Zappo * Roosters

So lately Atticus loves making us lunch with his play food. He will have us pretend to sleep and then sneak up and crow like a rooster as loud as he possibly can. And then we do it again. We spend time drawing, playing t-ball in the back yard, trying to get the dog to come when he calls him (lots of "smooching" noises -- like Brad makes to call Vic -- and knee slapping). He also shops quite a bit -- he puts things in his felt Easter bag (from Grandma Susan) and takes his play steering wheel, sits in his chair and drives to the store.

Dietrich is a flipping over machine. Put him on his back -- zappo! -- he's on his stomach. He hates sleeping on his stomach and is just now tolerating playing on his stomach. But turn over he must -- like some uncontrollable flipping instinct or a bottom-weighted weeble-wobble (remember those?). He loves his jumper and sitting upright (propped up). He loves to be read to and especially to be sung to -- when we get time just him and I together, I take a hymn book out and will flip through singing to him. (I'd love to do this with Atticus but he wants to be in charge of the hymn book and flips through it so fast I can only sing one phrase of each song before we charge onward.)

Two weeks ago, we changed Atticus' bedtime to 8 pm. For a week we put both boys to bed together at the same time. We would read them a story, pray with them, and then turn off the lights and sing a couple songs. Brad and I realized we have a seriously truncated repetoire of lyrics for praise songs and hymns. I know snatches and the tunes for many hymns, but I usually make up all the lyrics after the second verse -- this doesn't work so well when two people sing together, especially since I never seem to use the same improvised lyrics twice. Anyway, we're working on a game plan to learn some more bedtime material (-: Meanwhile we made it through Atticus story Bible twice and are reading through his new Bible story book he received for his birthday. I used to read a kids' devotional to Atticus at lunchtime, but I haven't for awhile since he likes to have "conversations" with while we eat.