And the Winner Is...

DAVID COOK!!!! Ladan was predicting all day that David Archuleta would win. I told him that he might be right but that I hoped he was wrong. (Sorry if you're reading this, Randy Murray.) Ladan responded, "David Cook is not going to win, Mom." Needless to say, he was a little bit surprised when it turned out that David Cook won... by 12 million votes. It's probably the first time this whole season that his predictions were off. Not bad for a three-year-old. Though it only lasted a few minutes, the two Davids provided a good example of what it looks like to win and come in second graciously. You can't actually call it a loss if you come in second out of 100,000+ people.

The other funny thing is that it seems as though Syesha Mercado (the 2nd runner up in the American Idol contest) has been traveling around with us for the last two days. Sometimes Ladan says she's his mom (usually when he doesn't want to do something I've asked him to do--as an attempt to basically reject my authority in his life... which he quickly gets over when I give him the stern look). Tonight I had to physically open the passenger door of the van and move a paper towel that was sitting on the seat so Syesha could ride to church with us. Nice. When it doesn't promote disobedience or disrespect I'm happy to encourage his imagination.

He's getting really good at identifying which letter a word starts with. And whenever he identifies it correctly he tells me another word that starts with the same letter. It goes something like this... "Mom, what letter does Lightning McQueen begin with?" The appropriate response is not to answer the question but to ask, "What letter does Lightning McQueen begin with?" He'll put on his thinking face for a minute and say, "Lightning McQueen begins with L, like 'lion'!" Then he gets a high five or some other type of encouragement that makes him smile really big and sometimes laugh with excitement. On the way home from church tonight (a quick 4-mile ride), he identified the first letter of bricks, firetruck, smoothie, David (as in Cook and Archuleta), and one other word that I can't remember right now. This type of activity probably makes up at least 20-30% of our conversation each day... and I'm never the one initiating the questions.

I've written several times about how Ladan has a really hard time talking to people who greet him. Well, just the other day, a senior lady said hello to him at the grocery store, and he looked her in the eye, smiled, and cheerfully said, "Hello!" I almost fell over. Then she asked him how he was doing, and he said, "Good," with the same smile and good eye contact. I could hardly believe it. She walked away chuckling, and he was smiling from ear to ear. Then he got a treat, a big hug, and lots of praise for doing the right thing on his own. It's really fun to see your kid do something well all by himself, especially when you know it doesn't come easily for him.

Gabe is starting to say more and more words daily, which is really fun. He's so stinking cute! He almost always leaves off the consonants at the start of a word. For example, yucky is "ucky", potty is "otty", banana is "ana". He says "mo" for no, which is really hard to take seriously when he's got his brow all furrowed and is giving the glare. He does say "shoes" pretty well, but it comes out more like "choosh" most of the time. He still says "Nanan" for Ladan and still runs to Ladan's room if he wakes up before his big brother. When he runs, his arms and hands flail around like noodles at his sides. I have to try to get video of that sometime.

He's really good at playing catch even with a small ball. At this point, he almost always throws with his left hand and is most accurate with that hand. He's getting quite an arm which may cause us to have to limit the types of balls he can throw in the house (yes, I allow my children to throw balls in the house). He shoots baskets with accuracy and consistency from up to a few feet away from the basket. He can go down steps without holding onto anything. He climbs to the top of Ladan's bunkbed with ease... when he finds a way to sneak into the room in the first place. Thankfully he's too scared to try to get down on his own. He loves to stand at the kitchen counter to "see" (usually with his hands) what I'm trying to do. He doesn't like it when I move the stepstool to the middle of the room away from the sharp knives because apparently that's not close enough. I do have to draw the line somewhere though.

His attention span is lengthening, which is nice because he can sit still for longer and wants to read more books. Five Silly Monkeys is his favorite right now. He brings it over to me, crawls up in my lap, and lays back with the top of his head right by my jaw. He's also working more on his fine motor skills and is starting to play more with two toys (one in each hand) acting like he's actually doing something with them (i.e. horses running toward one another, cars crashing or racing, a lion roaring at another animal, etc.). He enjoys trying to buckle the straps on his booster seat and tries to put keys in the door.

He'll be 20 months old next week, but he's still so tiny that he can wear 6-9 month shorts. Almost all of his shirts are 9-12 months with some 12-18 months thrown in... but nothing bigger than that yet. In general he wears 12-18 month pants and can still fit into some 9-12 month pairs. My biggest problem comes when I try to get him in jeans. He's too tall for his 18 month jeans, but it looks like I've dressed him in parachute pants when I put him in 24-month pants... probably because I have to put the adjustable waist on the tightest setting to hold them up, but there's enough fabric around his bottom to cover him twice. I'm thankful that summer is quickly approaching, so I don't have to worry about that. Hopefully he'll be big enough to fill out his jeans by the time fall rolls around again.

I guess that turned out to be longer than I expected. I was thinking yesterday and realized that I hadn't really recorded much of what the boys are doing on a daily basis. So there you have it.

Chet should be preparing to teach as I write this. He's planning to try to call in the morning (which will be the end of his teaching day there), so I'll let you know how it's going after I hear more.

And Saturday is the big day that Amber will be induced (by chiropractic adjustment rather than drugs) if she doesn't deliver on her own before then. Soon we'll have yet another little boy to love on! So many exciting things are happening in our family!