Mind The Gap
Chanler lost his first tooth today! It has been super wiggly and last night he told Scott he could lift one side up… and today he wiggled it out all by himself!
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Hopper no longer
Chanler completed his first Awana Cubbies book and had his awards ceremony this evening. He was very excited even if the pictures don’t appear that way.
Chanler received a book award (small cubbie bear) for completing 24 verses/lessons. He can’t wait until September when he gets to go to the “4” year old room and work on the Jumper book!!!
Fashion editor
Chanler says this morning after Jessaleigh was finished being dressed
“Ooh oh, she has a spinning dress”
And really she does… He cracks me up.
Chanler also let Jessaleigh pick out his outfit this morning… quite a look, but he wouldn’t pick anything else.
Conquering your fears…
For three years ten and a half months Chanler has been afraid of the vacuum cleaner. When ever it came out (which wasn’t frequently – which is probably why he was scared of it…) Chanler would go running for the couch with his hands on his ear screaming. For the first couple of years of his life Chanler had to be held while the vacuum was running. (This of course reinforced that the vacuum didn’t come out much…)
Then tonight Chanler decided that HE wanted to vacuum. Our house may never been the same again…
Who won?
Tonight it was raining and Chanler had to wear his new rain boots. There was a large puddle at the curb where we parked and after asking permission he jumped into the puddle. This was the result…
AWANA
This month we started Chanler in Awana. We tried one church near to our house and were disappointed (they were trying to get 3 year olds to do nothing, but sit, listen and be quiet for most of the 2 hour club), so we tried the program that both Scott and I were involved in during high school at Valley Church. What a difference! This progam was organized, had fun activites for the kids and Chanelr LOVED it. He loved it so much that when I walked in to pick him up he came running over and started to cry because he wanted me to buy him a Cubbies vest and book.
He had already memorized the Cubbies key verse, motto and 2 additional verses from the first time visitor packet, so we got the a vest, bag, book, etc. He pretty much wants to wear the vest all the time now. He is very enthusiastic about the stories and is learning the verses faster than I expected.
Haircut
For the first time in two years I cut Chanler hair myself. I tried with the “first haircut” and then realized that I was way out of my league and went for professional help. Since then we have been taking Chanler to a lovely kids hair salon where the seats are cars, they have movies and if I wasn’t such a stickler there are lollipops. The downside is that each hair cut (about once a quarter) is $20 (which is half of what I pay for my own hair cut). So Saturday I decided that if I can cut Scott’s hair I could cut Chanler’s. What do you think of the results?
The things kids say
Chanler got/borrowed a toy from his Grandmama (Jesse’s Mom). It is a space shuttle with a truck that carries it (think matchbox car sized, only they are a German brand.) Anyway, Chanler loves this particular toy and likes to tell you all about his “truck that carries the space SHOVEL”
Cracks me up every time.
Who’s the photog now?
Chanler really likes to take pictures with our cameras, and Jesse caught him in the act being quite cute – he even knows how to chimp (looking at the shot on the LCD)!
Sacramento Zoo
We went up to visit my sister Michelle, her husband Sergio, and their son Joshua this last weekend, and we decided that it would be fun to go to the Zoo together. Chanler had a blast seeing all the animals.
Lately when I am putting him to bed he has been requesting that we talk about animals. He never knows what animals he wants to talk about, that is up to me to figure out, but the one constant is that he wants to talk about “not muddy fat ones.” My cousin Cari gave him one of his favorite books which has a bunch of animals making lots of noise while the mommy runs around trying to keep them all quiet so her baby can sleep, but of course he is not sleeping. One of the animals is a “muddy fat pig” – so we usually end up talking about all the other animals in the book.
So now we have a much wider variety of animals to talk about – all the animals from “Aunty Michelle’s Zoo.” He saw penguins, although the penguins were in a “special” temporary tent, and they were in this small little enclosure that could not have been more than 4 by 4 on the front side. But Chanler enjoyed it, so we will have to take him to see a better penguin exhibit sometime where they are not so cramped for space.
He thought that the lemurs were hillarious – the lemurs were wrestling with each other and knocking each other and having a great time. I was having a bout of allergies, and sneezed pretty loudly, causing one of them to stand up and look over at us. The other one promptly grabbed the other’s tail and pulled him over backwards – great fun 🙂
The snow leopard was a great hit as well – he came right up to the front of his enclosure and just stared and stared. He was ignoring all the people and appeared to be willing the snack cart across the street to come closer. We are still talking about that snow leopard every single night!
Chanler definitely likes to be a big brother and takes that role very seriously. He was a little scared of the “big cats” – the lions and tigers (but not the snow leopard) – and has asked me a couple of times if I will save him from the big cats. And since he sees himself as Jessaleigh’s guardian, he has also said that he is will (or already has) save Jessaleigh from the big cats. Such a chivalrous young man already!
Right after a break to play on the play structures, we went through the reptile house (he keeps asking me the name of the house at the zoo). He was excited to see a small crocodile in person, as well as frogs and snakes and lizards. We even saw a green snake, which was very exciting since we have a book about a young yellow snake that turns into a green snake as he gets older.
They had a animals from around the world show, and at one point they asked for a volunteer to go up front to help out. He got very excited and wanted to know if the lady zoo keeper would call his name and ask him to go up to the front and help. He kept raising his hand any time that he thought that she was asking for volunteers, he really wanted to have her call him. We were talking about it later, and I explained that they needed a bigger kid to help, since they needed her to hold up the snake, which was a pretty big boa constrictor. He of course was pretty confident that he was strong enough, although after we talked about how big and heavy the snake was, he told me that he might want me to go up with him to help him hold the snake a little bit. After the show, he got to go up to the front and pet some of the animals that were in the show. He got to touch the big boa constrictor, a lizard with a blue tongue, and a hedgehog. He was pretty excited about the hedgehog, I think because it looks a little spiky, but it was not, it was “comfortable” to touch.
So now we have lots of fodder for talking about animals at bedtime – makes it a little easier on me 🙂