Angelo’s new expression

Angelo is very expressive these days. Making lots of sounds that actually sound like he’s trying hard to say words rather than babbling. He waves, claps and opens and closes his hands a lot. His newest thing is to turn his hands up as if to ask a question. And he loves looking at the family pictures going up the steps. He makes you stop at each one and he smiles and laughs and reaches for them. He says, da da when he sees the one of Aaron. 

Birds

Just a regular Monday

Part. 1. The Aquarium:We headed out early to the Aquarium with Joelle, Sammy and Zachary. Everyone was in pretty good spirits. On the bus, Sammy asked a strange man, “What does my mouth look like?” He didn’t know how to answer. The whole point of going to the Aquarium in Abraham’s mind is to see the scuba divers. Luckily we saw them right away and they waved to us. That’s a bonus. Angelo was intrigued by the fish and tried squirming out of my arms at the top of the tank. He wanted in. I managed to get out of there only having to buy a softserve icecream–of which Angelo was even demanding bites–even though Abraham headed into the gift shop and asked me if I had any money. Sammy had a different approach to getting a souvenir and walked right out the door with a pink stuffed dolphin. Abraham was considering doing the same when he saw Sammy’s mom return the dolphin to the shop.Part 2. Making Villages:We came home and set up a village with the castle and the farm. We then moved on to building a pirate ship, which Abraham called a “recipe for disaster.” I thought I heard him wrong, “excuse me?” Yes, that’s what he said. Of course the ship was made out of a stack of books. The same books I had just put away after Angelo had taken each one out of the book case.Angelo spent the afternoon thoroughly examining each article of a toy box we hadn’t gotten out for a while and generally seeming pretty content for a kid who had slept only 30 minutes.Part 3. Dinner with Sharon, Romeo and Enzo:Most Monday nights Sharon, Enzo and Romeo come over for dinner.  Romeo and Abraham play very well together once they have had at least 4 heated exchanges involving one person committing a wrong doing and the other demanding an apology. Often loudly They are getting pretty good at settling things though.It goes something like this:Abraham holds his arms straight out in front of him at Romeo. Romeo sees this as the aggressive action it is and swats Abraham’s hand. Abraham demands an apology from Romeo. Reluctantly, Romeo apologizes. Abraham says thank you. Then a few minutes later Abraham apologizes to Romeo too “f0r being mean.”(An aside) Abraham has been apologizing in a way that seems so earnest it makes me a little sad. “Sorry for not listening to you mom.” But I am getting the opportunity to hear some of my words repeated to me. When Abraham was having a hard time explaining to me which sweatshirt he wanted to wear and I had gone up and down the stairs three times retrieving various items, he said, “Why are you being so difficult?!”Dinner time:Enzo spends his time alternately following the older boys, occupying himself with toys, chasing the cats and hugging and kissing Angelo. Angelo watches it all from the safety of my lap.Post dinner mayhem: 

Ken

We bought Abraham a Ken doll at Boomerangs this weekend. We did this because right when we walked in the store, he attached himself to a pair of hockey shoulder pads that he wore all around the store-of course they were way too big and made it hard for him to walk. But he was alternately calling them his hockey equipment and his space-off suit. Because I didn’t want to go home with someone’s stinky used hockey pads, I distracted him with Ken. He was psyched and named his new “guy” “Abraham.” I asked him if he knew what kind of doll “Abraham” was and he told me, “a brown guy.” More like orange. “Abraham” is wearing a white tuxedo shirt (which is actually a halter top and pants suit put together), purple sparkley jacket and white shoes. When Abraham stripped “Abraham” down he discovered that “Abraham” did not have the necessary parts to make him a boy. The absence of them, of course, makes “Abraham” a girl. And, the real Abe added, “She’s wearing lipstick.” I tried explaining they don’t make dolls anatomically correct but that he was still a boy. That did not convince him. He’s since come around to accepting Ken for who he is. A male doll without the right parts. This afternoon he told me it was ok for boys to wear lipstick. Yea, I guess so. If they want to.

They love each other

Pajamas and hats.

Summer-winter is the new winter

Abraham is into re-naming things these days. His Adidas used to be his “Posey Shoes” after his cousin who gave them to him and recently he asked if they could be called is sneakers now. For some reason I bought him some tick tacks at CVS yesterday. He has a mild obsession with cough drops and has been working on an angle for a while now to get us to give him one, but today he asked “can my ticktacks be cough drops?” Sure. This afternoon Abraham ran upstairs for a costume change. He came down wearing some camouflage shorts and announced that it was summer now and warm outside. To prove his point, he went out to the backyard. Nope. He came in and told me it actually wasn’t summer. I told him, I know, it’s still winter. He asked if we could just call it summer winter. And just like that, we have a new season.

Thinking ’bout Grandmom mom

We had a visit from Grandmom mom this weekend. Sunday after she left, Abraham and I were on the way to the grocery store. He was actually being quiet so I asked him what he was thinking about. “I’m thinking about Grandmom mom,” he told me.

Here is Angelo giving his trademark hug and kiss.

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New Fridge

The finished kitchen–hand prints and all. 

Sleeping

For me, putting the two kids down when Aaron is out is always a crap shoot. They both end up sleeping but how and when is never the same.  Abraham was in the process of negotiating with me about what he was going to sleep in, insisting that it is comfortable for him to sleep in his jeans and shoes when Angelo coughed himself awake. I went into his room and Abraham followed me. He was trying to stay awake for me to get Angelo back down and then read him a story but he didn’t make it. I tried to wake him up to no avail. Once he’s out, he’s out. 

Some more art (?)

Bear.Abraham decorated this bear at preschool. Aaron tried to throw it away but Abraham saw it in the trash and retrieved it. Now it ends up in various places around our house.   Mask.Pillows.This is actually a spaceship, nest, house, etc. This is more of an interactive piece of art. The object is to get every single pillow from the house and place in one place.