Funny Guys.

It's raining and the boys are napping. It's a great time for me to visit with you all. We're all doing really well. Gates is back up at night but much eaiser to comfort, no night terrors like with Bridger thankfully, such awful suffering our baby B. went through with those. Lasted over two years almost nightly. He sleeps like a rock now though:-)

Gates is using a lot more English with his "la la language." as we call it. He will just point and say, "La la la la la la la!" I nod and follow him so he can't see me laughing. I wonder if he thinks we made up the English so he will just make up something too? Oh well, by the time he can explain it he won't remember what we're talking about. (smile).

Bridger set up a great construction site outside this morning. He set up caution cones (were originally bought as soccer goals) and he outlined a patch of dirt in the 'quarry' with strips of wood Daddy gives him after he saws something, then he proceeded to dig a hole in the middle of it. Pretty cute. as so often workers dig the hole first and then have to do all of that other stuff when their arms are already tired. My genius.

You can really hear the five year old on the horizon in Bridger lately. He likes to establish rules for others, he tells creative and long winded stories. He takes his role playing very seriously.

Bridger made me think of Chari so much earlier today when Gates kept pushing the wrong button on an electronic learning toy that teaches the alphabet, the voice was prompting "Can you find the letter G?" Gates would push button after button after button and it would say, "Oops. Try again. " over and over until Bridger walked over to him and pushed the button for him saying in a less than patient tone, "Push the 'G'!". He couldn't take it anymore. When Chari was little she couldn't watch someone else struggle with something she could do either. Aimee and I think it's funny because Gates can now say, "Oops. Try again." Yes, of course I've played it with Gates but he gets annoyed by unrequested help. Often. (Laugh).

One of the rewards for good choices that has been very effective with Gates is a small gumball from one of those little gum ball machines children sometimes get as gifts. (Thanks Uncle Dave and fam). I usually initiate this as a reward when I observe a positive response in him. Gates is a very fast learner, now Gates will come to me and say, "Bubble Gum Please." and pull my hand to get up. Then I ask him, "Did you make a good choice?" at that, he looks around for something to do. He might pick up a toy or walk over and pet the dog nicely or something like that. This afternoon he looked around and shrugged his shoulders with his hands palm up and just said it louder. "BUBBLE GUM PLEASE!"