oops, wind "vine", and "the" vs. "vuh"...

due to scheduling conflicts, max's wee school has changed from tues/thurs to tues/fri.  i am really looking forward to this change, actually (even though i'll have to rearrange my friday workout time)!  i've realized as the boys have gotten older i need to carve out some max and mama time, and this helps me solve that issue--pace's school is tues/thurs, so now i get max home on thursdays with me!  we have had no problem filling that time with all sorts of (educational) fun!

i thought like any good mom, i would spend time drilling him on shapes, colors, letters, etc.--but he already knows it all!  i remember drilling pace--flashcards, abc's, numbers, colors, etc.  every time i've sat down to "work" with max, he just shouts out what he already knows (seemingly via osmosis), grinning from ear to ear.  so instead we play games, do puzzles, read books (photo: we were reading the sandra boynten book, "blue hat, green hat"--max thought the duck who said "oops" and put the article of clothing on the wrong part of his body was hilarious.  he caught on pretty fast and started giggling and saying "oops" himself.   

max is also daily throwing out new words and phrases, and his pronunciation is getting better.  he uses all the pronouns, correctly, with exception of mine/my.  max says "mine" in place of my every single time.  and he still pronounces it "nine".  "nine huck doh?"  [where did my duck go?]  "ninehelf" [myself].  he tags along with pace wherever he goes, and that also results in repeating everything pace says.  and max is in that stage where he narrates everything he/they do--which makes for some pretty funny story-telling.  max has an insatiable sweet tooth.  at least i can still rule it with reason, though:  

max: hen treat, me, mommy. [open treat for me, mommy]

me: smoothie first.

max: no ooee [no smoothie]

me: no smoothie, no treat.

max: yes treat.

me: yes smoothie, yes treat.

max: *sigh* 

drinks smoothie.  gets treat.  

max still lives up to his comic relief roll, and throws out a couple phrases here and there:

"whoa!  good throw, daddy!"  [after david threw a balled up bunch of wrapping paper into a box]

"no daddy, say that.  you time out." [this is max's phrase he uses often if he disagrees with what you say...and if he disagrees, it means you need to go in time out].  "whoa--that's hazy!" [crazy]--he threw this one out the other day when the washing machine was doing the spin cycle.  i think it's also really cute he says "yes", not yeah, not yup, not umhmm; yes.  every time.  and with a little lisp still on the "s".  very cute.

we need to keep pace occupied or he literally starts bouncing off the walls.  i am still trying to squeeze workbook/maze book/shape book/reading out of him...he much prefers doing "projects," building tents, building some sort of factory and making deliveries (resulting in piles of stuff in every corner), and playing natural disaster (also resulting in the house being a wreck at the end of the day due to a tornado, earthquake, quicksand, or some other natural disaster passing through).  pace also throws out phrases and words i had no idea he knows--the funniest lately has been when he's getting max to run away from daddy if they are playing monster chase:  "c'mon, max, step on it!"  and he runs in place for a little bit (like in the cartoons), and then "steps on it" and takes off to their room, max trailing behind, saying, "yes!" 

bishka gave pace an experiment book for his birthday, and it's been great!  he'll flip through it almost daily and we'll talk about which projects/experiments are good to do now, vs. wait to do in the summer outside, etc.  we decided the "wind vine" was a project we could do now.  no matter how many times i explained to pace it was called a vane, not a vine--didn't matter...he'd always respond, "no, mommy, it's a wind vine."  it wasn't too windy the day we made it, so pace decided to help it out a little.

here we are snuggling and reading a bit--we got stuck on the word "the".  i was trying to teach pace the sound that "th" makes together as a letter team.  he kept making a "v" sound.  i thought if i took pictures of him talking, he could see the difference between the "v" and "th" sound...he tried really hard, but it just turned out he thought it was really funny that i kept telling him stick his tongue out at me!

playing armadillo...