Too much...

Between the fact that we went on a wonderful trip to Montana, began homeschooling D for Preschool, the fact that I haven't posted in, oh, a month and the fact that my kids do blogable things about every 90 seconds, I have so much to post that it's paralyzing.    So here is an eclectic collection of the highlights:

I SPY:
D often wants to play "I Spy".  Cool.  A game that requires no physical activity and almost no brain power on my part.  Love it.

Only he must think the game is sort of random because he'll say, "I spy something black."  After about 5 guesses I'll say something like, "Is it the chair?"  He'll say, "Ummmmm-", look around blankly until he sees the chair I'm talking about and say, "Ummmmm, YES!!! THAT IS RIGHT!  Good guess, Mommy!"

Clearly he does NOT get that he needs to spy the object FIRST.  THEN tell me the color.

My favorite was we were all in Montana playing it in the car (after I had really emphasized that he needed to think of an item BEFORE saying he spied it)  and he spied something white.  Medman made about a hundred guesses, all of which received encouraging answers like "Nope, but good try, Daddy!"   Finally, as a shot in the dark, I asked, "Honey, can you see this thing?"

To which he cheerfully replied, "No!  It's REALLY far away!  All the way back at our house!  It's Daddy's Jetta!" (Which happens to be silver, not white....)

Which flicked on that little brain bulb as I realized, "Oh, the kid doesn't know that 'spy' means see'."  Oh well, at least he had fun.

DREAMS:
There are certain concepts that I find hard to explain to D.  Dreams are one of them.

"Um, it's like a story, in your head that happens while you are sleeping ....."

Which leads to him telling me his "dream" which oddly enough parallels EXACTLY the Thomas the Train book we just got from the library.

So when he says, "I dreamed that I was at a State Park."  We just looked at each other and said politely, "Oh?"

D: "Yeah, I was in a State Park and there were trees."

Me: "Trees?"

D: "Yup, with arms."

Medman (asking the obvious question since did he really know what a State Park was?) :  "Which State Park?


D: "What State Park?"

Medman:  "The one in your dream!"

D (totally confused) : "What????"

Sometimes it is hilariously funny how little communication is going on.


BELLE
Speaking of communication, Belle is still doing her no-means-no-AND-yes thing.  We had this EXACT conversation about ten times a day on our trip.

(First you must know that Belle can nod her head, but it is hysterical.  Her head being approximately 1/2 of her minuscule body weight, nodding it up and down makes her wobble between tipping backwards and plummeting forward while she staggers around attempting to remain standing.)

B: "Dih"

Me: "Drink?  You want a drink?"

B (with feeling): "NO!"

Me:  "Does that no mean yes?"

B nods her head vigorously.

Me: "Of course it does..."

I'm not kidding about that happening ten times a day.  Oh, and she says "uh uh" too.  Like the kind of  "uh uh" that means NO.  Except, yes, you guessed it, hers means EITHER no or yes.

ANIMAL SOUNDS
I feel like Belle should be learning animal sounds, only because reciting animal sounds was the distraction I would use with D at this age to get him to not notice I was sticking food in his mouth.  (why that child is opposed to eating when I love eating so dearly, I'll never understand...) (and yes, I know I shouldn't expect the same things from different children.  Pipe down, you know all of you with kids do it too...)  Unfortunately she treats animal sounds with the same freedom of expression as the rest of her communication skills.

She almost never gives the same answer to "What does a cow say?" or a horse or a pig.  But she is consistent in one animal. 

Me:  "Belly button, what does a sheep say?"

Belle (with the same enthusiasm she brings to all her incomprehensible speaking) makes this super creepy hissing noise.  Not a pure hiss like a snake.  This is a freaky gutteral hiss that sort of sits in the back of her throat.  The kind of hiss some sort of prehistoric monster would make before it ate you.

And I suddenly find myself a little scared of sheep.

Come to think of it, if that's the sorts of noises she thinks animals make, it's not surprising she blocks out any information I try to give her about them.