Book Reviews - The Read-Aloud Handbook and We Are in a Book!

So, I recently read Jim Trelease's The Read-Aloud Handbook, and have since become obsessed with reading aloud to children and its benefits. I always knew reading aloud to your children was important, but after reading the benefits of it touted by the above book, I am now on a mission to read more to my children and to encourage others to read to theirs. As anyone who reads to their children knows, it can be hard to find good books. In an effort to help out my fellow parent, I am going to start posting reviews to books my children and I enjoy here.

My first review is of We Are in a Book! by Mo Willems. Isla and I checked this out from the library today, and she read it to me at rest time. She loved it! It is about an elephant named Gerald and a pig named Piggie. The whole book is about the two characters realization that they are the subject of a book and their reaction to it. Mo Willems was previously a writer for Sesame Street who has a number of popular children's books. Like some of his other books we have read (Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, and The Pigeon Wants A Puppy), the characters interact with the reader, either speaking directly to the reader or encouraging the reader to speak to them. His books are fresh and cute, and Isla gets a real kick out of them. This one in particular really amused Isla, and I enjoyed reading it with her.

We've come a long way, baby!

Joseph is two years old! It is hard for me to believe that he is only two, as it feels like a lot has happened since he was born.

He is a handsome and engaging little boy. He has two beautiful dimples, adorable blue eyes and an infectious smile. He loves people, especially his family, and upon meeting someone will ask them to "come, play" and lead them by the hand to one of his toys. He is very silly, and likes to 'give speeches' and tell 'jokes'. He still doesn't talk very well. His articulation leaves much to be desired. I am often the only one who can understand him, and he only speaks in two to three word phrases. However, from time to time, he will stand in front of you and hold court, saying all sorts of nonsense syllables and sounds. He usually finishes with a big, proud smile, but sometimes, he will say "ha ha ha" in a goofy, grumbly voice to indicate that he just told a joke.

He is all boy. His favorite toys are cars and trains. If he doesn't have a train handy, he will line up cars, shoes, boxes of toys, books, or whatever he can find and push them along like a train. I took a video of him doing this recently, and will post it as soon as I upload it. He also loves all things football. He has two football shirts and a pair of football pajamas and asks to wear them everytime he is getting dressed.

He loves to watch TV. His favorite shows are Super Why and Thomas & Friends. He loves all things Thomas. He knows the names of all the trains, and will name each one when we read his Thomas books. His favorite train is Toby.

He knows all his colors and can almost count to ten. He counts "one, two, three, four, five, eight, nine, ten" and then cheers for himself. It is adorable.

Some of his favorite activities, other than watching TV and playing with trains, include having books read to him, going outside, and calling his Gaa on the phone. His favorite books are, of course, Thomas books and ones about trains, but he also loves Fall is not Easy, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, Go Dog Go, and Mr. Brown can Moo. As for calling Gaa on the phone, he will bring me my phone and say, "Call, Gaa".

He can sing "Happy Birthday to You" in its entirety, though he rarely will for anyone other than me. He will sing it to himself, calling himself Go Go (Joe Joe). However, the other day at my mom's house, he called himself Jomomabo, which is totally awesome. Jomomabo is a nickname my sister gave my older brother that we have than carried on with Joe.

Even though he loves people, and will ask others to 'come, play', he is also very content to play by himself. This has been a huge blessing as his older sister wants constant attention and thinks she needs an adult playmate for every activity.

Joseph adores his big sister, and will pretty much do whatever she tells him to. Unfortunately, she doesn't always have patience for him and can get frustrated with him if he doesn't do things her way. Just recently, they have been playing together nicely, but it has been a lot of work to get us to this place. Joe has conflicting emotions about his little sister. Sometimes, he seems to be interested in her, and wants to hug her and kiss her and stroke her hair, and other times, without rhyme or reason, he will act very aggressively towards her, hitting her, pulling on her hair or limbs, or throwing things at her. We are constantly reminding him to 'be nice to the baby'. He calls Isla, "Ya-Ya" and Lucia "Yu-Ah".

