The Literary Six-Year-Old

 Dressed in his cloak with battle-ax

Josiah listens to a lot of audio books. Every afternoon during rest time, he happily tinkers with his Legos and listens to story after story. Often he bursts out of the room to update me on the plot or retell a particularly thrilling bit (or just a mundane detail). In this way, he's listened through lots of great books--Narnia (many times through), Thornton Burgess animal stories, George MacDonald's fairy tales, versions of King Arthur and Robin Hood, the Little House books, The Wind in the Willows, several Paddington books, Winnie the Pooh, The Cricket in Times Square, The Moffats, Thimble Summer . . . and plenty more I'm forgetting.

Recently he's been into Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book. (On his first listen-through, he came out to tell me about Akela's death [the wolf pack leader and Mowgli's adopted father], and he was fighting to hold back tears--my sweet boy!). Though his reading skills are currently lower than most of his peers, and he still lags behind in intelligibility and speech clarity, his capacity for good literature and his vocabulary certainly aren't suffering.

I've heard the influence of audio books (and books I read aloud) on his conversation and commentary. For instance . . .

One morning, Josiah contemplated his breakfast and then, apparently approving, said, "It's enough to feed a man."

Another day he was annoyed at a cut on his toe: "This owie has a little piece of skin coming off. Wretched foot!"

After listening to a bunch of Narnia, Josiah unfortunately picked up on some of the less-acceptable insults the Pevensie children use. When Lydia was getting a bit crazy/silly at lunch one day, he said (laughingly), "Stop being such a beastly ass!" (Needless to say, we had a little discussion about the necessity of avoiding that epithet in our society.)

Josiah listened to Howard Pyle's Robin Hood for about a week straight and subsequently commented on games, tricks, jokes, etc. by saying, "That was a merry jest!"

He loves to play Robin Hood, too!

In a less cultured style--but thankfully not as shocking as his Narnia lingo--Josiah currently likes to imitate Jonathan from the Paddington books in using "Crikey!" as an exclamation. It sounds a little funny, but hey . . . why not?

October Train Show

Back in the first weekend of October, Emily and her boys came down for a visit, and we all went to the McCormick-Stillman Railroad Fair. Our neighbor is a model-train enthusiast and has a tent each year to display his newest train configuration and paraphernalia. So we stop by his spot and then check out other set-ups, wander through the permanent model train building (like a museum), and usually allow the kids a ride on the carousel or train. This year we did both rides (well, I stayed off the carousel--those things make me sick), much to the kids' delight.

The big babies 

 Cedar is just so stinkin' cute!

Abby holding Cedar 

Lydia with a unicorn, Elias with his lizard 

Cedar was enthralled with his kitty! 

The twins and Elias and Cedar even got face-painting, and we got to spend awhile at the "jail" playground (sort of an Old West set of adobe play-buildings, a stagecoach, etc.), which Josiah desperately wanted to do. Clara the daredevil makes me a little nervous sometimes . . .

What a fun day we had with the cousins!

Clara's Birthday

Clara turned two over two weeks ago now. "Are you my baby-love?" I ask her, and in true two-year-old fashion, she says, "No." She says "no" to lots of things these days: along with "mine!" and "me!," it's one of her favorite words.

She's definitely adding to her vocabulary, though. Today she said her first three-word sentence ("Done this side," in reference to nursing. Then, "Sich sides!" [switch sides] in the cutest-ever sing-song. Her bunny, nursing from her, switches sides on that cue, too.) I love how she says "oh" when I
inform her of something and "es" or "yah" in agreement (much less often than "no"!).

She still pantomimes and uses sounds to augment her verbal communication. For instance, she'll make sad faces and say, "Ow!" when pointing to an owie (usually an old scab), and then "eh? eh?" while pinching her fingers together--which means she wants a bandaid.

She still refers to many animals by their sounds: her sheep is "Baa," she barks when she sees a dog, etc. She loves to pretend to be a puppy (especially in company with Lydia). She crawls around and sticks her little tongue out to pant, and gets up on her knees with her hands curled in front to "beg."

Hardly anything escapes Clara. She's attuned to every privilege the big kids get and notices when she's deprived. They all got new water bottles to replace their worn-out, chewed-up, broken-handled ones the other day. "Me? Cup? Me? Me?" Clara asked. She's so proud to have joined the crew with Contigo water bottles, and her sisters encouraged her in choosing a color, too--so hers is the pink one. She just delights to drink out of it.

Clara has begun to really enjoy books in the last couple months. I try to spend time with just her mid-morning after we've done some schoolwork and before I send the three girls outdoors so I can do some one-on-one work with Josiah. We usually read through a stack of picture books: One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish is her current favorite (she loves the "new fish," and says "Mama!" in her baby voice while pointing to it; she also thinks Ned and his bed are so funny). She also enjoys Green Eggs and Ham, Hop on Pop, Old Hat New Hat, Ten Apples Up on Top, A Sick Day for Amos McGee, Harry the Dirty Dog, Goodnight Moon, Fox in Socks, and others of that ilk. She's starting to sit for some of the longer picture books the other kids choose--sometimes even a Beatrix Potter story. She's funny about picking who she wants to be (i.e., which animal/character), and often reminds me of which character she's picked on every new page. Sometimes she assigns everyone a character. Dada was both the owl and the bus driver in Amos McGee this morning: "Two Dada!" she said.

Abby and Lydia like to play with her, mother her, and boss her around. She doesn't put up with much bossing, though she loves to be included in their games. They find ways to manipulate her into doing what they want or to appease or distract her when she's ornery. Her sense of pretend play is certainly more sophisticated because of the example and instruction of her older sisters!

Clara is possessive with the fierceness of a fourth child: she knows which few things are hers, and she guards them. Her baby doll, phone-on-a-string, animal counters, board books, puppy coloring book, red cloak, and owl puzzle are precious to her, especially if a sibling wants to play with them, and most especially if the sibling takes them without asking. She screeches from across the yard if she sees someone so much as consider a ride in her coupe car or on her push-bike (hand-me-downs from the bigger ones though they may be!). She's not yet reconciled to sharing when friends come over, either.

But oh, Clara does enjoy a stolen session alone with the Lego or with Lydia's stuffed animals! She can entertain herself for a half-hour at a time if she finds these coveted toys left unsupervised.

When Clara's birthday was approaching, I felt the autumn itch to make a pie--but I gave Clara the choice of birthday dessert. She was very definite in choosing"cake." So we had apple cake, and I made butternut squash pasta (which the kids all love) for dinner.

Clara picked up on the big kids' excitement over her birthday. She had practiced saying "two" when asked her age and tries to hold up two fingers (unsuccessfully). We had a pre-birthday celebration before my mom left with some chocolate cake and presents from Grandma, so Clara knew "birthday" meant "presents."

I just love the progression here :)

Lydia and Abby were quite excited to purchase and wrap presents for Clara; Josiah was somewhat indifferent. But they all sang to her with gusto, demolished her birthday desserts, and had to be restrained from ripping open her gifts for her. They shoved each new present in her face the minute she unwrapped one.

But all in all, her second birthday was a success. "Now are you a big girl?" Abby and Lydia ask her. She nods, "Es," holds up her hand, and says, "Two!"