Videos

Caleb and Annabelle have the sweetest relationship. He helps me out with her quite a bit and would do just about anything in the world for her. When she wakes up from her nap, he races up stairs to get her up all by himself (he forbids me to go in there because she will want to come to me rather than him) I love to stand by the door and listen to him play with her. Caleb HATES when I have to give her spankings and always tries to talk me out of it. However, that leads to a really good conversation where I explain that if I let Annabelle disobey, she will become a brat, and we want her to be sweet and happy. And that I don't like to spank her but I need to so that she won't draw on the walls, bite, or turn the computer off, ect. So, I don't want to spank her (or him or Adam for that matter) but I have to so they can learn right from wrong. I think he understands and it is good for him to see it played out from that perspective.

Adam, on the other hand, is the more typical sibling and brings me the spoon when Annabelle disobeys. He is sweet with her, but has a little more "sibling rivalry".

I think I better clarify that these spankings involve a very light tap on her little hiney. I don't have to spank hard at all. I think it is because she has seen the process so many times with the boys that she just knows to start wailing as soon as she sees the spoon coming. However, I do not slap her hand because: 1. There is no padding there and 2. it was so ineffective with Caleb as a toddler that I swore it off years back.

My goodness, let me get back to the Caleb/Annabelle relationship. This is a video of Caleb playing with her on his lap. Once again, the quality is pathetic because we were trying to sneak so she wouldn't notice the camera.

Here is Seth playing with the kids. Adam is spotting her so she won't fall off:

Lastly, she is really expanding her vocabulary nowadays and says too many new words for me to list. This is a video of her eating blueberries and saying the word "berries". I should note that many of her words don't sound much like the actual word itself. I think this is a good sign. Caleb didn't say much of anything until he was two years old. However, he used perfect pronunciations at that time. He is the type of child who can't stand to do something badly so, he just won't even try it. He wouldn't talk until he knew he could say it correctly. I see this in schooling him too. He hates to mess up and gets very frustrated.....we are working on this. I am afraid that I am the same way, which is a hard way to go through life, because it holds you back from trying things. ANYWAYS, here is Annabelle who is not afraid of screwing up her words:

Thanks for reading my jabbering....I have lots of words this morning! Welp, we have a huge day today (dentist appointments, class at Cheshire, then Botany) so I gotta get movin'.