Andrew

Andrew in his element, originally uploaded by leslie_capron.

Andrew is doing lots of new things these days. Andrew is becoming very comfortable navigating his way around computer games. We've found www.nickjr.com which has online games featuring his favorite characters, Deigo and Dora, etc. He's learned to play several games (his favorite being Deigo's train animal rescue), and click his way around the web site. At first we would launch the game for him and help him, but now we can just bring up the site and Andrew can click, and drag and find new games to play on his own. Often Eric and I will set him up and come back and check on him to find that he's figured out new features that we didn't even know the site had. Yesterday he launched the little radio application and was listening to Diego tunes. I love how independent he is and how he's trying new games and is figuring things out on his own. It also reinforces my desire to have the computer in a common area so I can keep an eye on his web surfing!

The online Diego train game features a railroad track that's all messed up and the player fixes the track by clicking on the misaligned pieces. Andrew now will take his Thomas train tracks and mess up the pieces and proceed to fix them, just like on the Diego game (see picture). He is so happy when pulls the track pieces apart then puts them back altogether correctly.

Andrew's become a little sneaky too. Since Halloween, Andrew's been allowed a piece of candy after dinner. Now, Andrew will ask for candy throughout the day, but I always remind him that "trick or treating" is for after dinner. I minimize temptation, I put his Halloween candy away in a closet. The other day Andrew said "i need to go potty", so he went to the bathroom and shut the door. Several minutes later, Eric asked "where's Andrew?", he'd been in there a while so we went to check on him and we caught him red-handed. He'd found his candy and was chewing away on some Starbursts. Eric and I couldn't help but start laughing and I couldn't believe he'd been so sneaky! The candy's on a much higher shelf now.

Andrew is talking a lot and this week has really started to enjoy singing. He likes to sing through his repertoire on the ride home from Kindercare: Old MacDonald, the theme from Thomas, and he makes up his own songs too.

Andrew is now sleeping regularly in his own bed these days. Eric's been home during the week and three's definitely a crowd.

He still doesn't eat robustly and unless dinner is plain pasta and watermelon, he doesn't eat.

Brotherly bonds are strengthening - last night Andrew said "come on Owen let's go to the bathroom", this is typical since Andrew prefers an audience when he goes potty. Then Andrew ran out of the bathroom and grabbed a book and ran back to Owen and shut the door. What were these boys up to? I knocked and the door opened and Andrew said "mama, you need to go, we're reading" and shut the door. So cute.

There are lots going on around here and every day Andrew surprises me and amazes me with all the things he can do.