Butterflies

Rye and Mommy checked out the seasonal butterfly exhibit at the natural history museum and saw some great butterflies! Rye also was impressed by T. Rex, the elephants, the hippos, grizzly bear, and bison.

Rye, 20m *

Rye is enjoying finding things that are the "same" or a "match." We were reading Go Dog, Go! and upon seeing the convertibles the dogs were driving in the story, he said, "Same?" and he dashed off. He returned with a blue plastic car in the same style as the one in the illustration. "Yes! The dog is driving a car! He is driving a red car, Rye, and this one is a blue car!"

He disappeared again. And came back with a red convertible. "Same?" Yes, Rye. Same.

Favorite phrases: "Big kids," "Try some?" "pop-ups" (finger puppets), "There it is!" "Nice job!" "Eeed it?" (Read it? Which also means: Tell me the story about it?), "Gotcha!" ** And I remembered three more! "Sure!" "Funny!' and "Silly!"

Some new words: "Trader Joe's," "sip-pops," (flip flops), "pine tree," "bumblebee" ("Bzzzzzz"), "Aunt Marnat" (Margaret), "Beedle" (Volkswagon Beetle), "antique cars," "sewing machine."

Rye has been singing along, repeating the words right as we say them, including his lullaby at night. He has been presenting sentences (without articles) that seem at first listen to be in code. Some examples: "Bimp see-pee hi-day cheece," (The blimp is sleeping; it's hiding behind the trees), "Poop potty" (Either: I pooped in the potty, or I want to poop in the potty), "Sit down."

He also offered a real sentence a couple of weeks ago! "Mommy has orange."

He ate some beans one dinner and volunteered, "Tasty!"

And when we were making graham crackers in the kitchen, Rye told Mommy, "Nice job!"

Standing up in the bed over Mommy, he announced: "Tall!"

He does not like a lot of wind. When he sees it blowing around or it blows in his face, he says, "Too much."

He's starting to get some digraphs, especially with "steam" coming off of the dinner pots on the stove. He recognizes the lowercase and uppercase letter E.

He's still confused about the pronoun "you." Because every time we talk about "you," ... well, it's him. A few weeks ago, he flung open the shower curtain with a grin, and pointed to himself and said, "YOU." I opened my mouth to explain, but realized I couldn't probably get through it before the hot water ran out.

This week, I had him in the backpack, and he could see both of us in the mirror. "Who do you see, Rye?" I asked. "YOU," he said. And I thought this was great, since Daddy had said he was getting better on the pronouns. "Who else do you see?" I asked. "MOMMY," he said, pointing at my reflection. Ah, well....

Rye can count to six! He does this very quickly. It goes like this, pretty much every time: "One, Two, SIX!" He seems to understand the concept of "two," and frequently counts to two.

We have been working on toileting with Rye. A couple of weeks ago, he had two successes in one day. Daddy said, "Rye! I understand you pooped in the potty!" Rye shook his head, and made the distinction clear: "TWO." He said. Twice, man, twice. Get it straight.

He often is able to follow multi-step directions, such as: Rye, pick that up (1) and take it into your room (2) and put it on the shelf (3) and come back (4). I admit, sometimes step 3 gets a little lost in the shuffle, particularly if he is distracted by something interesting while in the room.

Sometimes he tries to share his food with us or with other kids. Toys sometimes, too. But he's not cool with other kids coming over and taking his stuff when he's not ready. He'll hoard it all together before letting one item free.

Rye is crazy about the Goodyear Blimp, which very occasionally flies over our neighborhood (We pointed it out to him of course, and now he wants to see it every day. Insert V-8 forehead smack here.) and some nights it is a struggle to get him to go to sleep without seeing it.

He is learning how to use his hands and feet with pushing, kicking, hitting, and shoving items away. All of which he thinks is hilarious. This is part of the autonomy he is building and the process of learning the power of his actions.

