So Daniel has been making sounds that sound a lot like words recently. A couple of weeks ago, he got a-hold of my phone and began pressing buttons. I heard him, or rather the phone, from the kitchen and called out, “Daniel, are you calling China?” to which he replied, “Yeah, Mama!” It was a bit growly, and he probably wasn’t assigning meaning to the words, but that’s how it came out nevertheless. I thought Michael was going to bust a gut laughing when he heard him.
Later that same week, Thomas offered him a carrot at the dinner table by saying, “Daniel, do you want a carrot?” And Daniel said, “Carrot.” Plain as day. We haven’t heard it since.
This morning though was the sweetest. All 3 kiddos and myself were snuggling, wiggling, and playing in the bed. Daniel laid his head down on the bed next to me so I started talking to him. We’ve been playing a game where I say, “Bye-bye” and wave his hand for him. It makes him giggle for some reason. This morning I just waved my own hand and said “Bye-bye” a few times since he was laying on his hands. He watched me for a bit, then sat himself up, raised his right hand, and clearly said “bye-bye” in a sweet little voice while waving and grinning. Then he crawled off to play. It was so obviously on purpose and not an accident. And it was soooo sweet to see that little hand waving. He looked right proud of himself, too.
Hopefully, he will get better soon so that he will stop the constant screaming. He is such an intense little guy that when he wants something he screams at the top of his lungs to get it. We are working on being quieter at the dinner table, but when he runs out of food on his tray or sees something on the table he wants, he screams until he gets it. If I look at him and speak softly, he calms down for a few seconds. I’m trying to encourage him to make a softer sound before I give him what he’s screaming for. I’m sure he’ll get it eventually. He’s already gotten better about biting Gloria. (Poor girl has little bruises where he’s bitten her.) Now if I see him thinking about it and tell him no, he stops. Gloria tells him, “Daniel, don’t bite me.” He backs off then, too. And for the record, his biting happens when he wants to love on her the way he loves and squishes on his favorite stuffed toys. He’s not trying to be mean. He’s just caught up in the intense snuggling so he bites her.
The little guy is just INTENSE!
LAST week, while I was feverishly sewing, Aunt Mindy came to visit and paint the family room and our bedroom/bathroom including trim. It was really nice having her here for pretty much a week. She came in on the Thursday before Memorial Day, went home Saturday evening, came back Monday morning and then left again Thursday.
She was amazingly laid back about it and worked around our family schedule very well. And she was VERY patient with me hemming and hawing over what color to choose. The first color that I had chosen (and purchased) for the family room looked mint green when it got on the wall. Mindy had spent about an hour “cutting in” (doing brushwork up close to the trim) before I managed to look at it. Mindy reminded me that I had originally chosen a darker color but was nervous about putting it on the wall. She went back to Home Depot for me to have them darken what we had. Unfortunately, the darker color uses a different base, so adding color to the paint we had just made it darker and more yellow and, well, just as bad but in a different way. She encouraged me to go get my first choice while she watched the kids. She didn’t seem the least bit unhappy that she had just spent so much time painting a color I had chosen and then rejected. Thankfully, that was the ONLY time I changed my mind about it.
She even took Thomas under her wing and taught him better roller technique than I have. He was in charge of painting everything from the middle of the wall down, and Mindy took care of everything above that.
I’m not sure how well you can tell from the picture, but the walls went from dark beige to leaf green in the family room. The bedroom/bathroom is similar but a little darker and more sage looking. The color matches well with the quilt Mom made and is called “restful.” I didn’t have to change my mind on that one though! I chose well from the beginning. 
By now the family room is pretty much reassembled and much tidier than it was before. We are still missing the picture over the mantle, but I’m sure it won’t take but a few minutes to re-hang it once we think about it when we have the time to do so.
The bedroom is slowly but surely getting back into shape. We’ve been sleeping with the bed in the center of the room like an island with all of our furniture surrounding it. It just goes to show how big our bedroom is that we could still get in and out of bed and walk around our island of furniture. Every day Michael puts one more piece of furniture back where it belongs. Every morning Gloria comes in and tells us, “Put bed a wall.” I think that the bed is the last thing that still needs to be moved at this point, but Gloria has been nagging her daddy about it. She must be practicing for when she gets married.
Mindy is gone now. I miss having her around. She’s really a neat person and I wish I had more time to just visit with her and talk. If you ever need your house painted, I highly recommend hiring her. She prices fairly and does good work. She’ll even travel to do it. Now if only I could pick out a good color for the hall…
June 2, 2009 9:58 am | 
