¡Baila!

I'm posting this old video clip for no good reason except...

(1) Memory lane seems to be my default destination for me whenever I find myself up at 12:46 am... and (2) Venesa and I were just talking about how much Jasmine has loved music (percussion in particular) since birth. We'll never forget how at 14 months, she would be in the front yard and would start dancing to whatever ghetto fabulous music would be blaring from passing cars (because, yes, we lived in a ghetto fabulous neighborhood). It was hilariously embarrassing every time. In any event, we came to the conclusion just last week that we haven't done enough to nurture her love for music (which is still evident from time to time in our deliciously vanilla household). So put that one on the to-do list.

Oh... and, also..

(3) I always talk about how I have no memory of Jasmine Olivia as a one-year-old... and for as much as I remember about Justin... that's just odd to me. Of course, it probably says more about what life was like with a 3 and 1 year old (SuRviVaL!) than it does about me... but the lack of memories still bothers me for some reason. And yes, to say that I miss Jasmine as a one-year-old when she is still... TWO ... is absurd. I get that. But hey, I've been called worse things. So without further ado, here's babygirl doing her thing. ¡Baila, Jasmine! ¡Baila!

Phonics

Milestone XXXII

Here's a clip of Justin reading. The toughest part of the video was finding an age-appropriate book that he hadn't already memorized. How a child can memorize 64 pages of a book (The Cat in The Hat) is still amazing to me... We're the ones who read the book 100 times to him, and I can't tell you the first 3 lines of the second page without looking, let alone the entirety of (say) page 42... verbatim! Anyway, back to my point... I tried to find a book that we hadn't read to him yet, and that he therefore hadn't memorized yet. He's got a series of leapfrog books that have a lot of common words in 'em that he's become familiar with, and so I thought this would be a good one. We've also used a lot of the words in this book for his penmanship drills, so that helps too (you'll hear him say, "that's my sentence!"). He has already read it independently 2 or 3 times over the past couple of weeks... but I think it was still fresh enough to get the gist of where he is with reading. When I find time, I'll try to tape him with a spanking brand new sight unseen book to see how he does with that.

Side note... do people still say "tape" when they talk about video... or is that me sounding old again?

Anyhow... the video is grandparent length (i.e., too long for anyone but a grandparent to watch in it's entirety)... and includes a brief intermission as I become suddenly hysterical when Justin spots a wasp in the classroom. But here it is, nonetheless. For the record, as they say.

Naomi pt. IX

7 months (and a week or so)
Evidently, Naomi Janelle was offended by my previous entry and decided to hit the baby training circuit. About two days after I posted her previous update, she turned my entry on its head and started sitting up and crawling through the house. At this point (I guess about 3 weeks later) she's full throttle on both, and now starting to venture into pulling herself up unassisted every chance she gets. I was pretty much ready to place my bets on this one being our slow (post 12-months) walker... but at this rate, I may have to (once again) eat my words. Last week she forced me to break out the allen wrench and drop her crib down a few notches after pulling herself to the top of the railing and flashing her million dollar toothless grin ("look what I did!").

Other than that... and perhaps more than anything else... she continues to be all giggles... all the time. And she is suddenly (and most definitely) a screamer. High pitched. And frequent. It's out of control. I keep saying that I've gotta get it on video... but then I remember... she's the 3rd child. Who's got time for video? Puh-leeze. Baby girl doesn't even know what a book is, let alone a baby video. But hey, if she's happy, we're happy. And this little baby couldn't possibly be happier. What a joy.