Today I made goop for Ju. It was a great sucess. He is a fan of play dough, silly putty, and clay. We always recommend that the children who have a poor pencil grip play with some thing along these lines outside of school to strenthen their hands and small motor skills. Ju already has very good capabilities with crayons and is extremely into finger paints. With any luck, I'll be able to give him enough stimulation that he won't be behind when he starts school in a year.

I had something to write earlier when I opened this page, but then Ju was throwing peas and I went to go feed him a banana, and now I am sleeping with my eyes open.

Instead of constantly lamenting that my friends don't update their blogs as often, I suppose I should actually update mine. Despite having opened a page to write a number of times, I never seem to do it, which I chaulk up to my extreme lack of time. Like now, as I am typing, I actually should be making flash cards that I didn't make last night because I was playing with Ju and doing a translation at the same time. Off to school now.

Oh, and I probably should add that we finally were paid the money by the insurance company and have bought a new car as of Wednesday. Only took a month and a half....

The battle for sleep continues. Unfortunately, daddy is sabotaging all my hard work because he misses his son ( can't blame him ) and goes in there to keep him company while he falls asleep. Now here I am, daddy working late, and Ju is up there, crying alternately for mom or dad. He already knew it was going to happen when I put him in there - as soon as I started reading the goodnight story, he starting crying and throwing a fit. If he keeps it up, he may stay awake until daddy get's home at 11.

Is there like a switch or something? Kids pass the two year mark and suddenly - snap - there are the tantrums, the throwing on the floor, the indecision game playing, the pinching, the finicky eating... It's amazing! Another switch that has been flipped is the "potty peeing" switch, brought on by the interest in wearing a "tecka" (cueca - underwear). No interest in doing the same for coco though. oh well.