Learning

Yesterday, Riley woke up wanting to work on his preschool workbook. As you can see from the picture he still can't quite get a good grip on the pencil. I think I need to get him those training pencil grips to help him facilitate grasp the pencil.

He catches on fast but he doesn't find tracing and coloring interesting at this point. I constantly tell him that once he starts school that he's going to have to color, dance and sing along the other children {he doesn't like to dance and sing in front of strangers}. That he has to do what the teacher tells him what to do. He just listens to what I say but then changes the conversation. I'm so apprehensive on having him go to daycare because of the horrible stories one hears in the news and also because of germs ... however, I also know that it's important that he has contact with children his age. I'm just torn. I was thinking that if I do have him go to daycare that it'll only be two days a week and for four hours on those two days.
Sydna never went to daycare and she never got an ear infection or pink eye and hardly caught a cold as a child. Nathan did go to daycare when he was four and he got pink eye about three times and several ear infections and would get sick with a cold several times a year. That's why I say I'm torn.

A couple of pictures came out blurry, sorry. This little guy sometimes moves too fast for me to get a good picture.

It had been a while since we last visited the library. It was probably towards the end of October or the beginning of November that we were last here. Whenever we drove past the library Riley would say, " there's the library, can we go get dinosaur books?" I just kept putting it off and so I finally told him that we were going and he got super excited.
He always ONLY wants to get dinosaur books and I always tell him that we need to get learning books and story books and once I do and bring them home and as he's looking at all the books he'll say, "this isn't a good one" if it's one that I chose so he makes two piles. One pile is for the "good" books which are obviously the dinosaur books and the other pile is for the "not good books" which are the ones I picked, lol. But the funny part is that he enjoys it when we read him the books that I picked out. He's just so full of it.

During another one of our quick visits to the grocery store, Riley again asked to help me with the groceries. He wanted to hold the basket. As we were walking through the produce section he would ask me about certain vegetables that he was curious about and didn't know the names of. Always learning. At the time I took this picture I didn't noticed that he was touching the red cabbage. It wasn't until I saw this picture at home that I became aware of it.

Poor little guy. The basket was too heavy for him to carry but he kept saying he wanted to carry it himself when I asked him if he needed help. I only had cilantro, two limes and celery. I guess for a little guy that is a bit heavy. He carried it almost the entire time we were at the store and finally, as we were walking towards the register he handed it to me.

While we were waiting in line he noticed the french bread basket next to us and asked if I wanted one. I didn't need one so I said, no thanks. Then he said, "yeah you do". I told him that I only like to buy french bread if I'm making pasta {which I wasn't}. That made me laugh.

And every day, when Nathan or Jacob get home from school/work he greets them like this and says, "I missed you so much".

My boys.
Nathan can be very sweet to baby brother. I love that neither one is shy to express their love for one another.

At fourteen Nathan still likes to sit and lean next to me when we watch a movie. He still comes close to get hugs. He still likes for me to do the sign of the cross on him before going to bed {it's a Catholic thing}. And when Jacob tells him he can't do something he then comes to me and asks me the same thing hoping he'll get a different response. But both Jacob and I know that if one of the kids comes to either one of us asking for something that we need to verify with each other first before we make a decision. Kids will always try to be sneaky.