Blue Dragon Dragon Blue

Joseph is obsessed with all things blue and all things dragon. Nearly every object he encounters is a dragon: a ribbon, part of play yard gate, hot wheel tracks, foam golf balls, etc etc etc. Not to mention things like stuffed ducks and plastic dinosaurs. He also pretends to be a dragon himself and says in a raspy voice. "I'm a dragon," and then starts running all around. He often pretends to be a "mommy dragon" too. (I don't think that has anything to do with me, but rather a library book that has a mommy dragon in it, but I am not 100% sure.) He now refers to the dragon he got for Christmas as his "bad dragon." Whenever I tell him that we are going to such and such a place, he states hopefully, "Maybe there will be dragons there..." He has also declared his favorite color to be blue and requests his smoothie to be served to him in "the blue cup, with the blue lid, with the blue straw" and always wants to wear a blue shirt or blue jeans or eat blue ice cream.

Joseph has been demonstrating a good deal of trepidation in new situations, especially when there are a lot of people. Last summer he absolutely loved swimming in the pool (at the beach or Uncle Bob's house). We were recently at Bob's house for a Father's Day cookout, and Joseph would not go in the pool. He was very nervous and nothing would persuade him to go in. I will say that when we arrived, there were already a lot of people in the pool and I think he just did not feel safe going in there under those circumstances, even with Michael at his side. Today he went to a birthday party of his best friend from preschool. I only arrived at the tail end when they were eating cake, which Joseph was enjoying heartily, but Michael reported that he would not participate in any of the activities during the first part of the party. All he did was stay on the side and cried. It was a fairly large group though, I think at least 15-20 kids, just 3 of them from his preschool class and a few of them were older (maybe friends of older siblings).

As for Simon, he loves shoes. He particularly likes wearing shoes that are too big for him. We have a hand-me-down pair of hard soled sneakers that must be two or three or more sizes too big for Simon, but he brings them to me whenever he finds them so I can put them on his feet and he stomps around in them. The first time he wore them, he couldn't even move. Then he slowly started taking lumbering steps as if he were wearing moon shoes or something. He also likes to wear a pair of water shoes that I got out of the closet which were too small for Joseph and those are probably 3 sizes too big, at least officially. He is also really good at kicking a ball and seems to love balls in all shapes and sizes. He can say "kickit." I think he likes throwing them even better kicking. Too bad he's not so coordinated when he walks! I've never seen such a klutzy kid. If there is anything to trip over or bump into within a 10 foot radius, he does. He's constantly tripping over his own feet, looking behind him when he walks (which maybe he should do more often because I am often surprised at how he manages to avoid obstacles), falling down, bumping his head, and so on.

Clodhopping Simon


Simon kicks a ball

He says a few words, and what's interesting is that he has articulated a few words very clearly, but only once, so I don't yet consider them part of his lexicon. He has said very clearly "yes," "okay," "God," and "Rachel." But most of the time he is pointing and saying "this, this" as well as lots of other jibberish sounds. He waves good bye, says "hello" (more like "hewwo"), "there it is" (sounds like "ere-eh-iz") and is making a few more signs: please, more, shoes, milk, apple, hat and thank you, and maybe potty, but if so, it looks the same as apple.