Lessons learned

Sawyer has been attending a Baptist preschool these last four months. In addition to learning about Jesus when they study the letter J, Sawyer is learning to say his prayers, mind his manners and obey the 10 commandments (or a preschool version of them). For $100/week (full time), it is a miracle. Yet, it's a constant struggle between my lion-hearted son (he's not officially a LEO but he should be) and the teachers who have little tolerance for strong-willed children. Most days I get notes home that Sawyer lost his 'star' for telling the teacher "No." Some days he loses it for 'stubborn behavior' or 'running wild.' Still, they manage to get him to follow their rules most of the time. The best thing they have taught him is to put his hands behind his back when he stands in a line at school. I use the hands behind the back trick when we go shopping. He can run through a toy store and not touch a thing. Another miracle. On the good side, they tell me that he has an amazing attention span for books and movies. Of course, we don't have TV so we watch a lot of movies at home. And we read three or four books every night. When we get to the end of each book, Sawyer closes the cover and says "Amen."

Kooza!

Over the Thanksgiving holiday my mom treated us with tickets to Cirque du Soleil. She watched Arden so that we could enjoy the show with Sawyer. For anyone who isn't familiar with Cirque du Soleil, its like the circus only better - there aren't any elephants and they serve white wine in plastic wine glasses. Through luck of the draw we ended up with front row seats. The show was UNBELIEVABLE. PHENOMENAL. OUTRAGEOUS. Sawyer was mildly terrified. Especially when the room went dark and the strobe lights started flashing and the music kicked in at about 5 million decibels. He cried when a giant costume dog barked at him, but he was oddly unafraid of the army of skeleton suits. He spent the first part of the show burying his head in my shoulder, but peeking. The second half he applauded and shouted hooray at the end of every trick. I wonder if he'll remember it down the road. It's definitely left an impression on me.

32 degrees

This morning Sawyer walked out the front door and let out the high pitch scream he usually reserves for when Arden steals something he's been playing with or when Duncan starts licking his face. He ran back inside screaming: "It's cold! Want hat!" It was the first time he's ever acknowledged the need for extra clothing.

By the way - it was really f-ing cold. Duncan's water bowl was frozen and so was half of the fish pond.

Walking and chewing gum

I really wanted to post some video of Arden walking all over the house but I couldn't seem to download it off the video camera. Two weeks after taking her first steps, Arden became a full time walker. She's bow legged, so she looks like she just hopped off the horse. And she's still so tiny that people laugh when they see her toddling around. But she's fearless and her entire purpose in life at this point is to hone her skill: can I walk carrying this cup? can I walk carrying this cup and a shoe? can I walk carrying this cup and eating the shoe? hello, cup, can you hear me?

More Notes

I'm afraid I'll forget all those cute things Sawyer says once they start slipping away. My current favorite is "I dood it! I dood it!" which he says with delight after accomplishing a task by himself. I yelled at my dad over the weekend for correcting him. Other language mishaps are a bit more confusing. Like when he says "Help me," while trying to put on his clothes. If you actually try to help him, he starts screaming even louder: "Help me, help me!" running in the opposite direction. What he means is that he's helping himself, Me being the operative word in that sentence.