Gabriel

Taken 4 months ago

All is going well with the little man. Lots of changes going on with him and he is growing like crazy. He surprises me on a daily basis with what he able to do and learn.

We have this good night book that begins "I'm really not tired", says Samuel McKay. Gabriel took off with this REALLY thing. He says it with everything now. "I'm REALLY not tired mommy, I REALLY don't want to go to bed". "I'm REALLY not hungry daddy". He also does this Yeaaaaaaaah thing. During conversation, when he agrees with you, he will say Yeaaaaaaaah! He has become really good at jigsaw puzzles and not just the big ones. All we do is give him the piece of puzzle and he works it out for himself as to where it should go. Sometimes he needs a hint, but usually not. He loves to build just about anything, and loves his trains!!

"Want daddy to go back to work and Amelia to go back to the hospital." As you might be able to tell from this statement, we have been having some trouble with Gabriel and his listening to his Daddy. He only wants Mommy to do things right now, but he just goes through his phases and Daddy has been working a bit more than even usual. Traveling a lot for work and such. I think that he is just at the age now where he doesn't quite understand why he is gone, he just notices that he is gone. Today after school, he even turned on Mommy. Being tired and crabby, he said that "mommy can go back to work and Gabriel will go back to school." I of coarse said that I could go to work, that I didn't have to be here with him and Amelia, but that I would rather spend my time with them. He was quick to correct himself when I told him that going back to work would mean that he wouldn't see mommy until the end of the day, every day. He is also going through a phase where he isn't exactly excited about his sister either. He is still sweet to her, by picking up her toys when she drops them and hands them back to her. He says things like "mommy doesn't want to play with me". Breaks my heart! He just doesn't quite know what to think about the loss of some attention.

He can officially put on his shoes all by himself. He is Mr. Independent for sure. It is so hard to allow him to just do things for himself in the wake of my rushing!

He calls clothes "dress", as in, Gabriel, it is time to get dressed. "Is it time to put dress on?"

Now, we have certainly had our fair share of the NO phases, but he more recently went through a super fun phase that we will call the "no, no, no, no, no, no, no" phase. I was asking Daddy, where does he come up with these things. Daddy was quick to admit that he might have gotten it from him. I wasn't convinced until shortly after we had the conversation, Daddy did say that to Gabriel. I then noticed that I said it. But since, we have made adjustments with us, and therefore have noticed a difference with Gabriel. It's truly amazing what they pick up on! Along with this recent phase, he became overall very defiant. Screaming and yelling. He would refuse to listen to us both and would fight us with just about every request. One day, mommy and Gabriel were going to the store together and Daddy said that he was going to pack up all of his toys. Sure enough, when we got back, almost all of his toys downstairs were gone (for those who have been here recently, you know this is a lot), including the ever loved train table. I forgot just how big our living room is! I think this was very effective, because he is listening better now and is slowly getting his toys back day by day as long as he listens to mommy and daddy. After all of this started, I figured that Gabriel needed some serious one on one time. And since he hasn't gotten to see daddy very much lately because of work, we had him go on a daddy date. I think we are going to start doing this every month with him. We each take him out separately once a month and we are thinking about letting him stay up late on Friday nights to spend a bit more time with just mommy and daddy. We will try this out and see how it goes. His first date with daddy. Gabriel got to go on his first train ride!!!!! It was super cool! Windows wide open, lots of green trees and TRAINS!!!! He and daddy had a great time!

Friends of ours took us on their boat this summer and Gabriel enjoyed his very first boat ride this summer. He was not crazy about it at first, but he warmed up to it. Wasn't super excited about the amount of wind mostly, but he got used to it and even learned to like it. We swam in the lake a ton, ate lunch, skipped naps, and fell asleep on mommy on our way back to shore! It was a beautiful and very fun day!

We built a camp fire in the back yard with him for the first time the other night. He LOVED this and was very excited. I am pretty sure he didn't stop talking for a couple of hours straight. We ate dinner outside and popped pop corn. I think he really appreciated having some time with just his mommy and daddy. We are thinking about having "late night Fridays". The idea is to spend just a little bit more time with him, just the three of us, by letting him stay up a little later than usual. This was the first attempt. We had a great time, but getting him to bed was painful...so we shall see.

