A-ja-liath the Giiiaaannt and other Bible stories

I don't know if I'll ever forget this, but I want to write it down just in case. Joel has been obsessed (I mean OBSESSED!) with the David and Goliath story for about two months now. We've been trying to get him interested in other stories, and our plots have worked for a couple of hours at a time, but he always comes back to David and Goliath. When I say obsessed, I mean he wants to read it, listen to it, watch it, act it out, sing about it, color pictures about it, spell it, and use stickers dealing with it. He asks his family members, friends, nursery workers, and random people we meet at stores and restaurants about it.

The conversations go something like this ...

Joel: Okay mommy, you be David the shepherd boy, and I'll be A-ja-liath the Giaaaant. [Cue man voice] My name is Ja-liath the Giant, and I am niiiine feeeet talllll.

Me: My name is David, and I'll fight you.

Joel: No, no, mommy. You have to say, "I will fight you in the name of the God of Ish-ray-ul!"

Me: Okay. My name is David, and I'll fight you with help from the God of Israel.

Joel: Huh, huh, huh ... no one can defeat me!

Me: I'll grab five stones and my sling. [Pretend to sling something at him]

Joel: Keeeeer-plunk! [falls down slowly] The Israelites won the battle!

Moments later ...

Joel: Okay mommy, YOU be Ja-liath, and I'LL be the shepherd. [We play.] Okay mommy, you be King Saul, and I'll be David. [We play.] Okay mommy, you be Jesse. I'll be David, and Judah can be the brothers. [We play.] Okay mommy, Judah can be the Philistine soldiers ... 

Me: Joel, can we play something else. Please!

Ridiculous, I know! But it doesn't stop there. I find slings with rocks (socks with random toys shoved in them) lying around the house at least twice a day. [Sidenote: I'd like to give a shout out to Uncle Butch for making him his first sling shot. The checker tied on a shoe lace has been used many times as a weapon.]

On the occasions we've been able to distract Joel from Goliath a little, he's told some really good stories. For example, he added the plague of the hippos to the ten plagues in Egypt. I also overheard him telling random children in the play place at Chick fil A, "You be Moses. You be Aaron. I'll be Pharaoh." How do you tell your child that's not normal?!  When pretending to be an Israelite in the bathtub, he sang, "I've been working on the bathtub, all the livelong day." I can't make this stuff up!

I also walked into the house one day to Joel telling his daddy, "I'll be Samson. You be dat durl! What's her name? Deliliah? Yea ... you be her." How promiscuous (you might be thinking), but when it came time for "Delilah" to trick "Samson" into going to sleep, Joel said, "Okay, let me read you a bedtime story so you can fall asleep and I can cut your hair off." What a funny kid!

Samson holding up the walls

The really funny/frustrating part is that is these stories always come back around to David and Goliath. I am honestly so tired of that story right now! I am very appreciative that Joel loves Bible stories. It's always worth the tenth time telling the story when he opens the door for an elderly lady at Belk and says, "I can do big things with God's help, just like David!"

Judah's Four Month Appointment

Ju Ju, as his brother sometimes calls him, was four months old on November 28th. He had a great healthy check up, weighing 16 pounds and 6 inches (75th-90th percentile), measuring 26 inches long (50th-75th percentile). These are pretty big increases since birth! As round as his head is, he was surprisingly only in the 50th percentile for head circumference.

Right now, Judah prefers assisted standing or sitting rather than being on his tummy. In fact, tummy time has been a challenge. He won't tolerate being on his stomach very long. He has been getting more and more comfortable each week, but soon I won't be able to keep him still. Judah has recently started to grab his toes, roll from front to back, and roll from back to front. I wouldn't call him proficient at rolling yet, but he's done both a few of times. In fact, he rolls to his side to sleep.

Judah also loves laughing and squealing. He gets so excited and kicks and squeals and smiles. He has sort of a man laugh, too. It's very sweet! His personality seems to be hot or cold (kind of like me), so when he gets overwhelmed or tired, he will quickly turn from happy squeals to an "I'm done" cry. This usually means it's time for him to go back to sleep.

Judah very much likes a schedule. He is like clockwork with naps. While they aren't always at the same time, I can tell you within about ten minutes of when he is going to need another nap. He lasts about two hours and will fall asleep within five minutes of me picking him up and swaddling him. (He's still liking his Love To Dream arms up, zip up swaddle. We'll have to transition him out soon because of him learning to roll over.) As part of his schedule, Judah seems to naturally be an early to bed and early to rise kind of kid. He wants to go to bed between 6:30 and 7:30 every night. This is very different from our night owl, Joel, who wants to go to bed at 10:00. Judah is still waking 2-4 times each night. He's been stuffy lately and cutting his two bottom front teeth, but when he's been healthy, the wake ups are much more manageable. 

Overall, Judah is a very sweet little guy. I'm trying to enjoy any alone time we get together. It may only be 10 minutes a day, but I cherish that one-on-one time. That sort of snuggly, quiet time is much harder to achieve the second go round.

Fall Photos

Our fall photos taken at Bisset Park in Radford (thanks to Insightful Images by Katie Larimer)

Yay for Reading

I wanted to journal this week to remember that Joel read his first sentences (with help) this past Wednesday. He was able to sound out most of Zac the Rat (a brand new story to us).  

