Car Boy

Well, it looks to me like on the eve of Matthew's birthday, that he is a car boy. It's funny, when little boys are between one and two or even three they are generally intensely interested in one or tow categories of toys. Some boys love trucks, some love trains, dinosaurs, blocks, balls .....the list goes on. As for now, Matthew is actually divided between books and cars. He even makes the "Brrrrrrr" sound when he pushes cars on the floor. I love it. It's adorable.

I remember my nephew Scotty being a car/train boy when he was little. He had the Thomas train table and everything, and not to mention a few hundred hot wheels. You know when I think about it, we really haven't bought any "boy" toys for Matthew. The cars he plays with are Devon's. We're mean parents we don't really buy toys very often, the grandparents do that enough. I guess it's our way of trying to teach gratefulness. As we tell Devon (thanks to Madam Blueberry) "a thankful heart is a happy heart."

I was really hoping to have a partner to share my passion for dinosaurs, but I'm not giving up hope. Devon does enjoy dinosaurs, but she isn't that into them. Matthew actually destroyed her only dinosaur non-fiction book, which was my fault for not paying attention to the ripping sounds coming from the back seat a couple of weeks ago. That's ok, it just a good excuse to go to Half Priced Books. ;) And maybe when Matthew is older we can memorize all the different types of dinosaurs together. Hey, it could happen.

Who Knew

So I'm going to be taking a class at my church which is a book study on The Confessions by Saint Augustine. I'm very excited not just because of the class, or the fact that Clifton, my pastor, is teaching it, but because once a week I get to act like an adult for an hour and a half. Ahhhhh, it's going to be great. I'm also hoping that it will help me kick the last lump of postpartum junk that seems to be lingering.

Last night, like the big dork I am, I began reading the Preface and a chapter that goes over his chronology. And to my amazement, even though he was sainted by the Catholic church, he did not lead an entirely "pure" life. This made me realize I know very, very little about this whole sainthood thing. Perhaps this class will help to educate me, even if I'm not Catholic, I still consider Catholicism a part of my christian ancestry, just like Judaism. I mean shortly after Jesus was risen, most Christians were thrown into this Catholic category.

Leaving that tangent aside, I am really enthralled by St. Augustine. The life he lived is very inspiring. Most of his life was a spiritual quest, and even when he realized his past was not ideal to his new life he just stopped, and accepted his new life without guilt. It makes me realize that right now in my life there are many temptations that I give into, and I know there are better ways to go about doing things.

The difference between me and Augustine is that once he knew there was a better way, he took on the right way and left the old behind. I know I shouldn't over eat, and that sometimes "showing" Devon how to be patient when punishing her would be more effective that yelling, and oh boy there is so much more, but the point is I can't rid my life of these bad habits until I accept the right way and persevere through temptation to go down the easy road. Yes, snacking at night might temporarily make me feel better but in the long road it only hurts me. I can say no, but it is so much easier to keep doing things the old way.

So it looks to me like this little book study might teach me more about myself, than Augustine. Fascinating! Something tells me Clifton knew this aspect of the class when he decided to teach. He's sneaky like that.

A Few Firsts

The last few weeks have been very eventful for both Devon and Matthews development.

The other day, Devon and I were on the couch and we were reading one of her new library books. It was one we hadn't read yet and I was letting her say the sight words we have been working on. Well, as we are reading about the Backyardigans surfing, I turn the page and Devon just reads the entire sentence! "I can jump." I about pooped my pants. She recognizes "I" and "can" but we haven't done "jump" yet. It was such a big moment. I dropped the book and hugged her! She looked at me like I was nuts. In less than a month, she will be FIVE! Yowsers! At some point I need to fully accept she is growing up.

Now for little Matthew, he has been saying "bu" (pronounced "bu" as in book) for a few weeks now, but I wasn't ready to claim it as a first word yet. But I'm going to stop being modest now because he is clearly trying to say book. When ever he sees a book whether it's a board book, one of Devon's books or even one of mine, he points to it and says, "bu". Mama and Dada mean nothing to him, he's all about the books. Actually, he rarely says "mama" anymore. We're going to have to work on that. ;)

Also, Mr. Big Boy took his first steps the other day. I believe it was super bowl sunday. He took three steps from me to Chris and it was so exciting! He has been standing on his own for a couple of weeks now, but just hasn't wanted to walk yet. I'm ok with that, he's fast enough when he crawls I'm not ready for running. Today he was once again standing on his own and I came up to him with my arms opened wide, trying to entice him to walk towards me and he took four steps! He was so proud of himself and of course my heart was just melting. I'm going to have to get the video camera out so we can document this.