He got his big boy hair cut finally. We have attempted a couple of times now, but the planets were all aligned this weekend to allow us to get him to sit through the buzzzzzzzzzzz!

BEFORE

With Daddy, AFTER (his bangs are actually more even than they look here)

My sister-in-law started me with some really cool toddler teaching apps for my iphone and I have taken off with it! There are a ton of really cool ones out there and he LOVES them. He has learned so much and has gotten so good at them!!! He is a master of puzzles now, pretty hard ones too. He likes to play memory type games too, and plays a fierce Ninja Worrier! Some things such as Monkey Lunch Box have become so easy for him, that he started doing the exact opposite that the app is asking him to do, just to be different. But he still chooses to play them. He has his own Iphone and he knows how to use it better than some adults. I really can't say enough for these teaching tools. He now knows what a truncated pyramid is pentagonal prism are. I didn't even know what they were, now I do!!! He is tracing his upper and lower case letters with this great app! He is tracing letters with his left hand, but he does a lot with his right had too. Still not sure which side he is going to end up favoring. He even plays two games at once to add an extra challenge!

Gabriel started school and his teacher says that he has very good manners. He did have some trouble to start out with. The first day had a few tears by Gabriel and Mommy, but overall, not as bad as I expected it to be (on both ends). The second day, he was fine going. There have been a few episodes here and there since, but over all, he really enjoys school. Today his teacher told me that he was starting to break out of his shell a bit in that he was running around at recess screaming AHHHHHH!

First day of Pre-Pre school

He went pee pee in the potty one time on September 11th and hasn't done it since. I am not pretty sure that Amelia will be potty trained before Gabriel is. I am not really kidding either. I wouldn't be surprised honestly. He just doesn't have any interest in it. He became somewhat interested in in during his first week of pre-pre school. Seeing many of the other children going to the potty with teacher. Teacher even said that he told her in the first week that he needed to go potty. She said that she took him in there and he said "I stand up", but didn't actually go. Well, as she was telling me this, I was pretty convinced that she just got him confused with someone else in the class. Then she just kept raving about his manners and then I figured he was a bit of a stand out to her, so she must not just be confused. Well, it was that first week that he did go at home, and he hasn't gone since. We are just letting him lead the way.

Gabriel still LOVES to read. I started stopping short of reading a full sentence in some of his books as I was reading to him to see if he would remember the rest. It started with just stopping a word short, and he was amazing with what he remembers! Now we are up to almost full sentences he is finishing for me. I will also stop at random places in the sentence, and he just picks up where I left off without hesitation! The child is really amazing!

He is still in his dinosaur phase, although fading a bit. He knows more about dinosaurs now than I think I ever did. I now know more than I did even in my school years. I asked him what type of birthday party he would like to have, and he decided to have a dinosaur themed party, with "a little bit of friends to come over, because a lot of friends would talk to me and make me upset". Yes, he is getting much better with social stuff, but he still gets overwhelmed at times. He doesn't always like people talking to him, and has this habit of not always answering peoples' questions. We are working on it! :-)

He doesn't quite dress himself without help yet, but he is working on it.

He knows all of his upper case letters, most of his lower case letters and MANY of his numbers now. He can count up to about 20 and recognizes all numbers up to about 10. From what I have been told by his teacher, he is quite the master of cutting with scissors! His drawing has improved a great deal as well and he is working on coloring inside the lines. He likes to draw shapes especially. He likes to quiz us when he is asked a question that he knows the answer to. Example...Mommy, "what does a cat say, bow wow?" Gabriel, "OR". He will "OR" you until you get the correct answer. :-)

So we have been having lots of fun with the little man. A lot of changes and some hurdles to jump, but we just make sure we address the problems as we become aware of them and things smooth out eventually! Our sweet little man is just trying to figure out where he fits into our newly expanded family.

The next new thing in the works is converting him from his "big boy bed" to his "BIG boy bed"

We will let you know how this goes!