A few of my favorite (kid circa summer 2019) things

Mary Cate doesn't say the "s" sound at the beginning of words starting with "sp". So we hear a lot of, "Ooh, that's so 'pooky," "I'm dizzy from 'pinning," "I don't like that toothpaste, it's too 'picy" and "My dress is 'parkely!"

She has generalized the expression "soaking wet" to think that "soaking" is synonomous with "very." As in, "The hallway is soaking dirty!" and "Can I sit with you? I'm cold and you're soaking warm." My favorite--she came walking in pretending to drink from a wooden pop bottle saying, "This beer is soaking GOOD!"

Eddie has come to me with two big questions in the last few weeks. The first was how all the big kids know how to swim without a floatie. So we set right in to learn how to swim and he's an eager learner. He's going to be taking off soon! The second was how DJ can just look at a book and know what the letters mean. Music to my ears! So I sat down one morning and taught him to read. His favorite sentence: The cat is fat. I'm not a reading teacher for a reason--specifically, no patience. Lucky for me (and him) all I had to do was sound out a few words and he had it. Zoophonics for the win, all the way.

Speaking of reading, this has been the summer of reading for DJ. He's into the "Who Was" series. This summer I think he's read about Dr. Seuss, Einstein, Jackie Robinson, The Beatles, Steve Jobs, NASA, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington. Maybe some that I'm forgetting. The best part is that I'm learning a lot, too. Because he reads me everything he thinks is interesting or funny. Which is a lot of things. Did you know that Ringo Starr narrated Thomas the Tank Engine? Or that Theodor Geisel was once paid thousands of nail clippers by a magazine? Reading isn't quite at the top of DJ's list of favorite things to do--that falls to the monkey bars, I think--but I'm happy that he's found some chapter books he likes.

As for Annie and Nellie, our favorite things are their two favorite pasttimes--baking and preparing to be in their first real production, Frozen Jr. Bring on the sweets and singing!