He still sucks his fingers, but he no longer rubs his sleeve under his nose. Instead, he now either rubs his earlobe or his belly button. I don't get the belly-button thing at all, and it really weirds Mike out. Mike has a very sensitive belly button and can't stand having it touched. As a result, watching his son walk around rubbing his belly button makes Mike really nervous.

We are working on potty training, but still have a ways to go. Joe does pee in the potty when you take him (and then claps for himself and demands his candy). He has been doing this since he was 20 months old. However, he absolutely, positively and completely refuses to poop in the potty. He also does not stay dry between trips. We got him some Thomas underpants for his birthday. A few days later, he begged me to put them on him, and I happily obliged. One hour and two accidents later, I put him back in diapers, and we haven't revisited the underwear again. I have a feeling that once I get the time to devote to solely him, training him to stay dry will not be hard. However, I am a little busy nursing a baby every two hours right now, so that will have to wait.

He can feed himself with a spoon and a fork and drink from a cup. He still throws food on the floor and purposely spills his drinks, but not as often. His diet is extremely limited, consisting mostly of cereal, yogurt, fruit, peanut butter and jelly and cheese. I think the only vegetables he eats are sauteed carrots and sweet potato fries. He has on occasion eaten hot dogs and breaded chicken, but does not do so with any regularity. He loves pancaked and waffles. Most days, he only eats two meals a day. I give him cereal every morning and then offer him choices of foods he likes for lunch. However, for dinner, I only offer him the food that the rest of us are eating, and most of the time he refuses to eat.

He still does not dress or undress himself. He pulls his shirts over his head and puts his arms through. He zips up zippers and is starting to attempt, with much coaxing, to pull his pants up on his own. He probably could dress himself, but unfortunately, I am usually getting him dressed and undressed in a hurry, and don't have the time to coax him through the step of doing these activities for himself.

As far as his behavior goes, Joe is a pretty good kid. He screams and cries and tests his limits, just like any kid, but he seems to respond to discipline pretty well, at least for now. The other day, he wanted a fruit cup at lunch. I gave it to him with a spoon, and he threw the spoon on the floor. I took the fruit cup away and told him he had to eat it with the spoon. This whole scenario repeated itself again, but on his third try, Joe took the spoon and happily ate the entire fruit cup with the spoon. Since then, he has had fruit cups twice more, and ate them with a spoon without complaint. Most of the time, I can get him to do whatever I need him to. I very rarely have the feeling with him that I have no idea how to handle his behavior.

I was talking to my mom the other day, and she said that if she had to describe Isla in one word, it would be 'joy' and if she had to describe Joe in one word, it would be 'love'. I think that is the perfect description. Joe is love. He loves his sister and his mommy and daddy and his grandparents and his aunts and uncles so much. He is always happy to see them and always willing to give a hug and a kiss. He is a blessing, and we thank God for him.

She's Here

Lucia Claire
Born 11/24/10
at 10:10 am
6 lbs 8 oz

Just a reminder

Just a reminder to myself, that they start out small, and it's hard, but look what they grow into it. So worth it.

Isla at four

Isla is now four years old. She is a big girl now, and can do so many big girl things. She can dress herself including snaps, buttons and zippers. Most mornings, I send her upstairs after breakfast, and she picks out her own clothes and puts them on herself. She still needs to be told which foot her shoes go on, and needs the zipper on her jackets threaded for her, before she can pull it up.

She mostly goes to the bathroom by herself, which was something I thought she would never do, and she washes her hands independently. She still needs us to bathe her at night, and Mike and I constantly ask each other, when do kids start doing this on their own.

She eats most foods now, but definitely prefers fruit, carbohydrates, dairy products and sweets. However, she will eat many vegetables and meats, as long as they are not too strongly seasoned.

