When we started planning this month-long road trip I almost started to develop hives in anticipation of keeping a three year old and an eight month old strapped down for hours at a time. Well, we have realized that the [near] hives were completely unwarranted! Koa and Caspian have both done SO well with traveling so far. When we made our impromptu 12 hour drive into Stafford, VA I think we were pushing the limits just a bit, but neither of them seem to be holding it against us.
Koa is still most fascinated with his Legos and asks to get his "playgos" out every time we get in the car. We did reveal another gift we had gotten him which is a dry erase note book for practicing letters, numbers and shapes. We didn't think ahead of time to establish a rule that he is not really supposed to draw on his brother, but Caspian didn't seem to mind all that much. Now that we have clarified that the markings seem to stay where they belong and he asks to draw on that almost as often as the Legos. I am still in shock that we have made it the full distance across the country and have only pulled out those two items. There have been a couple of other small things and snacks here and there, but other than that Koa has been pretty easy to entertain. The strawberry fruit snacks that I made and left stuck to the parchment paper for him to unroll and pick off have been a big hit. They are all gone already.
Koa has had a lot of people to read stories to him along the way and that has been a lot of fun for him. He is also getting more and more interested in reading to other people. He had a little friend at Full Bubble, "Lilily" (Lily), who is about six months older than him and he read The Very Hungry Caterpillar to her several times.
Caspian...well...he has his toes. So, who needs toys (or snacks) when you have toes. This is definitely a month of changes for Caspian. The folks in Portland are not even going to recognize him when we get back. He is in the process of getting three teeth at once. He is now a pretty proficient crawler (although he looks a little like Gollum) and is getting better at cruising all the time. He gets brave once in a while and tries to see if he can stand by himself. He gets really thrilled by the couple of seconds of success before his bottom meets the ground again! He is also working on talking a little bit. He has been saying "Dada" for a while now actually directed at Zak. One day he said "Mama" right after one of us said it, but it was only one time, so it might have been a fluke. I think he says "thank you" ("tay-tu") and we think he said "dog" when we were at Becky's house (they have two adorable dogs that both the boys loved!). He has been working on signing a little bit here and there. When I say, "More, please." he will give me his hands to help him make the sign. He occasionally signs "daddy" when I do it first and he has signed "bird" (after me) when we were watching the birds in Grandpa Hunt and Grandma Myrna's yard in Colorado.
When we were in Paris for Full Bubble I would usually take him up to our room to nap during the day. If we were downstairs and he started to get tired he would snuggle into my chest and act like he was going to sleep, but then he would sit up, wave his hand "bye-bye" and then snuggle in again. He would do this until I took him upstairs to his bed. If I didn't "listen" he would get progressively fussier about it. He got pretty "spoiled" while we were there about getting to go to his own bed and sleep in a nice dark room by himself. Now we have to fight it out a bit when there is no bed available and he has to go to sleep in my arms.
On Sunday Caspian went to his very first Bible class at North Stafford while Zak and I taught the adult class. He learned that you cannot live on rice cereal alone, but the Word of God is a necessary part of the diet. Pictures are being posted, as I type, of his Bible gnawing.
Caspian has also been using the potty pretty consistently. If we give him the opportunity and he needs to go he will go shee shee and poo-poo in the big potty. We're not trying to get him out of diapers any time soon. We are just giving him the opportunity to get used to using the big potty and he seems to understand the concept just fine.
We just discovered how far behind our photo albums are and submit a public apology to The People. Sorry. We (Zak) will get right on that.
