Flowers for Mommy

Rye gives Mommy a flower arrangement during beanbox play.

Gymnastics class videos

Riding the parachute train in gymnastics class.

Rye loves running under the parachute and bouncing on the trampoline, too. There are a variety of activities each week: balance beam, rings, ladder climb, uneven bars (kiddie version), somersaults, and Rye will do a thin selection each week.

Arty playdate

Rye and his pal Myra Jean enjoyed experimenting with wet-on-wet watercolors, salt, tissue paper butterflies, and bingo markers yesterday.

Growth spurt

Rye has been going through a growth spurt, with all of the trimmings: sleeplessness, hearty appetite and new tricks! Some mornings he snacks for two hours or so and he never really finishes eating so much as he gets interested in his play and forgets to eat some more.

• While wrangling him to go to bed the other night, he lay on his side, curved into a C, and said: "I'm a rainbow with my feet on the ground."

• He pulled a cork and a chopstick out of the play-dough kit, and put the chopstick into the hole on the cork. "Look, Mommy! It's a marshmallow!" I laughed and said, Are you going to toast it? And he immediately held it up to the lightbulb of a nearby lamp, waited, then pulled it out and pretended to snack on it.

• "Mommy, singing is just telling a story."

It is, Rye! How did you know that? Who told you that?

"Nobody told me. I told me that. Rye said it."

• Speaking of singing, heard loosely to the tune of "baa baa black sheep":

"Dump truck, Dump truck, Dump truck....have you dumped your load?

yessir, yessir, yessir.....mini-loaderrrrr......"

and

"Miniloader takes the dirt to Dump truck......Dump truck drives to the factoryyyyyy."

and

"Twin-tle, Twin-tle, little star. How I wonder what you are. (Cuts to speaking voice) The star says: 'I'm a star!'" ....

• He whined the other night about wanting some medicine. He's been fighting a series of colds for about a month. The homeopathic remedies we give him are sweet, and he doesn't mind taking them. When I explained (again) that "medicine" is for correcting a problem you are having, like a stuffy nose, or a cough, he spent the next five minutes offering weak, forced coughs, and looking at me with Puss-in-Boots eyes.

• He sat at his high chair and swung his feet forward and back, forward and back, scuffing the foot platform like the Flintstones driving their car, saying, "LOOK! It looks like I'm running, but I'm not going anywhere!"

• He is working on his 1:1 correspondence with counting. He counted mommy's fingers: 1, 2, 3, which represented three cars. He counts on his own to six, using pictures in magazines to count birds, flowers and animals in the pictures, and somehow knows that sixteen comes after fifteen and fifteen after fourteen.

Road work

Rye loves making roads with sidewalk chalk. Mostly he is the engineer, directing the mere highway workers as to where the roads should be laid, but he has been connecting the ends more and more.

To the right is a rendition of Yosemite, complete with tent, trees and bear. Art directed by Rye.

Lite Brite

Rye enjoyed making a picture with Lite Brite. On the box it says: For ages 4 and up.

Grandpop and Sitti come for a visit

Rye's Grandpop and Sitti came for a visit recently.

Lantern Walk before bed. Version #1.

Lantern Walk before bed. Version #2.

Sitti finally got to try an In-N-Out burger!

Museum Row.

Spaghetti play area at the art museum.

Uncle Bill plays like it's 1967, with 1982 socks. Rye plays like it's 1967 with AT LEAST 1982 different Lego blocks.

Enlightened bath time

Rye has felt a little crummy this week, with a barky cough that won't let him sleep well. He didn't really want a bath, and didn't want to play while the shower steamed the room, so Mommy upped the ante with bubbles and glow sticks.

The sticks became: a train, a fishing pole, a bus steering wheel, wheels, and more. The brilliant idea (yuk, yuk) came from the Play at Home Mom blog.

Gym class

Rye loves his weekly gymnastics class! His favorite part is the trampoline and parachute play, but he is starting to like the rings, as well.