We love the library!

What a lousy bookworm I am! Here it is, the end of February, and I just found out today that it has been "Library Lovers' Month" for the last 28 days. I didn't even celebrate, although I did read 5-- or was it 6-- books this month and we have gone to our Library several times.

When we first moved, I was very sad that I didn't think the library in our new town was "good enough." (I know, I'm such a snob-- but getting over it. Millions of people in the world don't even have public libraries in their town. What a horrible thought-- seriously!) But don't tell that to our little guy. He would go EVERY day if he could.

If you say the word "fun," he says, "Fun? Daddy. Wibewwy (Library)." Evidently, when I take him to the Library it's not such a big deal, but when DADDY takes him, it's fun. Whatever. As long as he loves the Library, I'm a happy Mama.

Yesterday, the Little Man made us laugh. We were, you guessed it, on the way to the Library when we got stuck behind an Amtrak train. We didn't have to wait too long, but it was annoying. Daddy-O and I groaned a little bit. But once the train pulled away, our Bookworm-in-Training, said, "No fun train."

Some kids like trains... our kid only likes them if they don't interfere with his trip to the Library.

Kiddo's latest adventures

I suppose the title is a bit misleading, as our life these days isn't particularly adventurous. But I realize that I haven't written about the kidlet in a while and you might be wondering what he's up to lately. Please be forewarned that the following post might sound like boasting. I'm sorry. I just can't help it. :( The kid is a marvel to behold... I really don't know how I'm going to keep him intellectually stimulated for the next 3.5 years until he starts school!

In some respects, he's a "you've got to see him to believe it" kind of kid, as he now says and does so many things I never thought he'd do at such a young age. However, he rarely does them when you want him to show off... I guess he's humble. :) Although he must love to count and identify shapes an awful lot, because he does those things just about everywhere we go! He will count to 12 all by himself, and knows a lot of the rest of the numbers up to 20, but tends to skip quite a few until he gets to "18, 19, 20!" The excitement over shapes has been going on for at least 3 months, because I know I've been having to draw circles for him for at least that long, and I can remember him being so excited about the diamond and triangle-shaped windows at the Lesotho-S. Africa border. My favorite thing is that he has always called triangles, "cah-wah-wah" and still does-- who knows why? Rectangles are something like "teng-angle." :)

About 2 weeks ago, he seemed to start understanding the difference between colors, so one of his new hobbies is pointing to things and telling us what color they are. His accuracy is increasing all the time, although he keeps finding things that are grey or magenta or black or brown, so I'm not sure if he's keeping all of those types of colors straight. He's very good with the primary colors and green, orange, and pink.

We recently bought him a RED plastic chair because he gets very excited when he sees toddler-sized chairs at other people's houses. I also thought having his own seat might keep him from standing so darn close to the TV when Elmo or Blue is on (in a related note, he finally broke the last button on the TV set-- thank heavens for the remote). He loves it, I think especially because it is red. My mom's car is red, and he LOVES to ride in Gobby's RED car and talks about it on a regular basis.

Ever since we came home from Lesotho, this kid has loved maps. The car rental agency gave us a book with road maps of Southern Africa and he just can't get enough of that book! He calls it his "Sotho book" and has just about worn it out. He started out by pointing at different countries or states (S.A. consists of states, sort of like here in the US) and saying "That?" Then we would tell him what the map says. So now he's "memorized" some of these maps and tells ME what is on them. His pronunciation is adorable! I SO wish I had a video camera to capture this phenomenon. Now he wants to learn from our world map, so I'm pointing out tiny little Lesotho, as well as all of the largest countries. I guess his curiosity is good for the Mama who never had any geography classes in all of her years of schooling.

His new favorite show is "Dora the Explorer," which I checked out from the Library for him last week. I think it might have something to do with THE MAP. Dora's perkiness is a bit much for me sometimes, but it is a good, educational show and it adds a little variety to our constant Elmo-Blue's Clues rotation.

He also LOVES photographs and wants to know everyone's names, so if you want to send us a picture I'll be sure to add you to the rotation! He might also want to know "what you say"-- I'll explain that in another post. For now I've got to go try to entertain my little explorer guy.

But where is his helmet?

I hope it's "legal" to share this-- I am giving full credit to the source. It is just so amusing to me that I wanted to post it. Of course, I am very weird... Anyway, I think it will be fun to show it to my kiddo and see what he thinks!

