February

I can't believe February is almost over, and we still have no snow! I am happy about how mild the winter has been, however not so much about how quickly time is flying by. This month was a fairly relaxed month with only a few outings per week. We went to balls of fun with a few friends. That was a lot of fun. The kids played really well together. I had the most mild cold I've ever had. We had a fun valentine's day play date at Ryan's best friends home. The kids decorated cupcakes and played very well together while the mommies chatted. We went to the Kitchener Museum again but this time with friends. It was sooo much fun. Ryan and his best friend played so well and we all got to try out the hockey games. I can't wait to go back! This past week we had an outer space play date at our house. Ryan got sooo excited and loved the theme. He is facinated with space and I can't believe how much he knows about it. He even taught me that the highest mountain in space is called the Olympus Mons. He learned it from a little einstein's episode but it is amazing how much he soaks up especially when the topic is of interest to him. He knows the order of the planets, and their names, and facts about a lot of them. We made comets with aluminum foil and streamers and played a game where we threw them into a box. We also made rockets and space men with marshmallows and toothpicks. After everyone left we went up to his room and hung all his planets that he got for Christmas. Except we could not find the earth. And I think Pluto is missing too.

On Thursday we were supposed to go swimming at 1:30pm, but I had made a scheduling mistake. Ryan freaked out and it was an exhausting 20 minutes of him crying and repeating over and over that he wanted to go swimming to the pool with the duckie slide. I told him we could go when it is open, in 3 hours, but it still took 20 minutes for him to eventually stop crying and agree. He asked every 30 minutes if it was time to go yet, so we went at 5:45pm until 7. It was pretty exhausting for me but worth it. Ryan was sooo excited to go. He waved and smiled and said hello to everyone we passed - young, old, male, female - it didn't matter. He asked the staff if the pool was open and when they said yes he jumped up and down excitedly and screamed "YAY!!!". Once in the pool he chatted nonstop, not only to me, but to everyone else in the pool. He called up to the lifeguard and said "Hi lifeguard!!". He asked all the kids if they wanted to either play with him or swim with him. He made a new friend by sharing a toy boat that Ryan suggested passing back and forth between them. He went down the slide mulitple times, jumped off the circle in the middle of the pool multiple times, swam around (with my help of course), played on the steps, collected bubbles in the low-heat whirlpool with his bucket, and played ball with me and some other kids. I was surprised that he was able to walk around the whole pool with at least his tip toes touching the bottom, most of the time flat footed. He is growing taller. He was not able to touch in the deeper sections the last time we went which was not even half a year ago. He slept very well that night. It almost makes me want to take him swimming every day to get him to sleep like that!!

We've had a lot of time to ourselves at home this month too. We've played a lot of imagination games. Pretend camp outs, trips to outer space, and roller coaster rides.

There has also been a lot of spelling games. Ryan LOVES his word builder toy that sits on the fridge. He amazes me with the number of words he knows how to spell already, and is getting pretty good with his reading. This morning he read us a whole book from cover to cover (a beginning to read book) and knew or was able to sound out about 70% of the words. There was usually about 1 word per page that he would ask 'what does this word say?' after trying to sound it out but not getting it.

We have a few outings in March that will be a little more costly than February, including EasterFest at the very end of the month, a maple syrup festival during march break, and a trip to the royal ontario museum just because I want to go before we have to pay for Ryan at 4yrs old and I know I won't have much time in April.