Book - It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

Elijah adores Halloween and Charlie Brown, so when he found this book at the bookstore last month we had to buy it.

It is kind of like a sticker book, but not really. It comes with a few sheets of stickers and as you read along you put the stickers on the pages to complete the story.

He had fun figuring out where the stickers belonged. There are white outlines to help piece everything together.

This is Elijah's favorite page. He loves reciting the lines:
"I got a chocolate bar"
"I got a quarter"
"I got a rock"
Laughter ensues every time...

He couldn't figure out where some of the stickers went, so daddy came to the rescue.

This is a great Halloween present (cause apparently that is a new thing that people do) or a "just because" present for any little person you might know. Barnes and Noble was running a special when we bought it, buy two kids books you get this book for $3.99. Since we were already there to buy a birthday present and we were looking for another book as well, it worked in our favor. I found out this weekend that they are still running the sale this week. I have also seen it at Walmart for pretty cheap ($6 or $7), if you want to pick it up there instead.

The Winner is...

Hello everyone! Thanks for entering my giveaway and for sharing your favorite book. I recently received a Nook Tablet from my parents as an early Christmas/Birthday present and can't wait to load it up. I will definitely check out all your favorites and add them to my ever growing "want to read" list.

Speaking of reading, I read my first book with Caleb the night before last... Well, it was the first time he actually sat through the whole thing without crying... He seemed to enjoy it. And now with Elijah "semi-reading", he can read books to Caleb too. I just hope he likes them as much as Elijah does.

Speaking of Elijah (how is that for a very long segway?) he came to have lunch with me today and while he was here, he picked the winner of the giveaway. That winner just happens to be...

Debbie in KY

Congrats! Email me at Jo21236 (at) yahoo (.com) with your info and I will send it to you right away.

I hope everyone has a great day!

Learning to Write... And a Video...

Well there is one thing that I can say I accomplished during my maternity leave, besides surviving going to the store alone with both kids... "I" taugh Elijah how to write. Actually my iPod taught him how to write.

I downloaded this app iWriteWords after seeing him use it on his Uncle Kevin's iPad. The $2.99 for the full version was well worth the money...

Because this is the result.

The whole thing was a process though. I went through many, many things that didn't work before trying the app. First we tried the old try and true handwriting sheets

That didn't work, cause it was boring, so then we got a Dora the Explorer "Let's Write Letters" book.

He liked it, but I didn't realize, as with the other thing, that he didn't get the concept of following the dashed lines. So we headed to one of our local "learning stores". (What I call a learning store is just a place that sells suppliments to teachers and anyone who wants to suppliment a child's education.) The store is a whole other post in and of itself. If I had unlimited funds, I would get in trouble there... but anyway... While we were there we found these letter stencils that show you the steps in writing each letter.

He did wonderfully with these, but couldn't write free-hand, so it frustrated him. I was about to give up and thought maybe he just wasn't ready to write yet. I figured I would give him more time, but the next Sunday we went over his Grandma's house to visit and that is when he started playing with the app.

After a week or two of playing with it, he started writing letters on the refrigerator with dry erase marker, then he started doing it on the blackboard in his room. Yesterday, Joe was watching the kids before I got home from work and taped the video below. When I got home,  he surprised me with it, so I thought I would share it with all of you.

http://youtu.be/Zq3e2PbLJ5o

Hope everyone has a great day! Until next time...

Book Requests...

As I've mentioned before we've been reading to/with Elijah since he was probably 3 months old. We started off just reading before bedtime... one short book. Then that one short book turned into several short books. After a while the books were moved into his play area, so he could look through them as he pleased. Yes, some of the books were torn apart or are very well worn, but, to me, a worn book is a well loved book.
At first I was buying him a new book every time I got paid, but that kind of fell to the way-side. One reason was about a year or so ago Elijah decided he didn't want to read or look at books anymore... he would rather play with Legos or his little figurines. When I would offer he would say no, so I just let him do what he wanted. We weren't too concerned, cause every person goes through phases in things that they like and don't like.

