Milestones to Write Home About

We have been so shocked at how different Patrick suddenly is now that he is four. Kevin says it is like a light bulb turned on at midnight on August 26th. All of the sudden he just seems like a real boy (not like before when he was just a wooden puppet). Most of it is something I can't explain or illustrate with pictures. However, my favorite Facebook Flair illustrates one of the changes.

This is totally Patrick these days. He is obsessed. The boy can sit down for hours on end coloring and drawing and writing. Yesterday we got our first Halloween costume catalog. After about 20 minutes of "I want to be this and this and that" I suggested that he mark the pages he was interested in with post-its. This turned into writing each character name on the post-it. We had a little homework time and he worked on writing "Transformers" on his post-it.

So this is real motivation for him to not only identify letters but also write. He is also creating some pretty fine masterpieces. He is dabbling in the house with the smoke coming out of the chimney right now.


And then there's Keith....
Tonight after dinner instead of dessert we indulged in an extra large serving of MOOD SWING. That isn't so much a milestone as it is a personality trait. Check out that outfit. He insisted on taking all of his real clothes off and donning accessories (hat and shoes, he also had a bracelet at one point. He is my son after all.)

But we do have good things to report about our dear little Keithers. He learned how to balance himself to stand on one foot. I know this probably doesn't make sense to people but convincing your toddler to hang onto your arm or the wall while you are putting on pants or a shoe is like convincing a dog to fly. They just don't get it and they will crash every time.

In other news he is regularly saying "Thank You" I know everyone thinks that walking is the most important milestone but I am so excited about the one foot thing and the manners. According to the doctor we should be really impressed with his ability to feed himself with a spoon. The doctor asked us no less than three times. The first time it wasn't really a question: "He's only 16 months, not feeding himself with a spoon" "Oh no, he feeds himself." "Really...."

"And you said he IS feeding himself?"Instead we are impressed that he figured out how to balance the spoon on his nose! I wish I had a picture! He did it twice.

And finally, take a good look at the psycho baby picture above. You can see Keith's huge molar that finally came in. Patrick was commenting on the size of his brother's teeth, noting that they aren't baby teeth. I corrected him, his teeth are in fact baby teeth. Keith just has HUGE teeth.