Hi,
We are doing pretty good here. The pregnancy is going well, we are excited for little Ella to arrive in about 3 ½ months. But are glad we have more time to get all the baby stuff ready. Paul's been riding his bike to and from school the last couple of days. I think we are all excited for this semester to come to a close in about a month (especially Paul). He will be traveling for a class on May 5th - 20th. He's pretty excited to take a trip and I am a little less excited about having him gone. Grant will probably have a hard time not seeing his daddy. This morning, two minutes after Paul left, he said, `I miss Daddy already'. I will have to plan exciting things to take his mind off of it.
Well, here's his journal entry for this week:
This weekend Paul decided to clean his bike so he could ride it to school. Grant was very excited to be Daddy's little helper. They spent the morning on the deck and I went shopping. I heard good reports when I came home that Grant was actually a helper & he handed Paul the tools he needed and helped Paul carry the greasy chain. Although, he did get a mist of degreaser in his eye that Paul had to wash out for 5 minutes.
The following Monday as Paul was starting up our swamp cooler, Grant asked in the cutest little voice, `You need tools, Daddy? I help?' This time he mostly played with the bike tools in the shed which just happened to be at his level.
Sometimes Grant likes to play conversation games with us. He'll say, `Mommy, what you doing? (The `you' is said in a cute high pitch)' and we'll tell him what we are doing and return the question, `Grant, what you doing?' He tells us what he's doing and the questioning starts all over again, usually not ending until I or Paul get tired of it. Another cute thing that he's been saying lately is, `Oh, yes!' (the pitch is what matters on this saying & he starts out mono and then goes low on the `Oh' and starts out mono and then goes high on the `yes' - so it ends up sounding more like `O-oh, yeh-es') Our biggest frustration and probably his, too is his struggle with expressing any strong emotion.
He seems irrational when he gets very upset or very excited (ex. Throwing toys when he is angry or drilling his head into me when he gets very excited). When he is ruff-housing, he also seems to become irrational and starts pushing, hitting and running/jumping into others. We've talked about taking a deep breath and counting to ten when he is angry but usually only after an incident. Because he is so strong, I worry that he might really hurt someone if he doesn't learn more positive ways to express himself. We'll just keep trying, I suppose. Well, that is all I have.
TTFN,
Paul, Kate and Grant