We let him be and probably around Christmastime he decided books were on his agenda again... with an added interest in books where you find things. So it was off to Barnes and Noble we went. We ended up getting a few different books, but this book series is one of his favorites:

There are 3 other books in this series
People, Places and Things
Moo, Quack, Roar and More
Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall


We only had 3 out of the 4, so Elijah's very first book request was

It made me proud for him to actually request a book, out of the blue, so I had to get it for him... that night.

The second book request was from a different source. On barnesandnoble.com they have these videos of famous people/authors reading children's books. Elijah -loves- the videos and looks forward to each new one. They upload a new video every month and you can even watch the ones from previous months. I love to sit there watching them with him. One of his favorites is

He would (and still will) ask to watch it over and over and over again. So one day we were at Walmart and guess what book we found. Yup, it was "my book" as he likes to say. We couldn't leave the store without it... Now he likes me to read it over and over and over again.

I wrote this entry about a week ago, but never finished it up to publish until now. The reason I mention that is because last night I offered to read Elijah a book and asked "What book do you want to read?". He wanted to read "Where The Wild Things Are", so I said "Where is it?". He looked around and couldn't find it initially, so after a few minutes he ran over to the computer chair and said, "Monnie, sit down, sit down, sit down!". He wanted to watch it on the computer since he couldn't find his book. (As an aside, we found the book about a minute later and he let me read it instead)

The Notebook

Unfortunately (or fortunately) this is not a review of the movie/book. This entry is about a notebook Elijah got for his birthday this year. We were in Target one day looking for (cheap) birthday presents for Elijah, so he would have quite a few to open. At this age it's not the amount of money that matters, but the amount of gifts, so we took full advantage of that. He got some stuff from the dollar section... little cars, coloring books and self inking stamp that say "awesome". Then we hit up the clearance section of craft items. Not too much there, except for these cool Cars and Toy Story activity backpacks that come with crayons, stickers, coloring pages, etc.

Right next to the craft aisle is the stationary aisle, so I was browsing there for some things and I came upon this:

A notebook... to be his very own. Since he loves to write in -everyone else's- notebooks, I thought he would love it, but apparently I wasn't realizing that he is only turning 3. We wrapped it up and when he opened it, this is the expression we got.

Nothing. He flipped through the book trying to figure out why it was blank. As he flipped he gave the expression that Joe is imitating in the background (without the smile), about every 30 seconds. He was annoyed... "Was this some sick joke? Why would my parents give me a book with no words or pictures? Very funny, people, very funny..." is what his expression said.

I explained to him what it was for after a few minutes of him scouring the pages for any possible words that might be on it. After he heard, the notebook was promptly put on the floor and he moved onto the next gift. A day or so afterward I re-introduced it to him and he has been drawing/coloring in it ever since.

So if you are looking for something inexpensive to get a 3-5 year old, a notebook is a good way to go... however just make sure the little boy or girl knows what notebooks are used for, first. :-)

Words...

As 95% of you have heard me talk about for the last month now, Elijah is delayed a little in talking and the pediatrician was concerned enough to say he should get tested. Now, if you know me well, you would have thought I took this all in stride and was like, "Tested?!? H*** no, she is crazy." But apparently I am either becoming a full fledged mom or going through a mid-life crisis. Because I have been researching and talking to everyone that has ever been a mother, debating on whether I should get him tested or not. And well, consensus was "No. He is a boy, he will talk when he is ready".

So that we did, however it didn't stop me from researching the crap out of the subject. I found these two books, both by Thomas Sowell, Late Talking Children and
Einstein Syndrome - Bright Children Who Talk Late, which I haven't read yet, but I plan on getting them or looking at them very soon.

When the whole thing originally started I said I would give him until he was 2 and if he still wasn't talking I would get him tested. Then a couple weeks ago Elijah started to say more things... or atleast trying to. As of yesterday he started saying his own version of "I don't know" (I dodo).

But 2 Saturdays ago I got a video of this:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZHxURSo2C0

Now if only he could say useful words like "hungry", "thirsty" or "more"... But I guess I'll take what I can get. Although we did have a "conversation" this morning about what he wanted to be for Halloween, but I think I'll save that for another blog entry.

Until then, ttyl.