet time (dubbed siesta time) into our afternoon.  Andrew stopped napping at least six months ago, but there are times when he could clearly use a rest.  A book I recently read (Sleepless in America: Practical Strategies to Help Your Family Get the Sleep it Deserves by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka) talks about the importance of an afternoon quiet time for kids (and adults!).  So for the last week Andrew has had 45 minutes to an hour in the early afternoon when he needs to play by himself.  So far he hasn’t slept, but I get some down(ish) time and he is practicing playing independently…a skill he doesn’t like to exercise often.

Today we made a list titled “Andrew’s Playtime”  It included play-doh, markers, books, puzzles, animals, and sleep.  he was really happy to help me make the list.  And I’m happy to take a moment to decompress on the computer before the afternoon cranks up again.
In the last couple minutes, Andrew has brought me two playdoh creations.  The first worm-shaped item was announced to me (in a whisper) to be “a velvet monitor…no bigger than my finger.”  The secondworm-shaped item was “an echidna bone.”  He asked if I could watch it while he went away to see if it “comes alive.”
What a kid!

Jan. 15: Aunt Maretta got Andrew a cape for Christmas, and my boy has sure been having fun flying in his super cape.  He likes me to take pictures of him jumping, and I made a whole album (at his request) of Superboy jumping.
Andrew didn’t get to go to preschool this morning because the temperatures were so low.  Our thermometer said it was -11 degrees!  Even though Andrew loves, loves, loves preschool, and even though he was supposed to be celebrating his birthday at preschool today (since his birthday is during the summer), he’s been pretty nonplussed about it all.  Instead, he happily helped me wash the windows and dust.  What a good kid:-)
We’ve been having a blast the last three days hanging out with Uncle Joe.  Andrew sure adores his Uncle, and we’re soaking in our time with him.

Jan. 2:  Andrew and I got some fun playtime in this morning while Sylvia was napping. His imagination is so vivid. Down the road, I thought I might enjoy remembering how a play-session with Andrew went, so here it is, captured for posterity.
(note: Andrew was naked as a jailbird the entire time we were playing.  I was dressed in layers…and was cold!)

After a long game of Sequence for Kids, we snuggled under a blanket.  In a heart-warming moment, Andrew wrapped himself around me and joyfully declared that he was so happy that I could stay home with him and Sylvia.

He decided the blanket was a den and we were both foxes.  While in our den, he asked me what we were going to eat.  I’d name an animal, then he would catch the prey with his hand, take a bite, and give the rest to me to eat.  In this manner, we ate nearly every animal I know of…all the animals at the zoo, all the farm animals I could think of, all the backyard birds, forest dwellers, fish, whales, and polar creatures that would come to mind.  Full, we’d crawl under the covers of our den and fall asleep until "our bellies were as flat as a pancake!"  Then we’d eat more.

Continue reading “Imagination gone wild”

Dec. 4: In the two hours since Andrew returned home from preschool, he’s uttered a handful of memorable phrases.  For example:

• As we were leaving the playground,
  Andrew: “How much did you and Sylvia miss me while I was at preschool?”
  Me: “Sooo much!  Sylvia kept saying, ‘Where is Big Brother, I miss him so much?  When will he come home again?'”
  Andrew to Sylvia: (grinning from ear to ear) “It’s alright now, Sylvia, I’m back!  I haven’t given her a kiss yet, Mom.  Can you bend down so I can kiss her yiddle head?”
• When we got home, Andrew discovered that I’d put up all the Christmas decorations.  He was running around the house admiring them all and wanted to try his favorite, a wooden Santa music box.  “Oh, Mom!  It’s so beeautiful!”
• Andrew requested a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (big shocker there) for lunch today.  I made Sylvia and myself some noodles.  That was a mistake, because of course then Andrew wanted noodles too.  So I told him that if he finished all his sandwich, I would make him some noodles.
  He didn’t like that plan.  He suggested that he put his (mangled) sandwich in the refrigerator, “for later” and have noodles now.  After trying several other angles, he laid his head down on his arms and sobbed.  Must be tired from school today.  Through his sobs, he choked out that I “wasn’t talking very nicely to him.”  Apparently saying, “Honey, I understand that you really want noodles.  If you finish all your sandwich including the crusts, I’ll make you some.” doesn’t count as speaking nicely:)
• After our tearful lunch, I went to put Sylvia down for her nap.  Andrew was helping me rip our Christmas CDs onto the computer.  He loves to help with that and can do it all on his own.  I’d only been nursing Sylvia for a few moments when I hear, “Help helphelp HELP help help HELP HELP!! MOMMY!  HELP!”  I jump with Sylvia (sort of expecting to find his finger stuck in the computer, given the frantic-ness of his cries), and come out to find an utterly distraught Andrew looking at the computer screen and crying and nearly hyperventilating.  I’ve seen such behavior in adults before when computers don’t work well, but I wasn’t very pleased with him for having me jump up with Sylvia (thereby completely messing up her going-down-for-a-nap cycle).  I told him I’d help him when I was done putting Sylvia down, and he continued to dramatically cry at the computer for about five minutes saying things like, “Help, oh please oh please help me!!!  Oh no, Mommy help helphelphelp helpmehelpmehelpmehelpmehelpme!!!”
  Syliva was so intrigued by the dramatics occurring in the next room that she wouldn’t settle down for her nap.  So I came out to find out what was wrong.  Turns out that the songs were being alphabetized by name instead of track number so the track numbers were all out of order.  Makes me shake my head to think back on how completely that FREAKED HIM OUT.

