Speaking, Logic and Reasoning

Delenn keeps adding (spoken) words every day. This evening as we were
getting ready for bed, she looked at the photos on our Ceiva. Not
surprisingly she would sign "Logan" and "Delenn" when their pictures
came up. But she also said (in spoken words) "Zoe" when Baby Zoe's
picture came up and "Ben" when her cute cousin came on screen! She says
lots of words now like apple, hockey, Boots (from a book we read about
Dora the Explorer), cheese, owie (for when something hurts), bye bye,
money (and lots of other 1 or 2-syllable words) and also will mimic our
words (though she'll sign them if she doesn't feel like talking!) Her signing
conversation is really good too -- and she signs in 2 or 3 word sentences
such as "Logan's crying" or [I] "hear an airplane" or "Daddy's not at work."

Delenn obviously enjoys our outings as most any time we drive back into
the driveway she says "No!" and then signs and says "More!"
Unfortunately for her and luckily for Mommy and Logan, Delenn still
takes a good afternoon nap. We always read books for 1/2 hour or more
(Logan, Delenn and Mommy) and then when Delenn is asleep Logan usually
gets to watch a "movie" and Mommy takes some time for herself. Usually
there's enough time for Mommy and Logan to have some quality time
together too. That often entails jet and rocket games (and/or building
things jets and rockets as well). Many days Logan and Mommy will play
math games or Logan will do some mazes. Most days Logan will "have a
piano lesson" (he calls them) as he plays "Grandfather's Clock,"
"Moccasin Dance" and sometimes one other. (Both songs I mentioned have
just one note, "C" played alternately with right and left thumbs.
Sometimes he chooses to play another song with two notes.) Logan is
also really good at holding a pencil now and still practices tracing a
word of his choice several times a week.

Daddy and I were talking about how "girly" Delenn can be. Daddy went
into the bathroom to check on her and found her brushing her hair. And
later, when Mommy went in to check on her, she was carefully holding up
Mommy's earrings to her ears and put Mommy's diamond ring on her thumb.
Then she handed them to Mommy to put them back on (Mommy had taken them
off for soccer).

Daddy had quite a rough weekend with two nights of work (Thursday night
& Friday night). Friday night was the worst when he had to go into work
at 8pm and got home at 10:30am the next morning! Yet despite feeling
tired and a bit under the weather he still insisted on letting Mommy
sleep in this morning -- and played with the kids all day long! The
kids obviously love that. It's precious to see them building jet
fighters, jumping on the trampoline and then riding him like a horse one
moment and all curled up together in a chair reading books the next.

Logan's logic often has us laughing. When Mommy reprimanded Logan for
smashing a CD case he said quite calmly "I was smashing it so that Delenn
wouldn't come over and smash it." Here's another example: There's a blood
curdling scream from Delenn. Mommy comes running. "What's wrong,
Delenn? What happened Logan?" Logan's answer, "I didn't do anything.
She screamed loudly because I didn't scream. So I didn't do anything."
There are lots of other examples, but I can't dredge them up at the moment.
He's definitely trying to use logic and reasoning, but has a little work to do to
convince the parental types and pull the wool over our eyes. Just wait another
week or two!!

Mommy had the Eisteddfod earlier this week. Our group played one of my
favorites called "Novelette" by Poulenc. It has a beautiful, soaring
oboe part and Mommy felt great about the performance this week. My
friend told me later that the adjudicator asked who I was and said he
was impressed. That certainly made my day! We won our section with a 95%.