It is also a wonderful blessing to have my boys around to help so much. They are good to get baby when he wakes up from his nap, change his diapers and feed him his meals. Although lately there hasn't been much love for feeding Matthew his baby food. The boys try to feed him too quickly with large bites and it is quite messy.
To help the boys not quable over feeding Matthew I made assignments today for Tom to feed Matthew breakfast and Charlie feeds him lunch. Quite often when the kids whine about random assignments I then give specific assignments so it then become their chore, and it saves them having to argue about who did it last time.
The girls are good at playing with Matthew and keeping him out of trouble. The cutest thing I over heard happened tonight when Lydia was unloading the silverware. Matthew was in the kitchen with her and she said,
"oh, you want to help me unload? Ok"
"good job" after each time he pulled out a silverware, in a falsetto, sweet voice.
"oh, good job" each time.
As I sat listening to it I realized too late that I should have videoed it.
We actually did get a video the other day of Matthew "helping" Charlie unload the dishwasher and it is the cutest thing. It really looks like Matthew is purposefully unloading, but there are a couple giveaway moments that show he is really just trying to get ahold of at least one dish to chew on it, but Charlie always grabs it just in time that makes it look like Matthew is handing the dishes up to Charlie.
I dont know why, but when the girls are in the office playing with Matthew they stick him in a big blue bucket we have and the amazing thing is he will happily sit there and play for at least 20 minutes before he starts whining wanting to get out.
One other cute thing, we don't have a nick name for Matthew yet, but obviously Lydia thinks Matthew is too long of a name to say all the time. All of the other kids have a one-syllable nickname-- Char, Tom, Bec, Lu. So Lydia (Lu- stems from her middle name Lucille) calls him Map. She does it very much on purpose and she does it all the time and it makes me want to laugh every time I hear her say it.
2 comments:
Hey there Jenni,
I haven't checked blogs for a very long time and was so happy to see a bunch of new posts for your darling family. I just have to tell you we miss your family so much, and I am in desperate need of some parenting advice and a good talk with you. I have realized living away from you that you and your kids were such good influences on our family when we were neighbors. We'll have to catch up some time soon. :) I'm totally jealous of your get away......GOOD FOR YOU!!!
I loved this post, Jenni! Matthew his gotten so much bigger and he has the most beautiful eyes and precious smile. Don't you LOVE watching the way your older kids interact with the baby? (At least, most of the time ;-)) We had almost the identical thing happen with Ingrid helping Eli unload the silverware earlier this week. These lucky little boys to have such nice siblings! And you make me want to have another baby, which is a good thing since I know deep down we still want more kids, but I dread going through another pregnancy...and late night feedings...you get the idea.
By the way, I was checking out a homeschool group called Classical Conversations a few weeks ago, and met the homeshooling mom who lived right across from you guys in Bonita! She was really nice to me. We're not joining CC right now, but I've sure met a lot of neat people just from checking it out.
Anyway, just thought I'd tell you I met her. She misses your family!
Take care, Jenni!
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