Heard Around the House #8

 I put some prunes on the table for the first time before supper one night just thinking we should eat them before they went bad. Silas loves to snack, so he went nuts over them. He picked up the bag and was passing them out to all of us. He said, "Dada, when I'm 4 will you put a bag of these in my room?" So I guess when you are big you get the privilege of having prunes in your room that you get to snack on whenever you want! 

Soon after the boys went down for a nap one day something woke up Silas. I noticed him sneaking into the living room. I was sitting on the couch reading, but I guess he didn't think I could see him. I walked him back to his bed so that he could "get all of his sleep out". He then whispered to me very seriously, "Mama, there is someone in your bathroom."I started to wonder if the living room was the first place he snuck into when he woke up. Maybe he went to look for me in our bedroom first. That really creeped me out. I got a very large wood dowel from my sewing desk and went to see who was in my bathroom. It got my blood pumping, but there was no one there. I went back to check on Silas. He said, "Mama, what ya doin' with that big stick." I said, "I was going to beat the person in my bathroom." After further questioning Silas about who he saw I found out that it was a man, he spoke Spanish, and that he was clipping his fingernails. Yeah, that last piece of information clued me in on it being a dream! Crazy little boy scared me that time.

I just found out that the boys are a month past the cut off date for them to start kindergarten next year in the States. We aren't going to do kindergarten in the States obviously, but I wanted them to be on track. I am SO happy about this. Instead of being the youngest in their grade they will be some of the oldest. I also just received a whole extra year with my boys! I was planning on starting a preschool curriculum (Heart of Dakota) this month but now we are just going to continue with what we have been doing, daily games and activities with numbers and letters in them. We will start preschool next year and by then maybe our "school room" on the other side of the house will have a concrete floor in it! 

Yesterday we did a numbers activity with pushpins. It was a big hit. 

 They did all the way up to 12. We talk about the wall clock a lot, so 12 is as high as we have gone. After their nap they asked to do this activity again! Here is Jonah matching the numbers on his paper with the ones on the clock:

When Jimmy first saw the boys working on their numbers he said, "What are you guys doing?" Silas replied, "I already made 1, now I am making 2!"

Then Jonah said, "Yeah, and then I'm going to make 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 and then I'm going to show Mama and she's going to say 'Wow that is so cool!'" 

Silas had his Thor shirt on the other day and Jonah said, "Why is there a hammer on your Thor shirt, Silas?" Silas immediately replied like it was the most ridiculous question ever, "Because God made it that way!"

I have mentioned this before but we keep a plastic pig on our table. Idea from here. If you do something rude at the table you get the pig. The last person to have the pig at the table loses one of their popsicles that day or the next. (All of my kids get a half of a popsicle twice a day). The only way out is to eat everything on your plate. (Sometimes they take this option, sometimes they don't.) 

Well Jonah and Silas have quickly figured out the many benefits of having a younger sibling. Those little stinkers taught Eden the "Beans beans the magical fruit..." rhyme. As you probably know if you had brothers growing up that the last word of the first phrase of that rhyme ends with a word that isn't allowed at the table. The other day when one of them got the pig they enacted their premeditated plan in hopes that their sister would be the last one with the pig when the meal ended. Jonah and Silas started chanting that rhyme in unison and ended it on the next to last word. Then they both looked at their sister and waited for her to resolve it. Sure enough Eden blurts out the last word with a big smile on her face. Jonah and Silas start cheering, "Eden gets the pig!" That's some twin behavior right there!