Filling Grandma's birdfeeder—those pouring skills are coming in handy.

Feeding Daddy homemade graham crackers.

Reading about antique cars.

Cousins

Rye is crazy about his "big kid" cousins Alana and Ciera.

Reading about TRUCKS with a book he chose from the library book sale ($.25).

Magna-Doodle party.

Painting with a brush, 20m

Rye tried painting with a paintbrush today with some tempera paint. He got it right away. This month's color is "green."

Rye also painted various surfaces with water. He really wanted to paint the dirt, but was disappointed with the results.

Then we tried adding salt to the surface of the paint to create a crystalline effect. He immediately tried painting directly with the salt, then dumped all the salt straight into the paint. I'm not sure we really got a crystalline effect at any point.

Happy Easter!

Making an Easter Egg suncatcher with contact paper and tissue paper shapes earlier in the week.

The Easter Bunny brought an assemblage of lovely handmade and sweet things for Rye, but all he really was interested in was the puzzle car.

Despite a fever of 101 (down from 103 yesterday), a short temper, a junky cough, a snotty nose and a skipped nap, Typhoid Mary Rye liked the idea of the egg hunt. Most of his eggs had bunny crackers in them, which he ate immediately upon finding them. He also got some pencil erasers, stampers, and puff balls. His cousins' eggs had a lot of the same, plus chocolate and a few other toys. He was a bit out-of-it since he was sick, but he really enjoyed opening the eggs—and playing with his cousins and Uncle Patrick's and Aunt "Marnat's" dog, Rufus.

We didn't dye eggs this year; luckily we ran out of time (Note to self: Organic brown eggs probably will not present best Easter results, duh.). And we begged off Mass to get Rye home to bed early...then he protested using nearly every tool in his shed and didn't get to sleep until 9:30 anyway, despite Mommy and Daddy's tag-teaming efforts.

Spring Fling picnic

We got together last week with a few other parents for a potluck picnic in a local park. The weather just barely cooperated; it didn't get sunny until late afternoon. The kids loved playing in the fountain, running across the grass and digging in the sand. Great food, good company, a lovely afternoon.

Rye and MJ busy at pouring work.

MJ, Helen and Juniper snack with their parents on lentil salad, homemade fig bars, cici bean salad, homemade bread, cucumber salad y mas.

Bath time, 19m

"Aw-tees" cars

We took Rye to see the "aw-tees" cars (antique cars) today at the Peterson Museum. When he heard we were going to go see cars, he was skipping and jumping all around the house. Vibrating, really.

His favorite part of the museum was the Discovery Center, a great kids area with toy cars and trucks, books about cars, an authentic Pinewood Derby track with cars to race, y mas. Did you know the Pinewood Derby began in Manhattan Beach?

The rest of the museum was a little over-stimulating, but highlights were: A display with a sample of every Hot Wheels body type ever produced, a Green Hornet collectible toy in the gift shop, and letting Daddy carry him throughout the museum. When he saw Herbie the Love Bug, he immediately called out "Beetle." He remembered seeing one at the grocery store about three weeks ago.

The museum café actually is a Johnny Rockets, so we had an early dinner and Rye tasted his first real french fries. Mostly he sucked the ketchup and salt off of them. He wouldn't touch the burger.

We met our friends Laura, Don, Beckett and Maia there, and Rye of course was smitten with Beckett because he nearly qualifies as a "big kid," and Maia had a red balloon and was a person just his size, to boot. It was a fun outing.

Muffin Mixing

Mommy did the measuring and Rye did the pouring for pumpkin muffins this week. Rye had a great time counting the measuring cups of flour being poured into the bowl. He likes the numbers two, six and nine.

Rye used cranberries and the batter became "dip" to try the concoction before baking. He seemed to enjoy the baked ones better.

Sticker play

Rye worked on some process art today with stickers, some of which he liberated from Mommy's desk. He liked the shiny bugs, although he thinks the caterpillar is a "giraffe."