Reed Says . . . February 2014 Edition

For the last few months we have declared Friday night "Friday Family Fun." It's kind of like a precursor to an official family game night, but right now it just means we will order pizza, watch a little extra t.v. and/or play a board game with Reed. He loves playing Memory, Go Fish, Slap Jack, Uno Moo, and a game called First Orchard. Sometimes we simplify the rules for him, but for the most part he is good for about one round of any given game. He is also in LOVE with doing puzzles. He is constantly asking me to get puzzles down for him. He has two floor puzzles meant for  3yrs+ that he can do almost completely by himself. He also has a puzzle of the United States that he really likes (meant for 5yrs+) that I found him attempting by himself the other day - he did probably 50% of the puzzle with no help. It is way above his skill level, or so I thought, but he thinks it is so neat when we tell him where different friends/family members are from and lately we have been showing him different states that Olympians are from.

A big change for him this month is being scared. He no longer sleeps with the sound machine on because he says he likes to "hear things" (I have replaced it with a CD player he is really into so at least as he's trying to go to sleep he's not preoccupied by what we are doing with Kieran). He also demands that we leave a night light on for him now and will sometimes even get out of bed to turn on his big light.

Enough of the serious stuff, I know what you've come for . . .

One night Reed watched as I poured myself a glass of wine, he then asked me "you have a long day Mom?"

The other day I caught The Monkey standing in the hallway admiring the big display of his artwork I have up. I asked what he was doing and he said "just lookin' at my painting skills."

On Valentine's Day I made Reed pink milk by blending some strawberries into his hemp milk. He was super excited about it until I put it in a cup he didn't approve of and had a bit of a melt down. When Jon got up a little later I asked Reed what day it was and he responded "Valentine's Day." I then asked him what we are supposed to do on Valentine's Day ( I was looking for him to tell Jon he loved him because we had been talking about how you are supposed to tell people that you love how much you care about them). Instead his reply was "cry about the special drink you made me."

Jon has the new Xbox which recognizes voice commands. We usually let Reed watch a Perro y Gato, the Magic School Bus, or lately the Olympics for a little bit before bed. When it is time to head to his room one of us usually says "Xbox pause" or "Xbox turnoff." One night when it was time for bed Reed looked at the frozen picture on the screen and said "Xbox don't pause."

Usually when I put Kieran down for his first nap of the day I will ask Reed what he wants to do. Out of nowhere one day he said "put tape on your butt because your butt is broken."

Jon was having fun with Reed, bent down, opened his arms, and said "why haven't we had a hug today." Reed walked over to Jon, embraced him, and said into his ear "because I don't like you."

On one of our game nights we were playing Go Fish. Reed didn't have the card that Jon was looking for so we prompted him by asking what he was supposed to say. He responded by yelling "BUMMER!!!"

Whenever I make pasta I let Reed pick out the type he wants me to cook. One night he picked out a bag of shell pasta and told me it was because "maybe there's turtles in those shells."

The Kiddo was wriggling around like crazy in his booster seat so I asked what he was doing. He told me he was "working out." I said "oh, are you doing a leg workout?" to which he responded "no, I'm working my head then I'm gonna do my knees."

Reed has a toddler clock in his room that changes from blue to orange at 6:00 am - this is his signal that it's okay to call for me if he's already awake. If I can hear that he's up I usually go in a bit after this time to say good morning and see if he wants to get up or hang in bed for a bit. Our power had gone out and I forgot to reset the clock so when I went in at 6:05 it was still blue. When he saw me he said "I'm waking up and it's the wrong color." I said "I think it will be changing soon." His retort was "I think you can push a button."