Hiking trip

We took the boys on a hike, which involved some fun trails, some pretty waterfalls, and a lot of stairs going up the mountain.

Bitty: "What iss hike-een?"
me: "Walking in the woods."
Bitty: "Are we walk-een in the woods?" (I can't figure out how to type the way he pronounces "walk" but it is so. darn. cute!
me: "Yep, we sure are."

These two practically ran up the mountain, but were nice enough to stop and wait for the rest of us here and there. In this one, Bearhug is showing me the waterfall, in case I was too busy huffing and puffing my way up the stairs to have noticed :).

Meanwhile Bitty wanted "uppers" most of the way, thankfully dh handled that although at one point he got tired of carrying and told Bitty "I'll carry you but you have to catch me first!" And Bitty took off after him, yelling "CAAHH--RRY!!!" lol

Leaving proof (I wish I had three arms!)

We continued on to the top. Of course Bearhug and Cuddlebug beat us by a mile but they were waiting at the top to give us a high five and congratulate us for making it (I think I heard them congratulating pretty much everyone else that made it too while they were waiting, lol).

They weren't even the slightest bit winded or tired. I sooo wish I had just a fraction of their energy! I took some "victory" pictures of them at the top of the waterfall :).

The view was beautiful, worth the climb.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The park where we went hiking is close to the pumpkin farm, so we had planned to visit the pumpkin farm again for a while before heading home. Unfortunately, the hike was too much overstimulation and Bitty wasn't up for anything else that day. We tried since we had told the boys we'd go, but we only lasted about a minute at the pumpkin farm before Bitty started kicking pumpkins and yelling angrily at them (something along the lines of "I don' WANNA SEE A PUH-KIN!!!") :(. We showed him the sign that says "no stepping on, kicking, sitting on the pumpkins" etc. and he yelled "I don' WANNA WEAD DA SIGN!!!" so we knew it was time to go and try again another day.

We did manage to pick up a couple of pumpkin pies before we left (because it's a long drive and we were already there) only because I offered to give Bitty "uppers" (carry him). Thankfully Cuddlebug and Bearhug were ok with leaving early, and we did make it out before Bitty reached full meltdown mode. Once we got into the car Bitty started to settle down.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This post has been submitted for this month's S-O-S Best of the Best Blog Carnival. The topic is "share a moment from your family life, whether it’s funny, loving, or just special." Our hiking trip gave us some much-needed family relaxing time and it was a fun activity for the boys. Even though we did end up having to cut the planned activities short and spend the rest of the day decompressing we made some good memories that day :).

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Conversations with Bitty

Bitty asked me one evening as I took him upstairs to tuck him in for bed, "does me hab schoo tomowwow?"

I couldn't help but smile, his wording is too cute but it is also an indicator of just how far he's come with his speech and communication skills. You may notice that he didn't say, "do YOU hab schoo tomowwow?"

After a LOT of time and effort, he uses the pronoun "you" correctly most of the time now, meaning referring to the person he's speaking to and not to himself.

It didn't occur to me that there would be a "next step" of differentiating between I and me (is the English language complicated or what?!) until we started hearing sentences like the one I started this post with:

"Does me hab schoo tomowwow?"
"Iss me sick?" (he had to stay home from school a couple of days this week as he was running a fever, he's feeling better now).

Other times (usually at the beginning of a sentence now that I think of it) he does great:

"I don' WIKE DAT!" (we hear that one a lot, sigh)
"I not hungry"

However he decides to word things, I remain infinitely grateful that he is (mostly) willing and able to communicate with us. It means the world to have some insight into what he's thinking (even though sometimes he still leaves us guessing).

He often likes to ask questions that we think he already knows the answer to. Maybe he likes the reassurance of hearing the answers again, maybe he's just making conversation.

For example, he drives his brothers crazy asking things like "do you wike Pokemon?", "wha'ss you fay-brit cuh-wer? Iss wed you fay-brit cuh-wer?" or "do you wike Kirby-right-back-at-YA?" (a cartoon that apparently went off the air years ago but still lives on YouTube).

If he deems the answer "unacceptable" he can be very persistent (ie. when Cuddlebug tried to tell him he doesn't have a favorite color). That can lead to some funny conversations, like Cuddlebug making up random names for colors that don't exist because he refuses to just pick a color and Bitty refuses to stop asking until he gets a satisfactory answer.

Bitty still tends to ignore us at times, and it can take a LOT of effort and repetition to get any kind of response when we are trying to ask him something or initiate a conversation with him. Or (gasp!) trying to get him to do something.

