These are a few of my favorite things...

I absolutely LOVE the stage of development where my kids are learning language. It's the BEST to hear things that come out of their mouths, and how they say them. That said, I have a few fave's from both Jack and Kate that I hold onto. Is it wrong that I don't want to let any of them go, even though of these on the list are already long gone?



Jack



Jack has a hard time getting his tongue around words and sounds a lot. It's common for him, when first learning a word, to get the sounds backwards, or to add in random letters that don't belong. When he was 20 mos old, I actually took him to Early Intervention, afraid that he had a speech issue. Now I just laugh at myself, b/c while he might not say things correctly all the time, he clearly has NO speech issues, and talks up a storm! Some of my all-time favorite Jack-isms:



1. Agits -- this is my mother's cat, Alex. He says it so purposefully, too "A-gits!" I love it.

2. Hackin -- Napkin. He asks for a hackin any time he sneezes, or gets something on his hands, or spills something -- he's a bit OCD, I will admit.

3. Biddy Nose -- Dirty nose. This is also when he sneezes. "Mommy -- I have a biddy nose. I need a hackin!" Love.

4. Tom-tabo -- Tomato. Jack loves Tom-Tabos.

5. Candy-roo -- Kangaroo.

6. Plencils -- pencils. Jack can color with plencils b/c he's a big boy. Katie is a baby, and she still needs clayons.

7. Little O-Times -- Little Einsteins. Every night he wants Little O-Times in Daddy's bed.



Songs -- Jack sings all day long. He always has, even as a baby. In tune even! But I love to hear how he interprets songs. One of his favorites is Silent Night. Here is the Jack version:



"Silent Night, HOOOOOLily Night, Aaaaalll is calm, Aaaaaalll is bite, Raaaabaaa birdies mother and child, Hoooolily innnna ho tender and MY-old, Sleeep in HEBENLY peeeeace! Sleep in hebenly peace." We sing this song most every night at bedtime at Jack's request.



Kate



Kate is definitely a maniac, but oddly enough she has this quiet little husky voice. With a fantastic lisp. So just about everything that comes out of her mouth is cute at this point. A clear favorite is "yes" which comes out from Kate as "Yeth." I also love her newest word, which is "no" and which is delivered with no uncertain terms, very emphatically, and slightly nasally "Noooohhhhh!" Usually accompanied by her hand up in the "Stop, In the Name of Love" position. Birdie is another front-runner for me, coming out as "Booa-dee! Booa-dee!" And please, which comes out "peeth!" She has her own word for grapes, which no one can figure out the origin of, but it sounds like "bubeeth! bubeeth!" I have no idea where she got that. She can also say "gapth" if prodded, but prefers "bubeeth." Her vocabulary at this point is mind-boggling, and she's starting to use a lot of sentences as well. "Way [where] Jack go?" being one of her favorites.



I just love all their little, cute baby words, and I dread the day they lose them, and instead just get annoyed when I insist on using them anyway. I can picture a 13 year old Jack rolling his eyes and saying "NO, Mother, I don't need a NAPKIN" when I ask him if he needs a hackin. LOL. But for me, hackin will never die, and Alex will always be Agits.

A Wonderful Weekend!

We had a GREAT weekend in the Finkelman household! The weather was spectacular, everyone was feeling better for the most part, and we got to go to a friend's birthday party on Sunday. I can't ask for any more! On Saturday, we played with toys while Daddy slept, and then after naps we went out to the backyard to pick some flowers and enjoy the weather. The kids love to play in the backyard. They have two small slides, a wagon, a baseball tee, and some golf toys. Mommy can't wait to get them a big swingset. They LOVE to play on the swings and the slide at the park, and Jack has recently fallen in love with "the swirly slide" at the tot lot. We are absolutely LOVING our new house and backyard, now that the weather is getting better!

On Sunday, our friend Jaden celebrated his third birthday. Kate got to wear a party dress, which she loves. Funny -- Mommy picked out a party dress that Nana recently sent, and brought it out for Katie to wear. She took one look at the dress and said "NOOOO!" Repeated efforts to put the dress over her head were rebuffed, and in the end I gave up. I took another party dress out of the closet and held it up for her approval. "Oooooohhhh!!! Yeth!" she said, reaching for the dress. Who would have thought at 17 mos she would have such STRONG opinions about what she's wearing? I think we're in for some trouble.

Jack and Katie had a great time at Jaden's party. There were lots of kids to play with, and Katie found a bunch of stuffed animals to carry around the whole day. Jack loved singing Happy Birthday to Jaden.

After the party, we went home to wake up Daddy and go to Reston Town Center to play at the fountain and go out to dinner. Jack loves throwing pennies in the fountain!

Today Jack is at work with Mommy since he came down with pink-eye last night. But after a struggle to get eye drops in him, his eyes are already getting better, and Mommy thinks we'll be at school again tomorrow. I'm looking forward to a nice Mommy & Jack day today, though!

Please Let the Sickies Go Away!

It's about time that I update this blog. I seem to be really bad about these things, even though I decide from time to time this is an easy way to keep in touch. At any rate, I'm just coming off a really, really bad week of the sickies with poor Kate, so figured I'd jump back into the blog-world now that I'm back among the living. It all started last Wednesday night after bedtime, when Katie was crying in her crib and wanted to be held. I picked her up, and she promptly lost her entire day's meal all over me. It was lovely, I'm hollering at Andrew through the monitor "I need backup! I need backup!" and Jack is starting to wail in his bedroom. She ended up sleeping with me that night, and from that moment the barfing had begun. She didn't keep down any food again until Monday. She also attached herself to me and her blankie like velcro, and we spent the next five days getting to know each other very well.

It was so sad to watch! :-( I wish I could have done something for her. At any rate, on Monday I took her to work with me, and she seemed like she was doing well, but then she had another meltdown and we went BACK to the pedi only to discover the poor baby was wheezing and had a raging ear infection, too! I don't know what my poor baby did to deserve that, but it was more than any baby should have to handle. So on the neb my poor baby has gone, along with some antibiotics and another oral steroid. She seemed well enough to go to daycare today, but Mommy will be picking her up early for a follow up at the pedi today.

My poor, poor baby girl...