Mr. Smarty-Pants

Patrick: “Let’s go camping!”

Joe and I were snuggling yesterday. He had his face right by mine and we were pretending to be asleep then surprising each other by waking up suddenly. Then he erupts into giggles, and we snuggle some more. In this sweet moment, Joe looked right at me and touched my nose softly. “Mommy has boogers!” he exclaimed. Thanks for ruining the moment!

I can totally see how little siblings can be so annoying to their big brothers. Joe and I were reading a flap book and Patrick just wanted to crawl right in the middle of the book every chance he got. It took so much attention to keep him from tearing up the pages. Poor Joe is going to get his stuff messed with and torn up by two little brothers – a double front. I think sometimes the twins annoy each other, too. They always squawk and whine when one is climbing on or wrestling with the other.

Joe’s understanding is growing by leaps and bounds. He can sing most of the ABC song – it breaks down around G, but picks back up around T. It’s really cute. He sings it to himself a lot, and he can identify some letters and numbers (just a few) He also tries to count. When I ask him how many of something there is (under five items) he starts with the right amount then starts counting from there. Eg, “How many boats, Joseph?” (there are three) He’ll say, “Three, four, five ….” The other thing he’s been interested in lately is story books. He can finally sit through a book and seems interested in the actual story – not just the pictures or the attention and snuggling that accompanies story time.