But other times he will actually seek us out and I am loving these little interactions:

Bitty, to me: "Iss Kirby a pink ball?" (grinning)
me: "Yes, Kirby is a big pink ball."
Bitty: "Does Mom wike Kirby?"
me: "Of course I love Kirby, he's one of my favorite characters!"
Bitty smiles in response.
me: "Do YOU like Kirby?"
Bitty smiles even bigger, nodding his head emphatically with a huge grin. Priceless :)

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RIP Flake :(

Thursday night we found little Flake had passed away.

He was fine when I fed the fish that morning. By dinnertime, he was gone. :(

That's Flake at the bottom

I know it sounds silly, but there was something endearing about Flake. Dh and I joked that if ever a fish's name was a perfect fit, it was "Flake" lol. Bearhug named him after his "favorite food" but he was kind of a nutty fish, so the name fit from that perspective too. He may have had some health issues, at one point he hardly swam at all but he hung in there and mostly recovered. He began to swim again although he swam a little erratically, as if he couldn't quite control where his fins took him.

He seemed happy though, playing with the other fish and hiding out when he wanted some quiet time. He was the smallest fish in the tank and it became a bit of a game to "find Flake" whenever it was time to feed the fish, to make sure he came out from his hiding place and got something to eat before the food was gone.

The boys handled the news as well as could be expected... I don't think Bitty really understands what happened, but Cuddlebug and Bearhug were sad about the loss and will miss little Flake. May he enjoy his swimming adventures in the oceans of heaven.

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Pumpkin Patch #2

This past weekend we went to visit the pumpkin patch again, this time the one that we've been to before.

The boys loved pulling / pushing the wagons :).

Bitty had an easier time with the wagon than he had with the wheelbarrow the prior weekend.

Showing me his little bitty pumpkin :).

Cuddlebug and Bearhug making me laugh with their silly faces :).

♥ ♥ ♥

We went on a hayride...

...which the boys loved!

Except for all that, umm, hay...  (that was Cuddlebug's comment, lol)  He cleared away the hay around his feet :).

They had fun playing with the hay though.

There was a stop along the way to feed the catfish in the pond :).

I love this one... makes me fall in love with dh all over again. (sigh)

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Redirect... FAIL

We were at church Sunday and Bitty was wired, running up and down the halls with the occasional screech. He's been really having a hard time at church lately, but that's another post.

I took him for a walk and he was finally starting to settle down but I sensed he was on edge and would soon take off running again so I tried to distract him with the paintings on the wall.

"Who is that a picture of?" "What are they doing in the picture?" etc.

He wasn't really interested but as we passed the bulletin board I tried again.

"What does that say?"

He shouted, "I KNOW DA SCWIPTURES ARE TRUE!!!"

So much for trying to distract him *quietly* (sigh).

"Ssshhhhh... not so loud, angel."

He looked at me and pointed to the exclamation point at the end of the phrase on the board as he patiently explained, "Dat means WOUD or excited."

Oh... the exclamation point means loud or excited... of course (smiling now and stifling a laugh). He's learned all about punctuation at school.

"How about if we try an excited whisper?"

He did his best excited "whisper" which was not really a whisper but wasn't an ear-piercing yell either.

"I know da scwiptures are TRUE!"

...

Note to self: next time you try to distract Bitty with reading something, make sure there are no exclamation marks in sight.

!!

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Pumpkin Patch

We took the boys out for an early-fall trip to the pumpkin patch. The one we usually go to wasn't open yet, so we tried a new one. Turns out this one sells fresh-baked pumpkin pie too... YUM!!! :) These were taken on Saturday 9/17.

All three boys together... Bitty doing his "puppy dog" face :)

Bearhug helping Bitty with the wheelbarrow.  It was big and rather unwieldy for someone of Bitty's size to maneuver.

Helping Dad push the wheelbarrow :)

Bitty and his puppy face again, lol.  Just like the Baby Einstein Neighborhood Animals puppy :).

Cuddlebug and Bearhug exploring

Getting better with the wheelbarrow... all by himself!

Bearhug blending in with the pumpkins :)

Checking out the pumpkins...

...so many to choose from!

Still working that wheelbarrow... not sure if he was frustrated or just concentrating.

Bearhug and Cuddlebug were pretty excited about their tiny pumpkin squash (they pointed out MANY times that the sign said that one was a squash, not a pumpkin, lol)

That's actually not a yawn, that's Bitty doing his "Kirby inhaling everything" impression.

We had a great time, and everyone was excited to go back the next weekend :).

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