A Wild Day

Shortly after we woke up today the boys were playing in the living room while I did the dishes. Suddenly I heard a loud smack followed by the resulting bloody murder scream from Gabe. I ran in, and he had done a face plant right into the hardwood floor. I picked him up, and his mouth was bleeding. I couldn't get him calmed down for quite a few minutes, so it was difficult to see what exactly was bleeding. After about 15 minutes, I saw that it was coming from his upper gums. It bled for about 45 minutes, but finally I was able to determine that most likely his front teeth got jammed up into his gums a bit. He bled one other time later in the evening, but it stopped much more quickly that time.

So, how did he do it? I can't be sure, but I think I have a pretty good guess. The only other thing on the floor with him was a throw pillow from the couch. Gabe is a really good jumper for his age and enjoys jumping over and off of just about anything. I'm guessing that he put the pillow down on the ground and was trying to jump off it when it unsuspectingly slid right out from under him causing the face plant. I was hoping it would teach him a lesson without causing great fear. It didn't. Later in the evening, he was found jumping off a package of diapers and attempting to jump across the couch (at which point he also fell... but I was close enough to catch him and promptly scold him hopefully scaring the daylights out of him so he doesn't do that again).

We went on with the rest of our day. I made a really yummy chicken pot pie for dinner with a smiley face cut out of the crust on top. It was my first ever chicken pot pie, and it turned out really well. Chet deemed it a repeat-worthy recipe. Ladan kept saying, "Yummy," with every bite, but over the course of about 2.5 hours, he only took about 15 bites. That kid took FOREVER to eat his dinner!!!! He wasn't rebelliously refusing to eat... he was just kind of in a daze and only ended up taking a bite every 10 minutes or so. He basically woke up from his nap, went to the table for dinner, went to the bathroom, and went back to bed again. Crazy!

While Ladan was eating, Gabe painted two pictures, took a bath, played for a while, and had a haircut. I had to trim off a portion of his curls. In recent weeks, he's been mistaken for a girl twice, and we can't have that. We love his curls and were both kind of sad to see the majority of them go... but cute curls are not worth mistaken gender identification. I did leave a little bit of a flip in the back, so we'll see if they grow back. Don't worry. He's still cute!

While I was cutting Gabe's hair, I got a call from my brother. He and Amber are in St. Louis with the boys right now. I've been having the hardest time thinking about the fact that they're so close and not being able to afford the trip to go see them. I kept re-examining our expected income and expenses through January (when Chet graduates), and there was just no way that it could possibly be responsible to take another trip. Well, he called to say that I should pack our bags because they're going to pay our gas to get there!!!!!! They've already been more than generous toward us, so this is over the top... but we're taking them up on the offer! I get to leave in the morning with the boys to go see them and the rest of my family too! Amazing! Talk about answered prayer!

Gabe is SO EXCITED to see Baby Justus. He kept calling Justus his baby. We'd ask him if he was excited to see Baby Justus, and he'd exclaim, "Yes!" And Ladan was pretty much beside himself when he found out that he'd get to see Titus and Justus. He snapped out of his dinner-time stupor and bounced to his bed so he could take a nap before driving to Grandma's house. Despite the fact that Chet is bummed that he can't see everyone, our departure is probably perfect timing for him. He's preaching at Clifton on Sunday night, so this will give him even more time to prepare and to work ahead on his classwork for the semester.

In my meal planning for this week, I decided to make two larger recipes on Monday and Tuesday (enchiladas yesterday and the pot pie today) so that we could eat leftovers on Wednesday and Thursday, which tend to be busier days for us. I had no idea that the Lord designed it that way because we'd be leaving and so Chet would have prepared food already in the fridge. Pretty great! He'll be eating a lot of enchiladas and pot pie all by himself though. I venture to say he'll throw in a PB&J here and there to round it out!

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I'll end with a few random notes....

Gabe has learned his first letter! He can now accurately identify the letter "O". He was running errands with me last night, and he started pointing out all the "o"s he saw in street signs and license plates. I haven't worked on letters nearly as much with him as I had by the time Ladan was this age, but Ladan was naturally drawn to letters at an earlier age (and knew all of them along with their sounds by 22 months). It's clear that Gabe is now ready for more!

Ladan is starting to understand some basic reading concepts and is recognizing some basic words. It's one of my goals to do preschool-like lessons with him at least three days a week this semester. Then I may start the 100-day curriculum to teach him to read in the spring. We'll have to see if he's ready by then. In the meantime, we're just enjoying this stage. Ladan is so demonstrative when he reads! He uses great voice inflections and even throws his hands in the air when he gets really excited. If only we all read with such expression!

In the sports world, Ladan is quite good at hitting the baseball when we pitch it to him. He has really great form and even holds his back elbow up at a pretty perfect angle. He doesn't yet step into the pitch with much authority, but we haven't even talked about that yet. He's only four. Anyway, he received some extra birthday money the other day as a delayed suprise. Since all his other birthday money had gone into his account, I used this money to buy him some batting gloves, a real baseball bat, and some bases. I found a reasonably priced bat that only weighs 13 ounces. Chet took him out to play with the neighbor girls, and he did great! He's really funny though because he dives (with perfect form but in slow motion so as not to get injured) into just about every base, including first. He is convinced that the function of batting gloves is to keep his hands from getting dirty when sliding!

On the basketball court, he's getting lots better at dribbling, and he's a very consistent shooter as well. And he gets better and better with his tennis racquet every time we play.

Gabe, of course, has to do everything his big brother does, so he's been practicing his basketball, soccer, football, and baseball skills. He tries to play tennis, but his tiny little racquet is still a little bit bigger than he knows what to do with, so it will be a little while before he can effectively play. He can drop-kick a soccer ball, throw pretty much any ball with accuracy, and dribble once and then shoot a basketball with accuracy in one smooth motion. He's been able to throw an excellent spiral for months. And he's starting to be able to hit a ball when we pitch it to him, though he's not super-consistent yet. After all, the bat is at least as tall as he is, so he's lucky to swing it much less hit anything. He sleeps with his football.

I guess the fact that our living room is pretty much an open gym (with a few restrictions) is paying off for them! They practice their skills 3-4 hours a day on their own without anyone pushing them. Ladan is such a persistent kid and doesn't give up until he's perfected something, so Gabe has a really good example to follow in this way. It's fun because they can play catch successfully together now. We have loads of fun playing along with them too! They definitely keep us on our toes!

I'm not going to re-read this note for errors, because I'm going to go PACK OUR BAGS! YIPPEE!!!!!!!