School

"School" is one of Matthew's favorite times of the day. I think that's because he gets one-on-one time with me without a pesky brother getting in the way! I really enjoy it too, so it's a win-win.

Today we practiced some early math skills, counting and sorting Lego blocks.

The goal was originally to see if Matthew could sort out the colors and count how many of each color we had. He decided to make the letter "T" with each color to take it up a notch. Smartypants.

Overheard recently

Life with a two-year-old - every day brings new challenges and new things to giggle about! Here are a few gems to enjoy:

Matthew came in to Jaron’s room while I was feeding him one morning, and took Jaron’s blankie out of his bed. He then decided to play peekaboo with us, saying, “Go? Go? … I see you!!!” over and over, wearing the blankie on his head like a satin-trimmed blue ghost. Apparently that game is exhausting, because right after that he collapsed down on the floor on top of the blankie and started (fake) snoring.

On his first night in a toddler bed and it was a bit of a challenge getting him to stay in bed. He normally chatters in his bed before he falls asleep but I rarely hear what he’s saying. That night I camped out on the landing outside his room so I got to hear everything.
Matthew: Ow, that hurts! Ow mnljgkdhurts. Ow that CHICKEN! Nummy chicken!! Mmmmm, nummy chicken.

Matthew was helping Jason move furniture around to vacuum the carpet.
Jason: Matthew, help me push the table.
Matthew: No, I no help. I too old.

Matthew spins around in circles endlessly.
Matthew: Roun' roun' roun' roun' roun' (etc).
Matthew falls to the ground.
Matthew: I dizzy!!

Me: Goodnight, Matthew.
Matthew: Nigh-night.
Me: Sweet dreams!
Matthew: Dueeems.
Me: I love you!
Matthew: Wuv yeuh.

Occasionally Matthew wakes up in the middle of the night. It doesn't happen very often, but the other night he woke up but was not fully awake when I walked in the room at 2am.
Matthew: O! Wassat? Poheese car? TB? Cow? Bankie? Oh, sorry. Dueems. Dueems. Dueems.

Matthew lost his balance after righting a ride-on toy that he had pushed over in a bout of frustration. Falling was the end of the world, complete with giant tears and heart-wrenching sobs. He was fine by the way, he just fell over on carpet. After he composed himself enough to speak, he told me he “tuipt” (tripped). And then he said it again, except it sounded more like “tuips”. And then he said it again, only this time it came out “chips.” At that point he got very excited and politely requested some chips and go-gurt.

One morning I came downstairs to see Matthew sweeping under his chair.
Matthew: Muttin (muffin) all ower PWACE!!

I banged my knee on the corner of the coffee table and told Matthew I had an owie on my knee. So he kissed it. And then he said, "I kiss owie on table." And then he did.

One night at the dinner table, Matthew, our friend Jillian, and I were all ready to pray before we started eating. Matthew was really hungry but we were waiting for everyone to be ready. Matthew: Daddy, Jaron, ca’ we pweese pray?

Letter of the Day

We have been working on some "homeschool preschool" activities with Matthew. One activity we do daily is focus on a letter of the day. We have a big whiteboard set up low enough so Matthew can draw on the bottom half. Every day I write the letter of the day in the middle of the board, and we talk about words that begin with that letter. I draw pictures of any words we come up with and write the words underneath. The other day was "L day." I normally let Matthew do his thing on the bottom half of the board without paying much attention to what he draws. When we were done with our 10 L words I took a step back and saw that Matthew wrote the letter L! Am I proud of my two-year-old? You betcha!

Prayer Bowl

A friend of mine gave me a magazine the other day. In it, a woman described a prayer bowl she uses to keep track of the many things she wants to pray for. I thought this was a great idea! I bought a bowl during a mission trip to Mexico that I thought would be perfect for this. I wrote a several prayer requests on little pieces of paper, folded them up, and put them in the bowl. Then I showed it to Matthew.

He enjoyed opening them and asking what each one said. With each one we said a short prayer for the person/need. We talked about how God hears all of our prayers and that we can talk to God any time we want to. We prayed over the whole bowl. But Matthew wasn't done. He picked out two prayers and wanted to pray for them himself - which he did, with his own words. I am so moved by his heart! We will be incorporating the prayer bowl into our daily structured learning time.