A few days ago we came back from the store and Sweet Pea wanted to help put things away. He insisted that he could carry the huge box of tide all the way from the front door to the kitchen. I was a little skeptical because that thing is heavy! But he picked it up…and carried it all the way to the kitchen grunting like a football player the whole way. Of course he took it to his kitchen and not mine…but I was proud anyway.

My mom was here the past couple of days and Sweet Pea had the best time! They read and played pretty much the whole time. Here was one of the games they came up with:

Sweet Pea set up all his friends at the little table and he and Nana cooked for them! Sweet Pea went back and forth from his kitchen set multiple times cooking new items for them to try. It was great fun to watch!

The past couple of days Sweet Pea has wanted Mickey to get dressed in the morning when he does. So we pulled out our storage box with infant clothes and found a shirt, a diaper, and some socks. Ever since Sweet Pea has put clothes on him in the morning and takes them off in the evening. He finds it very fascinating that Mickey can wear a diaper just like he can.

Here is what we heard last night through Sweet Pea’s baby monitor:

8:00pm — Night night Momma, night night Dada!
8:35pm — Dada!!!!! (apparently he heard an airplane and got scared)
8:45pm — silence
9:00pm — silence
9:24pm — silence
10:16pm — silence
10:55pm — silence
10:56pm — APPLE JUICE!!!!!!!
10:57 pm — silence
10:58 pm — silence
11:00 pm — silence

Today we were swimming at the pool and Sweet Pea used the big spoon we brought from home to ride as a horse. So being the good mom I am I tried to play along and talk about his “horse”. But he just looked at me funny and said “No Momma, it’s spoon!”.

This past week the temperature has risen to over 100 degrees and we just can’t run our air conditioner all day long so Sweet Pea and I have found a few places to go and play during the day and get out of the heat. We go play in the kids section at Borders, the pool, Half Price books, and, Sweet Pea’s favorite, the play place at the mall! Here we are at the mall:

While Sweet Pea and I were at my parents house a few weeks ago, my dad came up to Sweet Pea and asked if he wanted to help him feed the dog. He looked a little confused and he kept looking from the dog, to my dad, to the dog food bowl. After a few seconds he walked over to the dog food bowl, picked up a stray piece of dog food from an earlier feeding, and threw it at the dog. Of course we all laughed and my dad took his hand and properly showed him how to feed the dog and we moved on to the next thing.

After thinking about it here is what strikes me about the situation. Because we don’t have pets, Sweet Pea had no idea what was involved in feeding a dog. But he took what he did know and “fed” the dog by throwing the stray piece of food to him. At what point in childhood do we lose the ability to think like that? I did multiple internships where students as young as second grade had already lost the ability to take prior knowledge to try to figure something out. The just wanted me to tell them the answer without having to do any work. Hopefully over the next few years I can nurture this ability in Sweet Pea rather than hinder it.

My grandparents made a short day trip to town and we had so much fun! Sweet Pea and GG spent most of the time reading…even in the car!

We went and played in the kids section at Borders and then added a few books to our home collection:

We went to the Children’s Museum and Sweet Pea dug for dinos:

Here Sweet Pea is showing GG what happens when you put a ball over a flow of air:

And here we are enjoying lunch before Papa and GG left town:

We hope they come back again soon!

…having a girl is going to be awesome!