Dean reading

So I know I've been talking about how Dean can read, but lately he doesn't want to actually do this out loud in front of people. I think I mentioned in my last post that he seems to have developed some weird embarrassment related to this. Well, tonight I managed to bribe him (such a negative word, "bribe", when it works so well!! ha!) - see, I have a box in the garage that has several new books in it, mostly about the Solar System and Space, but there are a couple about Volcanoes and one about the Brain (like an anatomy type book) that he has been wanting for some strange reason. Anyway, I use these books as "rewards" - Dean knows that if he has a really good week with lots of good behavior (always a challenge for him!) - things like eating well, brushing his teeth without too much complaining, cleaning up after himself, listening, etc, then he'll get to pick out a new book at the end of the week. Anyway, I've really been wanting to document that Dean really can read quite well as a 3-yr-old (mostly for journaling purposes, but I'll admit it, also because I'm a pretty proud Mama) - so this afternoon I told Dean that he'd get one of his new books early if he would let me film him reading just one page out of a book, and he could pick the book. So he picked his Solar System book and he wanted to read the page about Jupiter. So here it is...it's pretty impressive too. You'll notice that even though his reading skills are pretty advanced for a 3-yr-old, his ability to sit still is pretty age-appropriate!! ha ha!

Remember, if you're getting these messages in an e-mail, you'll have to go to the actual blog to watch the video. Click HERE to go to the blog, then scroll down to today's date (July 25, 2010) and then click the "play" button on the video.

Where does the time go??

Yikes! I have a lot of catching up to do. I can't believe my last post was about our Memorial Day hike!! And I really can't believe how fast the summer is flying by!! We've been super busy so far this summer with lots of fun stuff going on. I'll share a few things tonight and try to come back in a day or two and share a little more.

First off, we started June off with Dean "graduating" from the Roly Poly class at Children's Garden and moving up to the Turtle Class. He was NOT excited about this. He wanted to stay a Roly Poly. He was perfectly content with the way things were and no amount of talking to him about being a "big boy" and getting to play in the "big play yard" (where the larger playground equipment is located), etc was convincing him how cool it was going to be to be a Turtle. So the day came and we went to school with Dean mad about being a Turtle. I took his stuff into the Turtle classroom, took Dean with me to show him his new cubby (which took A LOT of coaxing), then he promptly ran to the Roly Poly class and got upset when he saw his old cubby was gone and saw "some other keiki's stuff" was there. But he got over it. June was a little rough as his closest friend at school (since Ryenna left to attend Montessori school), Maddox, was staying in the Roly Poly class until July. But that first day back in July when Maddox officially became a Turtle was AWESOME! Dean is so happy now as a Turtle and is back to loving life at school!!

Most of our other exciting happenings in June revolved around Grandma Jo's visit. She arrived on June 11 and stayed all the way until June 29. We all loved having her here, but Dean especially! He had a new attentive student to teach all about the Solar System and Nebulae and Super Novas and such! Grandma Jo's friend Nodine came with her for her first week that she was here and she brought Dean the book "The Giving Tree" by Shel Silverstein. I was surprised that right after he opened his gift, he sat right down on the living room floor, opened up the book and read (out loud in front of Grandma Jo and Nodine!) a few pages out of the book. Grandma and Nodine both were very impressed. He is normally very modest about this and doesn't like to read out loud when he knows people are listening. In fact, if I ask him to read to me he usually won't. I usually have to "catch" him reading out loud to himself when he's alone in his room (which is absolutely adorable by the way).

OK, so on to photos. While we were waiting for Grandma Jo to get here from the airport, Dean was drawing on the driveway with chalk. He wanted to draw the Solar System. We had a large pile of black cinder in the driveway that Joel was using in some landscaping and Dean decided that was the Asteroid Belt. So cute!

One day while Grandma Jo was here, we stopped by the Tropical Plantation to feed the ducks and fish. Aunty Jayci met us there and we had a nice time walking around, then Dean put on a "Hula Show" for us in the gazebo!! (sorry, I didn't get any photos of that).

Jayci and I sitting under a Plumeria Tree while Joel feeds the fish:
Dean checking out a Chameleon that Joel caught:
Dean loving on Aunty Jayci:

Dean has this really weird fake smile these days, which isn't really a smile at all, but just him squinting his eyes:

The real thing is so much better: