Judah's favorite activity this month has been his music, spending his days singing, banging, and strumming along with life. He still enjoys playing with his instruments, especially the new trumpet and cymbals he received for Easter. Earlier in the month, daddy took the big banner paper and drew instruments. Then the two popped in a jazz record and played along with their paper piano, tuba, trumpet, saxophone, guitar, and drums, listening to instruments. Those pieces of paper were played so much that they became confetti. I also got out my Cricut to print off guitars for birthday invitations. I printed off a number of those along with trumpets that Judah carried around the house strumming and tooting. He takes the music picture books we check out from the library and tries to play the instruments. He even plays music games on daddy's smart phone as he drums and plays the piano or "electric guitar."
He quotes "Dum Ditty Dum (from Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb)" as he strums his fake guitar. Any chance he gets, he walks around singing to himself himself with a pretend microphone, "Happy Birthday...daddy" and "Jesus....Me." Sometimes he will dance as he sings. Other times he will tap his foot while tooting a horn, fiddling on the guitar, or drumming to a beat.
To pass time indoors during these April showers, Judah and I have done a lot of crafts including finger painting. We painted budding trees with flowers underneath. We also painted ocean water filled with fish swimming. Then we found old magazines, clipping out pictures of certain colored objects and discussing the colors. We also got ready for Easter by decorating the house with these cheerful paintings and later coloring eggs. Judah even started helping mommy in the kitchen making biscuits and other goodies to bake.
Judah has also grown to enjoy bath time more. Now that he is more and more dirty from being outdoors, he needs a bath. When we go up to take a bath, he will tell you what color he wants. We found a little frog that fits over the bath facet that came with color tablets. The dye tablets mix with the water to make bath water almost any shade of color Judah desired. His personal favorites are blue and green. Another bath time accomplishment is that for the first time Judah has let daddy trip is finger nails without fussing. And finally, we got him a Thomas train toothbrush to making brushing his teeth more fun.
Judah often wonders outside to explore the world around him. Most days, we fill his little sand pail full of rocks and sticks that we have collected and carry them down to the pond to throw in the water. Other days, he likes to roll his balls down the little hill beside our house, running after them and then climbing back up again. He even has become quite familiar at navigating the park in our neighborhood, asking often to go. He climbs up the ladders (with a little help) and goes down the slides over and over again. At a different park the other night, Judah insisted going down the very big, big slide all by himself time and time again (wore daddy out).
Judah's thumb is turning green as he helps mommy in and around the garden. Early in April (April 5), we cleared out the brush of our little garden. Judah also helped plant herb seeds in a starter kit. While we water these and watch them grown, Judah has enjoyed picking my purple hyacinth and yellow daffodils. He has his own little shovel to dig up the weeds (and flowers) and rake to move the mulch.
Judah's new trick this month has been jumping (April 18). Particularly he likes to stand on his bikes (with no hands much to my dismay) and jump off. He even mimicked his neighbor friend by jumping off the couch. I fear the bed is next. When he has something important such as a new trick, his new thing is to come to you and tell you, "show me" or "watch me" expecting you to follow him. He has realized by saying your name or "help me" that you will pay attention to him.
Judah continues to be a chatter box, talking and carrying a conversation almost all the time. He puts shorts sentences clearly together with two to three words back to back. He sometimes quotes his ABC's and numbers. He reports colors of objects and tells you the sounds of the animals. He repeats every word you say and even some we have no clue he knew. Our favorite words are "but ons (buttons)." His sense of humor has become more apparent in his conversations. When Tim does something silly and teases Judah, Judah will respond, "DAD." Judah also reveals funny things like tickling, playing peek-a-book, and chasing. Sometimes he gets his opposites mixed up by saying "on" when he means "off." Other times he will "carry you" when he means himself.
Judah has been growing again, taller that is. As a result, we have found a number of church garage sales for clothes in 18 months. He has also been teething making him often grumpy and out of sorts. His top canines are completely in now (April 15) and we think he is currently working on the bottom pair. His hair grew long again always sticking up after nap time and so he got his haircut with daddy (April 13).
This month, we all came down with colds, causing us to be sick for a couple of weekends (April 8,15). We went to the doctor as a family only to find out we had viruses. Judah still only weighed in at 22 pounds. By the end of the month, Judah was sick again, vomiting and coughing up mucous. For a second time, we took him to the doctor only to find out his symptoms resemble an infection similar to walking pneumonia.
Easter weekend proved to family and fun filled weekend. On Friday, we ate supper before going to the Good Friday service as a family. Saturday, we spent the morning flying Judah's new kite before running errands. By dinner time, we joined Papa Ed and Nana Joyce as well as our neighbors at the church for our Easter service. Afterwards, my entire family and our neighbors went out to eat and to fellowship.
Aunt Rachel got ready with us on Easter morning, joining us for a home made breakfast of omelets and muffins. Judah held onto his trumpet that he received for Easter. We enjoyed our Easter service at Uncle Philip's church. Then the family returned to our house for a 13 pound turkey and the fixings. Everyone took a nice afternoon nap before heading home.
Tim continues to get his administrative office in order as they plan to move locations again. On top of that he has had a number of issues come up on a daily basis that need to be resolved. Judah and I still host play group and attend music class and story time. We have also gotten together a number of times with our neighbor friends for play and dinner.
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