Archive for February, 2009

I have bees buzzing in my shoe!

Published on February 15, 2009 in Aidan, Funny, Parenting, Preschool years and Straight from Aidan's mouth. 3 Comments

Not a lot substantive to say right now.  I just wanted to write about a couple of cute moments before I somehow forget them!

Recently when we were shopping in the grocery store, Aidan started wiggling and kicking his right leg.  He had been sitting in the cart a while as it was a major stock-up trip.  I asked him what was wrong and he looked like he was trying to find just the right words.  Then he replied, “Mama, I have bees buzzing in my shoe!”  It took me just a second to realize that his foot had fallen asleep and he was trying to describe the sensation to me.  I thought it was a very inventive description for a 3 year old. 

He has also started to think it is really funny to steal whatever spot Brandon and I have been laying in/sitting in.  When he first wakes up in the morning, he always trots right into our bedroom and wants a few minutes to snuggle with us before we all get up for breakfast.  If Brandon gets up to go the bathroom, Aidan excitedly moves over to Brandon’s spot in bed and gives me a cheesy grin.  Then he says, “I’m taking Daddy’s spot!  He’s gonna tell me to scoot my buns!”  So when Brandon returns he obliges and tells Aidan, “Scoot your buns!”  And Aidan giggles wildly.  Today he did this to me during lunch.  I left the table a couple of times to get things from the kitchen and each time I returned he had gotten out of the chair he had been sitting in and took whichever chair I had just vacated.

I came back and he was grinning from ear to ear and said, “I took your spot!” 

There are so many fun moments with a 3 year old.  I am truly a blessed woman.

Some recent cute moments caught on the camera.

Stuffing Daphne into a little canvas toybox with him.

I managed to stuff myself and Daphne in this little toy cube

Getting his own water….”I do it MYSELF mama!”

Big boy getting my own water

Making cupcakes with Daddy.

Gotta try the cupcake batter DaddyIt's good!

Why I love PBS

Published on February 5, 2009 in Aidan, Parenting and Preschool years. 6 Comments

I know there is a lot of controversy out there about children and television.  Brandon and I fall somewhere in the middle of the two extremes.  We did not get rid of all of our TVs when we had Aidan, but we also do not let him watch TV very much.  We like to be pretty choosy with what he watches so that he is not spending much time in front of the tube.

Occasionally I would let him watch “Sesame Street” as a baby.  More for the colors and music.  Then as he approached the age of 2 he really began to like the characters and understand some of the stories.

“Curious George” was added to the “ok to watch” list around the age of 2.  I can’t remember what “Curious George” was like when I was a kid, but this newer version is great.  It teaches lots of math and science concepts.  Some even simple enough for preschoolers to get.  Plus, George is just a silly, funny monkey.  Aidan loves his antics and this show definitely was great as he started developing his sense of humor.

The show most recently added to the list is a newer show called “SuperWhy”.  There are a lot of early reading concepts on the show.  Some of the activities include identifying letters, starting to introduce lowercase letters, and phonics.  Here is a good explanation of the show.

Right before Aidan’s nap today, I let him watch the episode of “SuperWhy” that I dvr’d while he was at preschool.  I was amazed watching him.  At one point in the show, one of the characters always asks the kids to help her phonetically spell a word.  So she will tell them the word and then start asking questions about the letters.  Today’s word was “BELL”.  So she asked, “What letter makes the sound ‘buh’?”.  I looked over and Aidan is excitedly shouting “B!!!”  He did this for the whole word.

Now, Aidan has known his phonics for a while, but really the only way I had seen him use that skill was to tell me what sound a letter made and not the other way around.  For instance, when he sees a sign he might pick out the first letter and tell me “M says mmmmm”.  I had no idea he could work from the sound to the letter.  Too cool!  He loves this show and the characters are constantly asking the kids questions.  It was so much fun to watch Aidan shouting answers back to his SuperWhy pals.

In my book, PBS rocks.

Here is a picture of Aidan today enjoying his episode of “SuperWhy” with his favorite furry pal Daphne.

Watching SuperWhy with my pal Daphne

And one from a couple of weeks ago of Aidan telling me that someday he wanted to build a nest like Big Bird. I left the room for a couple of minutes and returned to an “Aidan nest.” I love watching his imagination grow.

Aidan made himself a nest like Big Bird