She can write her own name, though she often writes the letter S backwards, and can trace the rest of the letters of the alphabet. She is an amazing reader. She is currently reading the last book in the series of Bob Books. She know the sounds of all the letters, is very good at blending, and knows a number of the phonics rules, such as silent e, the sound sh makes, etc. She has an amazing memory, in that if she has seen a word once, she can read it from then on. I need to get her a phonics program, to solidify all the phonics rules, because, while she is reading phonetically, the Bob Books don't provide the phonics rules in an organized way that ensures mastery of them all.

She can count to 20, if someone prompts her to say 13 after 12. Without prompting, she leaves out 13, 15, 16, and 17, counting 12, 14, 18, 19, 20. She can do simple addition and subtraction on her fingers when given scenarios such as, 'if you have 3 grapes and I give you 2 more, how many will you have".

We are still having a lot of issues with whining and crying. I don't know how typical this is for a four year old, but Isla still whines and cries a bit. Mike and I are trying to instill a zero tolerance policy on this, in which if she starts to whine or cry, she immediately goes to her room and doesn't come out until she has calmed down. This seems to help, but hasn't stopped the behaviors completely.

She still has some speech issues, and is getting evaluated for speech therapy next month. She uses speech appropriately and displays complex sentence structures and all. She just continues to struggle to pronounce certain sounds. The most glaring example of this is that she says "stirsty" instead of "thirsty" and "da" instead of "the". It can make it difficult at times to understand her, and she gets very frustrated when we cannot understand her.

She is very excited about the coming baby. She calls the baby "TV watcher" and gets very excited when talking about the baby's arrival. The other day, Mike brought Isla and Joe out to the van while I was busy switching around the car seats to make room for the infant seat. Isla climbed into the back seat, which is the new home of her car seat, and shouted joyfully "This is fantastic!".

She and Joe play together more and more. She likes to run around the house with him, and sometimes plays a game where she copies what he is doing, which he thinks is hilarious. We are still working with her on sharing. Sometimes, she shares beautifully, but most of the time, she screams and cries if Joe goes near her stuff or her room. She has developed a maddening habit of laughing like a hyena when Joe does something naughty, such as spitting his milk onto his tray at dinner, which is the strongest reinforcement Joe could receive. She does try to teach him stuff as well. She shows him how to go potty, cheers for him when he uses the potty, tries to get him to say new words and tries to get him to try new foods.

She is a complete girly-girl. She loves ballet, ponies, her baby dolls, kitties and puppies, her doll house, and anything pink or purple. She loves her ballet class, and practices her ballet constantly. She is getting much more social with the other girls in the class, but is starting to have problems with both copying other girls who are misbehaving or encouraging other girls to do things they are not supposed to.

She is getting much less cautious and fearful. She used to have huge meltdowns if Mike and I left the room when she was watching TV, because she was terrified something scary would come on and she didn't know how to turn off the TV. This behavior has pretty much disappeared. She is more outgoing in social situations and more comfortable talking to other children and adults. She is starting to swing on swings, an activity that used to terrify her.

She can ride a tricycle, and loves to go for rides with my father, who is her very best favorite friend. She absolutely adores him. The other day, she was riding in the car on the way to my parents' house and she called up to me from the back seat, "Geekin is my very best favorite friend. Thank you God for my Geekin." I think he is pretty fond of her, too.

Today my mother and I took both the kids to the mall so that I could buy something for the new baby. On the way back to the car, Isla was holding my mom's hand and skipping in her cute little skirt and pretty pink shoes. On the way into the mall, she told my mom that she was practicing skipping because you never know when you are going to need to skip. Anyway, she was skipping along, and her hair was bouncing up and down as she went, and all I could think was how lucky I was to have such a joyful little girl in my life.

A now a video of Joe

I thought that after posting a video of Isla, I should post one of Joe too. Here is a video of him doing one of his favorite things in the world, playing cars with Mommy and Daddy. He is all boy, and his favorite toys are cars/vehicles and balls.

Isla reads!

We have been teaching Isla how to read using the Bob books. Here is a video of her reading 'Dot and the Dog' to Mike. Aren't they both wonderful?




P.S. Make sure your sound is turned up pretty high. I am sorry the volume is so low on this video. I guess I was too far away.