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Thursday, February 13, 2014

Pancake Wars

On the way to school this morning, Gabriel was finishing his breakfast of mini pancakes. He was sort of banging them against each other with load banging-against-each-other sound effects.

Then he would look at one pancake and ask, "Are you ok, pancake? Yes? ok." And then bang them together again.

Kid cracks me up.

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

The Jed Bartlet of the Preschool Set


If you're familiar with the character of Jed Bartlet from The West Wing, you might also have seen actor Martin Sheen put his jacket on in a unique way. Check it out about 2/3 of the way through this clip:




Gabriel is either preparing for life as an accomplished actor or to run for president. (He already has a Hispanic name, so perhaps we should start thinking of stage names for him...)






Hello, My Name Is...

Yesterday, Gabriel's attire for preschool included a shirt just like this...


...except from a souvenir shop we visited on our trip to Niagara Falls last summer.

The school had a dentist come and talk to the kids about dental heath and brushing their teeth. At the end of his presentation, he asked the kids if anyone had a question.

Gabriel raised his hand, so the dentist looked at him and said "What's your question, Batman?" And Gabriel replied firmly, "Gabriel."

Not sure why he raised his hand, but once called on, it was very important that he be properly addressed. :)





Monday, January 6, 2014

Books and ABCs

Gabriel loves to read books, especially those that have nursery rhymes that we set to song. Lately his favorites are Humpty Dumpty, Hey Diddle Diddle, and There Were Ten in the Bed. This is, of course, in addition to his favorite songs The ABCs, Bah Bah Black Sheep. and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

Every night before bed, we read/sing a couple of books. One night we were looking at an alphabet book that has a page for each letter of the alphabet showing pictures of objects that start with that letter. We were on the page for P, and I pointed to the pig and said, "puh-puh-pig." Gabriel dutifully replied, "puh-puh-pig." Then I pointed to the penguin and said, "puh-puh-penguin," and Gabriel said, "puh-puh-penguin." He flipped to the page for D, and I pointed to the dog and said, "duh-duh-dog," to which Gabriel responded "puh-puh-dog."

At least something stuck.

Here's the puh-puh-dog:

Monday, December 30, 2013

Photo update

Here's some of the things Gabriel has been up to. 


Playing at Will's 3rd birthday party. 


Wearing a hat, just like Daddy...but backward. 


Wearing Daddy's hat and shades at dinner. Dinner tastes better that way. 


Chomping on a cupcake at the preschool Thanksgiving party. 


Not wanting his picture taken. 



Building and then knocking down a tall tower. 


Lining up french fries. 


Doing puzzles and learning games on "his computer" (the iPad). 


Being super cool. 




Going down the slide at the park. 


Decorating and eating Christmas cookies. 


Watching movies with Will. (While uncle Cory watches the big TV.)


2 1/2 Year Letter

Dear Gabriel,
You are talking up a storm these days. It seems like you never stop. You point out things you see while we're driving in the car, you summarize things that you just did, and you tell us what you want us to do. You ask for help, but we're still working on getting you to verbalize what you want help with. You will tell me you want to go to the kitchen, but you won't tell me what you want from the kitchen.

We're also working on verbalizing your feelings when you get really upset. You are so quick to total frustration. I think your feelings overwhelm you and the part that could tell us what is wrong shuts down. We've had trouble working on this because you can flip the switch back to happy in a heartbeat, too. There isn't much time to help you work through the frustration and figure out how to express what is going on. But we'll keep working on it.

Lately you've been building lots of block towers and castles and playing with the train set. Sometimes you pull out the boxes of blocks and then make us wait because they're not ready yet. Then you path your hand and look around a bit before you suddenly declare that they are ready. I don't know if you're mimicking behavior of someone else or if you have just found another way to gain control. You love to have control. You also love to do puzzles. You are rocking the 9-piece puzzles and like to do larger puzzles together. At Christmas, you got a small xylophone for bathtub play and you love to bang on that thing while I sing Jingle Bells.

You've started singing along with many of the songs I sing to you. It's funny to hear how you process the song and sing the "words." Your favorites seem to be the ABCs and Bah Bah Black Sheep. At bedtime, you ask me to sing these two songs in different voices. Sometimes you want me to stick my tongue out while I sing so that all the sounds are funny. Sometimes you want me to do each syllable in a staccato fashion. One time you wanted me to kind of croak(?) the words out, and other times you tell me we have to whisper.

I see your imagination starting to develop. You have conversations with monkey and sometimes monkey and sheep have conversations. Lately you'll say hi to something (monkey, sheep, mommy, my shoulder) and then say "How are you today?" It's pretty adorable.

You are still as independent and strong-willed as you have ever been, but you are sweet and happy and pretty easy to work with. You really are a lot of fun at this age. It's amazing to watch as you continue to develop your personality.

Love,
Mama

Thursday, October 31, 2013

Halloween 2013

This little Nemo did not want to wear the hat to complete his look.
He also did not want to stand still, so our documentation of the event is minimal.

It was Gabriel's first time to go trick or treating. It was actually my first time, too. We had fun together. Though we really only made it to half a dozen houses before he stripped the Nemo costume off and we went on home.

The cutest part was when he ran, the fins on the back wiggled back and forth. I really wish I had video.

These few pictures will have to do.