Andrew’s now taking a nap.  Sylvia isn’t.  She’s crying sporadically as she tries to help herself fall asleep.  Oh, wait, a moment of silence.  Sweet, sweet silence.  I daren’t check on them both for fear that it will wake them!

PS.  They’ve been sleeping for an hour!!
And I just remembered another Andrew quote.  This morning during breakfast, Andrew was admiring his pajamas.  “Those pjs are from Grandma Margot,” I told him.  “She got you those for your second birthday.”  A look of delight appeared on Andrew’s face, he hugged himself and then waved his arms in the air, “I LOVE Grandma Margot!!,” he said.

Nov. 21: For your listening pleasure, here are Andrew and Bryan with “A, B, C”

Nov. 12: It’s good to be back home again!  The kids and I had a good time being back in a normal routine today.  We had story hour and Sylvia’s 9-month doctor’s appointment, and then we had Terry and Tom over for dinner.  Unfortunately, in the mid-afternoon I developed a killer headache.  Sylvia was napping, and as I swallowed some pills and curled up in bed, I told Andrew he could do anything he wanted as long as it didn’t involve waking me or Sylvia.  When I came-to 45 minutes later, my head ache had cleared (thank goodness!).
I walked into the kitchen, and there on the counter were all the clean dishes from the dishwasher.  I was amazed!  Andrew had used his “free time” to unload the dishwasher!  My heart melted a little more when I saw that he had also loaded the dirty breakfast dishes in the dishwasher.  He’d done it so carefully.  What a boy.  I can’t believe he did that.  My little three-year-old baby is getting to be so big!  He’s one of the neatest people I know:)

Nov. 2: Behold!  A new installment of the cute things that Andrew says.  I’ve got a couple notebooks where I jot these things down, and the time has come to share them.  This boy…  He’s something else.  And so sweet and snuggly.  I really love him.  So now without further ado..

Andrew: “Mommy, guess what!! (as he runs down the hall, leaping into the air like a gleeful leprechaun)
Mom “What is it, Andrew?”
Andrew: (as he pulls his pants up to his knees).  “I’m getting hair on my legs!! I’m getting to be a big daddy!”

After preschool, Andrew flew from the playground and gave Aunt Melanie a leaping-hug…
Andrew:  I missed you for five days while I was at preschool!  I can’t even BELIEVE it!
(and later, throughout Aunt Mel’s visit)
Andrew: “I love you so much, I can’t even BELIEVE it!”
or
Andrew: “You’re the SWEETEST Aunt Mel in the whole world.”

As we are driving in the car, Andrew channeled the book “Guess How Much I Love You”
Andrew: “I like you to the sun.  I like you as much as the bushes!  I like you as high as the pavement!”

After giving him a cup of yummy cider
Andrew: “Thanks for giving me some apple cider, Mommy.  Dat was just what I wanted.”

While folding laundry on my bed
Mom: “Andrew-man, please don’t hop on the bed.”
Andrew: (while bouncing up and down) “I’m not hopping, Mom.  I’m jumping!”

While we were at the Windsor Cemetery visiting my mom’s grave one beautiful fall afternoon
Andrew: “Grandma Margot died.  She’s buried in there (pointing at the ground).  (pause) I wish she were here.  I miss Grandma Margot.
(pause) I bet Grandpa misses her.”
and later
Andrew: “I wish Grandma Margot didn’t die.”

While driving, Andrew is coo-ing and goo-ing and being silly with Sylvia…
Andrew: “Mommy, I like you.  I like Sylvia too.  (pause) I like Sylvie better than you.”
Mom: “I’m glad you like your sister so much.”
Andrew: “I love her.  She’s so SWEET!”

Finally, not something Andrew said, but a snippet of a conversation I had with Jessica that really cracked me up.  I think it demonstrates how even boys who love their little sisters can be too aggressive sometimes.  And how much it can help to have a friend to talk (and then laugh) about it!
Me: “Andrew bit Sylvia today.  Hard.  He left teeth marks.”
Jessica: “Ouch!  What did you do about that? (pause)  I ask because Eli hit Celia over the head with a fire truck.”

These kids are just too much!