love is patient.: Basketball and other fun

Writer's Note: I started this post about two weeks ago... so that's a pretty good summary of what life has been like lately. :)

This weekend, Ryan, my dad, and I went to the Butler-Middle Tennessee and Purdue-Iowa State games in Milwaukee. It was the second round of the NCAA tournament, and if you know my husband even a little, you know that this is A Big Deal in our house. We always have a bracket challenge with my side of the family, and this year, we let Nora participate. She has Butler winning (obviously). On Thursday, when we arrived home from soccer practice, I turned on the TV to see that Middle Tennessee was neck-in-neck with Minnesota. I remembered that Nora had picked the upset in this game, and so I quickly called her over. A few minutes later, they had secured their lead and officially upset 5 seed Minnesota, and she was so excited she had to call Ryan at work.

"Daddy! I picked the upset! I'm in first place!"

Her first place tenure was short-lived, but she's done way better than I have in my bracket.

Joseph is also very into basketball these days - or anything with a ball, really. Though we enjoyed a lot of warmer-than-usual weather in February, March has been chilly and generally crummy, so we've been stuck inside more. He is constantly asking to go outside ("assaaah" he says) and every ball he sees, he picks up and shoots like a basketball - or a "ba-ball." He watches basketball on TV and loved going to the Butler games with us during the season. Nora's first soccer practice was cancelled, but I'm a bad email checker, so I didn't know that until we arrived. Her coach's daughter is one of Nora's best buddies, and they were there because he knew there were probably a few people who didn't get the email in time. Since my kids were already bundled up anyway and to avoid a complete early evening meltdown, I sent them out onto the practice field with their soccer balls. (Because Joseph thinks he is on the soccer team also, he has to take his own ball. I'm trying to persuade her coach to allow him to play as well, since he's certainly going to wind up on the field during the games anyway.) Within minutes, he threw his ball into the goal and shot his hands in the air. "Goooooaaaal!" He really says this and I don't know where he learned it.

Tonight while I was putting Joseph to bed, I was trying (and failing) to get him to quiet down. He's a chatterbox these days, constantly mixing babbling with words. As we rocked, and I shushed, he exclaimed, over and over with increasing emphasis, "Yayyyyyyy! Yayyy! Yayayay!" I don't know what he was celebrating, or why, but despite my efforts to keep a straight face, I laughed, which only made him continue.

He's gaining some funny words these days and will at least attempt to say anything with ask him to. Some of his most common words:
-peeeeeeeas: please, usually repeated several times, for anything he might want - to play outside, have bubbles in the bathtub, eat cookies, hold a ladybug, swing, play basketball, or whatever else.
- mo', and mon-mo' - more and one more
- ba-ball! - basketball, his current favorite, with soccer close behind
- oooooooh - what he says whenever walks into our newly remodeled master bathroom
- tookie - cookie. Of course.
- Mama, Dada, RaRa (Nora), and Zay-zay (Zadie), Papa, Nana, Mimi
- bub-ba - bubbles

We've also recently discovered that he knows his letters and letter sounds. (!!!) I cannot take credit for this. I'm fairly certain he's learned them from Nora and a little V-tech "laptop" toy that he loves. The laptop had been out of batteries for a really long time (sometimes toys in our house get lost in Toy Purgatory, because we forget to replace their batteries), but I recently replaced them and it was like a brand new toy. Then last night I was putting him to bed while wearing a sweatshirt that said "Property of Colts". I was talking to Nora and noticed him saying "Tah, puh, buh, rrrr." He was pointing to the letters and saying the letter or sound CORRECTLY. He's a genius. F seems to be his favorite letter, because he always gets very excited when he sees it.

I finally caved and got him his first haircut, and all of the sudden
he looks like a he's graduating from college.

I registered Nora for kindergarten a few weeks ago. WAIT. STOP AND READ THAT AGAIN. SHE'S GOING TO KINDERGARTEN. SOON. Wasn't she just demanding to do things "me-self" and telling me that she was "a wittle bit nerwous" to start pre-school?

So far, five has been --
- waking up and heading downstairs to make her own breakfast on some days, and others still coming to our room to crawl in bed with and snuggle while watching a show.
- wanting to take care of her brother (she still introduces him as her "baby brother"), but getting frustrated and pushing him away when he tries to take her toys.
- choosing chapter books one bedtime, and picture books the next.
- watching more full-length movies, scary parts included, but still defaulting back to Daniel Tiger and other toddler shows (sometimes for the benefit of her brother; sometimes just because)
- excitement at the ability to truly help around the house, and sometimes even helping without being asked, but three minutes later emphatically refusing to do simple requests, like wear a jacket or pick up a puzzle.
- choosing her own clothes every day, with me only suggesting what is weather-appropriate or ruling out dresses for soccer or sweatpants for church.

We went ice skating, and she rocked it, because she's the coolest.

And so that's life around here these days. We're busy playing in the sandbox and reading stories and tossing together dinner that gets tossed on the floor. Come on over (but don't expect it to be clean).