"Zac is a rat. Zac sat on a can. The ants ran to the jam. Zac had a pan. Zac had a fan. The ants ran and ran. Zac had a nap."

It was a fairly long process, but he did it! I was very excited to see that he could sound out /Z/ /a/ /c/ and /a/ /n/ /t/ /s/. (I want him using phonics more than sight words.) Maybe he was using picture clues to figure out some of the words? He still needs help going from individual (choppy) sounds to smooth blending. Once I help drag out the sounds together, he can blend pretty well. His little accent gets in the way at times, though. Sometimes the words don't sound exactly the same phonetically as when he says them. 

I am not a pro, so I'm a little (ok ... a lot) confused as to where to go from here. I guess we'll keep finding books with short a words/families and then move to the other vowels? This is when I wish I had some background in elementary ed. I'm finding that there is SO much to teaching a kid to read!!

So far, he's just been going at his own pace. When he seems interested in something, we go with it. He went in this progression: capital letters, lower case letters, letter sounds, first letter of words, trying to spell short words phonetically, blending by ear (I drag out c-aaaaa-t and he interprets), reading short a words. He also has picked up on a few sight words like the, a, and I, but is sounding out words like in, is, and but. I don't know if this is the order that most kids read it, but it has been the flow of how Joel has picked up on things.

Since his big accomplishment, he has really been excited about reading (although it has to be his idea). During nap, he's been pretending to read to himself in the dark aka retelling stories by pictures. He's also been trying to spell words with letter magnets and puzzle pieces. He told his Ma last night that he couldn't spell off because he only had one f. He could spell of though. Crazy! He must get this from his daddy.

Baby's awake. Enough details for now!

What's in a Name?

I've always enjoyed hearing stories about the person a child was named after, what a name means, or why a child was given a certain name. While Judah is rising in popularity, it is still pretty uncommon, so I figured I might share why we picked it as our boy name. In no particular order, here are some of the reasons.

• We both really liked it! It was easily agreed upon.

• An Old Testament name paired well with the names Adam, Hannah, and Joel.

• It fit our two-one-two syllable pattern (Adam Lee Simpson, Hannah Jo Simpson, Caleb Joel Simpson, and Judah Lee Simpson).

• Having two boys with J names sounds cute ("Joel and Judah").

• It's unique.

• We liked the meaning - "praise the Lord", Genesis 29 shares a beautiful story of how Judah's mother (Leah) came to eventually find her self-worth in God (not in her beauty or her role as a mother, wife, etc.) Verse 35 states, "She conceived again, and when she gave birth to a son she said, 'This time I will praise the Lord.' So she named him Judah." Not that we didn't praise God for our firstborn, but Judah's crazy birth story brought about a different type of praise. Sweet Judah gives us more and more reasons to praise each day, and I'm sure this will continue as he grows!

The Pumpkin Patch

Joel, Carol, and I recently enjoyed some time at Gaver Farm. There was so much to do. I was very impressed by the layout and things that were offered. I think Carol and I had just as much fun as Joel.

There were lots of different types of animals to see. We checked out goats, ducks, rabbits, chickens, donkeys, pigs, sheep, alpaca, peacocks, and turkeys. Each of the exhibits had a cute name (like "Turkey Trot" or "Peacock Palace") and listed some information about what to call each animal (for example, kid vs. billy goat vs. nanny goat). Joel wasn't very interested in feeding the animals, but he liked watching his Grammy do it. He also liked seeing eggs in the chicken coop and the suckling piglets. His favorite animal, by far, was the Tom turkey!

 

 

Joel also spent a lot of time playing with the rubber ducks at the water tower and the water pumps. He went down all of the slides several times, and he took a cow train ride. At the end, we went in the barn and picked out some pumpkins (sleepy kids = no tractor ride to the pumpkin patch ... they didn't miss it). He liked seeing all the different sizes and colors of the pumpkins. He picked two tiny white ones - one for him and one for his brother. It was such a fun time, and I hope we get to do it again in the future!

The craft that took forever ...

I think our craft for Grammy turned out well, but boy did it take a long time. Pasting all those tiny squares (I should've cut larger ones) took a lot of endurance on Joel's (and mom's) part.  He was a liiiiiittle (ok ... a lot) distracted by rolling the glue up and down and up and down and up and down. Tonight, Joel just asked if we could make some "torn" for Ma. I had originally told him we were going to make them both the same craft. I might have to rethink that!

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Most Recent Crafts

Recently, Joel and I have been making some crafts to help him remember the Bible stories he's been reading. Sometimes we've made them alone. Sometimes we've invited other toddlers to join us. While he doesn't always have the attention span to finish in one sitting and he sometimes eats more cereal than he does glue down, I think he's really enjoying it.

Daniel and the Lion's Den

God's Promise after the Flood

Coat of Many Colors

Zaccheus

Summer Before Baby!

I just noticed my last post says that Joel was one and a half. He is now two and a half! Oops! Here is a quick update of some things we enjoyed this past summer as the birth of baby number two approached.

Instrument Petting Zoo at the Library

Swimming at the Frog Pond

Bouncy House at a Local Festival

We also enjoyed lots of visits to the park, the children's museum, dollar movies, time with friends and family, and playing in the new van.