The Baranko Family: Day to day kid update

We have had so much going on that needed reporting on I haven't had time to report on the day to day stuff! I will remedy that with today's post.

Both Luke & Claire love to dance, especially in the basement in their toy room. Lately they have been dancing the most to the peanut butter jelly song - which is like a pseudo rap song, but with kid's lyrics. They both go wild for the peanut butter jelly song, they LOOOOVE it and really break it down to it!

In addition to dancing together, they are playing so well together now. It has dramatically increased lately, they are really interacting as two little kids would, not as a baby and a toddler. Luke even asks her to play with him and will get distressed if she doesn't want to, like when we're playing his favorite "duck, duck, goose". I don't think she likes it because she never gets picked to be the goose.

Even though they are playing more together, that also means they're fighting more. Claire is a troublemaker, stealing a Lego or a car that he's playing with and then running away with it, making sure he's chasing behind her. He wants her to play with him then gets really upset when she wrecks what he's working on, which she does 100% of the time within the first 15 seconds.

Luke used to always wait in his bed in the morning until either Matt or I went to get him, usually wailing to signal to us that he was now awake and ready for us to get him. This is something he totally does on his own, as we have told him many times he can just get out of bed if he wakes up. He didn't like that idea. Actually, sometimes he would just yell "I'm ready for you to come get me!" But recently Luke has actually been getting out of bed himself. The first time I came out to the family room after getting Claire out of her crib and saw Luke just sitting on the couch looking at books he almost gave me a heart attack!

Almost every day Luke asks me or Matt "What do you want to do today?" or if it is the evening, "What do you want to do tomorrow?" He likes to talk about his schedule and our plans, and if we don't have any he wants to make some, even if that means, "We could play in the basement!" or "We could eat breakfast!"

Luke is writing all of his letters now. At school they focus on a letter at a time, and they practice writing every day. Luke can write his own name now, and his penmanship isn't too bad! Along with that increased writing control has come more drawings, too, instead of just scribbles.

On the theme of being a big kid, Luke is also playing with little Lego sets, the regular sized Legos, not the big blocks. He can follow the instructions in the booklet pretty well, too. He finds the little pieces in the picture, then counts the "dots" to put them in the right place. I think we could have predicted that he would love Legos, because of his love of puzzles and building train tracks and things. He also has my genes, and I was a Lego fanatic!!

Speaking of puzzles, Claire has gotten bit by the puzzle bug, too! She can do all those wooden puzzles where you put the right shaped piece in the spot where it belongs. She turns them around until they fit in correctly.

Claire has been talking so much lately. Her vocabulary is a lot more extensive than Luke's was at this age. We think she's at least a year ahead of where Luke was in the talking department. My favorite thing is still hearing her say, "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy", which she has been doing lately when she wakes up in the morning. It is so pleasant to be summoned awake by the cutest sound on earth versus an ear piercing crying baby.

Even though she can talk a bit, Claire still finds tons of ways to communicate non-verbally. There is no way we can't tell what she wants when she literally climbs into her own high chair and points her finger in front of her repeatedly demanding food appear. Or the other day when she got a pan out of the pots & pans drawer, got a cup out of the kids' cups drawer, and then went to the fridge and pointed repeatedly until somebody opened it, then pointed at the milk. We're pretty sure she wanted warm milk:)

Claire has been "helping" me get ready for work lately, especially when I put on my makeup. She likes to sit on the edge of the sink and brush her own cheeks with my blush brush, or if I let her she puts on 50 layers of chap stick. For some reason every time she holds my compact of powder, she wants to put the powder on her lips, too, instead of her nose or cheeks. She doesn't like that I only allow her certain things to hold, she wants access to everything, all the time.

Can't wait to see what these kids do next, their interactivity and indepedence are so fun!

Souvenirs from Italy

Flowers from D&E for our homecoming

Claire has been carrying around her little dolly and new purse all over town, it is really cute.

Luke is really into the maze ball that B&L gave him for his birthday. I thought it would be too advanced for him, but he spends soooo much time working on it, and he beat it! He was so proud of himself. He actually then found a shortcut for it that really does take a lot of coordination and thinking, in my opinion.

Run in Open Lands with Luke and Spumoni

Bubbles!!

The kids love to play in the boat while its in the garage, looking at the fish finder, throwing a bucket with a string tied to it overboard, turning on the radio, it's a party!