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From Time Magazine's Pictures of the Week:

"Sunday, February 10, 2008
Vroom, Vroom
Oui the frog sits on a miniature motorcycle in the eastern beach town of Pattaya. Oui's owner Tongsai Bamrungthai says Oui enjoys playing with human toys and posing for photographs."

Photo Credit: Chaiwat Subprasom / Reuters

Guess who loves you?

Now, don't you feel better already?!?!

Happy Valentine's Day

From Our Sweet Little Valentine

We hope your day is filled with joy!

I just love these kids!

I have to start by saying that Lesotho is full of wonderful, beautiful, bright, generous children. I wanted to bring them all back with us! I think our son would have been happy with that idea, too! So many children, most of them quite a bit older than he is, would come almost every day to see their new little American friend. As interested as they were in his (too many) books and toys, they all seemed to be willing to share their own belongings, or food, with him. They were very patient when he grabbed things from them or pushed them (he is such a tyrant! :( ), they cheered for him when he counted, sang, spoke any Sesotho, or said his ABCs, and they didn't even seem to mind that he had to have his Mommy with him at all times (his insistence, not mine, actually).

But I have to tell you about two of my favorite kids that we got to know:


Bokang (from Maseru) and My Little Guy

This Bokang is not to be confused with our nephew, Bokang, although it was a bit puzzling to our kiddo. For the first few days in Mantsonyane, he seemed to think that all the boys were named Bokang, since he'd already met two! My husband has been good friends with his whole family for several years so we went to see them on our way up to my in-laws' as well as before we went back home. Bokang is only 7 years old, in grade two, and smart as a whip. Much to his family's surprise, he spoke English very freely and easily with us. They knew he'd been learning English at school, but they mostly speak Sesotho at home, so they were excited to see how much he knows already. I told my husband that I don't think I speak any of the foreign languages I've studied as well as Bokang speaks English already. It's very humbling.

Bokang was so good with our son. He shared his cars, colored with him, talked to him, played with him, looked out for him. Our son was SO excited to see him when we went back to Maseru that he broke into a huge grin. When we went to Church, Bokang made sure Kiddo didn't wander off (or step in any bird poop outside!) He invited his friends over to meet us, and they shared their snacks with Kiddo-- or rather, they ended up giving their snacks to him since he is such a huge eater!

But Bokang also is quite a pistol. My son has an obsession with opening and closing any door he sees, and, much to our chagrin, he slammed doors all over Lesotho. I was terrified he was going to break them, but the kind people we visited mostly thought it was funny. Of course, he had done this at Bokang's house, and also at the Church. After trying for the umpteenth time to get the kid to stop slamming some glass doors at the Church, I sort of gave up.

Then Bokang turned to me and said, "Do you see what he did?"

"What?"

Bokang somberly pointed at the glass doors. "See, he broke it."

"What? Are you sure?" My heart started pounding as I looked to see that one of the doors did indeed have a huge crack running about 3-4 feet down the glass. How in the world were we going to pay for that? Would the members of the branch ever forgive us? Would they always remember Kiddo as the boy who broke their door because of his neglectful mother? I was totally panicking as I tried to get my husband's attention.

Our friend Terry overheard the whole thing, and after letting me fret for a minute or so, he chuckled and said, "Don't let him fool you. The door's been like that for years."

Bokang just smiled at his cleverness.


Bokang's friends came over to meet his little American friend.


Then there's Chabalala. He's four, lives behind my in-laws, and is so cute I can't stand it.


Chabalala ponders the meaning of life.

Evidently, he loves coming to visit his neighbors every day, and when school is out (which it was while we were there), he usually gets up at about 6 a.m., gets dressed and comes on over to see his "big-kid" friends, our nephews and niece. He also enjoys my mother-in-law and sister-in-law's amazing cooking and often announces his arrival by telling them that he's hungry. The sweet women that they are, they always give him a little something.

Chabalala was especially excited to come over while we were there. He loved to ride with my husband in our rental car whenever he went somewhere, and was amazed by our son. Because Kiddo has memorized so many things he hears, and because he talked so much, Chabalala thought he was some sort of baby genius. He said to his friends, "I am four and he is a baby, but he already speaks English!" Of course, we had to explain that Kiddo is not fluent in Sesotho like he is.

One day Chabalala brought over a pair of his boots for our son, because he wanted to give him a present. But they were too big. If you ask me, just seeing that little face nearly every day was present enough! I think he was as sad as we were when we had to leave.


Well, we tried to get a picture of them together, anyway!