Learning how to bowl and other fun things

(Monday)
Daddy's back to his school year schedule working 9:30-6pm instead of 7-3:30pm. Over the summer, we had lost our routine of praying together so now I'm back to getting up earlier at 7am. We're hoping to have some time alone before J wakes up to talk and catch up and then pray together before L leaves for work at 9am. No more summertime sleeping in. J has been sleeping in lately and I couldn't believe it but he didn't call out for me until 10:30am! So I had a bit of alone time which was nice. Once he was up and going, he did lots and lots of coloring. When I was in my chair, he kept coming over with a crayon and asking me to color something. Then he'd watch with such intensity, pointing to things for me to color in the picture.

J was trying to pull something out of the toy box, but I wasn't sure what he wanted. He asked for help and it turns out he wanted to play with a bowling set he got for his birthday but hasn't used very much. We took it outside and I set it up and began teaching him how to play. He wanted to get really close to the pins, but finally listened to me asking him to stand further back. We worked together on how to bowl and he did move back further. Every time we knocked pins over J would yell "Yay!" and clap. I told J it reminded me of when we were down on State Street and saw some jugglers, then he said he wanted to juggle too. So he would hold the pins and just move his arms up and down saying "I'm juggling mommy!" After that, he wanted to walk in the grass and we went to the back yard and played in the sand box.

Whenever J goes in our bedroom, he always asks to "go up and on the big bed". I like to stack up all the pillows and then count to 3 or 4 and then toss him into them. We had a ball doing this today. I'd get done and he'd say, "Do again it!" (He mixes that up.) So I did this over and over until I was pooped. Then I laid down and pretended I was sleeping and as J came close I'd fling open my eyes and say "Oh, J woke me up." This made him laugh so hard. Then he'd pretend to sleep and I'd wake him up and we both were just giggling away. Before his nap, we read the story of Joshua and the battle of Jericho. He was very interested in this story and was pointing to various things in the pictures asking who and what they were. During J's nap, I had some cleaning up to do. The living room looked like a tornado hit and Monday is my "clean the bathrooms" day. Then I was able to have some devotional time (which I'll share about in Tuesday's post which I should have done soon.)

We went to the Y. When I picked J up, he came running over but then seemed to have second thoughts. I heard him say something about the dinosaurs and so he went back and started playing again. So I called him over and he came back. He had tons of energy when we got home. He was climbing all over me, trying to take my hair thing out. Running around. Throwing his blankie over my head. Later, while daddy was reading to him, I was cleaning his bathroom. Once daddy was done, J said he wanted to clean too and grabbed a little sponge. So I got his sponge wet and he started cleaning off the washable crayon. He was so excited. He'd ask for more water on the sponge so I'd rinse it out and he'd get right back to cleaning. He even got into the tub to help clean that too. We worked well together. This is the bathroom I neglect so it was so nice to have the satisfaction of seeing it all clean and organized. Then it was time for J to go to bed.