On our shop day last week when we were building the bird cage stand, Lucas and Jillian discovered some big building blocks!
Lucas made some boats with tall sails.
Jillian hopped out and made more boats!
Lucas made the tiny ones sneak up on the big ones and I heard “Boom!” and “Thud!” the blocks (the bad guy pirate boats) fell to the floor! Everything is a toy. I love Lucas’ wild and crazy imagination. Everything he finds is a new something with a story. His boats had many adventures while Becky and I built… and his big sisters took pictures.
I love cultivating their imagination! He learns so much letting his stories come alive.
Enjoy the imagination of those around you. Follow along with them and see just where it will lead… you never know what kind of adventure a few beads, sticks, crayons, chalk sticks, or bits of board will take you!
Our gym has an after-school program where our comfy vans pick up from several area schools and bring little athletes back to gym. They do gymnastics, crafts, eat snacks, and do homework. Thea and her other gym baby friend sometimes hang out there. Thea loves it and thinks she’s a big kid! Just like at home, she tries to do school with them!
Especially when someone wants to play teacher! Ellie loves to play teacher and Thea loves to “learn” and she likes the chalkboard.
At home, Thea knows not to eat coloring tools like pencils, crayons, markers, and even paints! At Aunt Becca’s she got introduced to big sidewalk chalk and tasted it. Sister-cousin Anastasia laughed and said, “eww, gross Baby Thea, you color with it like me!”
Once Thea saw that, it was like “aha! this is an outside coloring tool!”
Sitting with Becky one day, she pulls up a pencil and paper and says “yeah!” and starts babbling in her own way, giving us serious glances as she explains what her work is. Jillian said, “Thea thinks she’s doing school!”
Thea and Becky are quite alike. Becky understood before her first year that coloring tools were not to be eaten too. Baby Becky never ate Legos (except for the black squishy tires, she called them gum and we had to remove them temporarily – I think she still secretly stashes them somewhere and chews them). Baby Becky was my earliest potty trainer (at 14 months telling us when she had to go & by 18 months in regular underwear – I have no clue how!) and Thea is already potty training herself. She got super excited when I bought a baby potty for her tiny self – and knows exactly what it’s for (showed us by pulling at her diaper so we took it off & she used the potty, I teased Becky that she may lose the designation of youngest potty trained).
I love watching my little love get more independent. Each one of them unique and special. Each has different strengths and weaknesses. Each helps the other in various tasks to make us a cohesive team – we build on each others’ strengths.
This is how we all should be. Learning, assisting, encouraging; each doing what we do best and helping when and where we can. It isn’t just for siblings or families. This understanding of the learning and growing and maturing process is an important life skill.
And Thea is playing in the grass without eating it – amazing! She is totally a little Becky… until Uncle Buddy came along and taught 2-year-old Becky she could eat dollar weed (and then she wouldn’t quit eating them!).
