Category Archives: Kids
Fun Night
I took Isaac and Charlotte to fun night at Isaac’s school. We bought ten tickets for $5.00. They spent their first two tickets on a bag of cotton candy, which they split.
They spent the rest of their tickets on the inflatable games. The first thing they choose was the obstacle course that ended in a slide.
Their final choice was the bungee run, which I’m sure was not designed for kids their size. The point was to run as fast as you can and place a bean bag as far as you could on the Velcro next to the run and in theory the bungee cord would pull you back to land on your bottom. I don’t think either kid had enough force to have the cord pull them backwards, but it was their choice and they didn’t want to be diverted from it!
When we got to the car, only a half an hour had passed and not wanting to waste the opportunity to hang out with my older kids, we headed over to the Hardees (Carl’s Jr. in the West) for a treat. Hardees happens to be the closest fast food place to my house.
After splitting a chocolate shake, we headed home.
The Bumbo
I bought a Bumbo when Nicole was a baby and I was desperate for a way to put her down and have her remain happy. She wasn’t happy with the swing, or bouncer, or lying on her back and as it turned out, she wasn’t particularly thrilled with the Bumbo either and I thought that perhaps it was a gimmicky waste of money. She was content enough in it a few times. 
However, Ila is definitely helping me get my money’s worth out of it.
Nicole’s Sleeping Oddity
Nicole insists on sleeping on toys and books. If you try to move them, she’ll put them right back. She likes to have a stuffed animal (usually Curious George) or doll under each arm and then she places books in the middle and sleeps on her tummy on top of all of them! And she will scream if she drops her water bottle, which she hugs along with everything else as she sleeps.
Isaac’s Load of Cargo
Isaac loves to ride his bicycle, but he will only ride a turn or two (if that) before he starts trying to experiment or attach things. He has tried to attach various yard tools in a variety of different ways. One day he was riding along with a rake. As the rake dragged along the driveway, it made a scraping noise. Isaac excitedly announced that the rake was “amplifying†the sound of his bicycle as he rode! He attaches the wagon just about everyday and usually spends some time giving rides to all his little sisters.
He keeps trying to add a stepladder between the bicycle and the wagon but his mother won’t let him. The other day he piled the wagon up with whatever he could find and was beaming delightedly as he pulled his cargo around the driveway. A few days ago he asked if Ila could be his cargo!
Capturing Smiles, Taking better pictures
When I try to take a picture of Ila smiling, I end up with a lot of pictures that look like this:
Not only does she stare at the camera instead of me, but when the camera flashes she seems a little startled by it and I end up with pictures that have what I like to refer to as ‘Crazy Eyes.’ If I turn the flash off, it slows the shutter speed and the pictures turn out blurry.
The solution is to take the pictures outside (or in highly lighted places). Since the camera doesn’t need the flash, I don’t end up with crazy eyes and I can capture more natural facial expressions.
The best part of my day. . .
was this morning when as I walked down the hall to get Isaac up, I heard Nicole’s sweat little voice calling out “Mom, where are you?†over and over again. She’s just at that age where her language skills are exploding. Not only is her vocabulary increasing, but she is starting to string two words together. Ironically, “where are you†is like one word to her. Usually in the morning, she’ll be sitting up in her bed talking gibberish and occasionally she’ll sit up and cry to be released from her room. This is the first time I’ve heard her call out a whole sentence. 
While Iâ€m on the subject of Nicole, I ought to share two more stories from this week. The picture to the left is from the other day when she spilled some water on the floor. She said “oh, no†then opened the drawer containing washcloths and hand towels, retrieved one and started trying to clean up her mess. I was so proud. She has observed the times when her older siblings have spilled and I’ve directed them to clean up their own spills.
The other story happened outside this week. I had all 4 kids outside with me and we were playing with balls and other toys. Our driveway has a rather steep decline towards the road, so I have repeatedly told Isaac and Charlotte that if a ball rolls down they are not to chase it into the street. I tell them that I will replace the ball if it gets hit by a car, but that I can’t replace them. I didn’t see when Nicole’s ball rolled down the hill and across the street into the little ditch on the other side, but I did see that Nicole was upset and instead of descending into tears she looked at me and said, in a very sad voice “oh, no! Ball!†
and pointed towards the street. Not having seen it roll, I wasn’t entirely sure I’d find a ball, but I cautioned her to stay up on the hill and went down to investigate. Sure Enough at the bottom of the hill I could see her ball. After I retrieved it, I handed it to her and my heart swelled with pride at this successful communicative exchange that I had just experienced with my daughter. I am still puzzling over why that experience felt so profound to me. Was it that she finally caught on to the lesson I’ve been trying to teach her (don’t cry, use words instead) or was it that she gave me information that I didn’t know and I was able to act on that information to achieve a successful result?
Nicole’s Birthday Gift Ideas
Before anyone went shopping, I thought I’d post some pertinent info. I hope this isn’t too presumptuous of me. We’re really ok if no-one gets her anything. She is only turning 2, but I know that a grandma or two may be thinking of sending something and I thought this format would be acceptable. If you do buy her a gift on this list that’s not eatable, leave a comment so no one duplicates. If you like the suggestions, I’ll post the same sort of thing for Isaac’s birthday which is a month later.
What did you learn in Primary today?
Charlotte: I learned about Adam and Eve
Me: What did you learn about them?
Charlotte: I learned how to draw them
Me: Did you color a picture of them at church?
Charlotte: yeah
Me: Did you learn what they did?
Charlotte: They ate a tree.
Me: They ate a tree?!
Charlotte: They ate all the fruit on the tree.
Me: What did they do next?
Charlotte: They hid.
Me: Why did they do that?
Charlotte: They didn’t want to get dead.
Invention
Luckily I had my camera with me when Isaac rode his bike around the corner like this:
He has devised a way to sweep as he rides. Now if only his Lego building resulted in a clean bathroom, I’d be set.
A snapshot of Nicole
I like this picture of Nicole. I found her sitting on the kitchen floor, wearing her father’s hat and looking at this book that she took from our bedroom.
There’s just something about this picture that seems very silly to me. Maybe it’s that she didn’t just take the book or the hat, but the two of them together and then walked all the way into the kitchen to sit down and ‘read.’
Ila’s 4 Month Well-Check
It occurred to me today that I ought to make a habit of posting well check stats here .(particularly for my children’s grandparents, but also for anyone else who wants to know)
Name: Ila Jane Cochran (side note: It annoys me that most fonts don’t differentiate the capital I from the lowercase L so it looks like they are the same letter.)
Age: 4 months, 1 day
Weight: 11 lbs 4 oz 9th percentile
Length: 22 3/4 inches 7th percentile
Head Circumference: 41.0 cm 50th percentile
Hug
I realized awhile ago that Isaac thinks the defining characteristic of a hug is to have your cheeks touch. So you can hug without using your arms. I’ve noticed that sometimes when he has been asked to give someone a hug, he just lean towards them with his face. He brought home this picture that he drew at school of a hug and I loved it so much that I scanned it into my computer and posted it here on my blog.
I love that the stick figures have no arms, but they are face to face and I love the smiles on their faces. The smiles seem to portray feelings of being happy and secure. I like to think that Isaac feels happy, secure, and confident in his parent’s love.
Isaac, The Builder
His favorite thing to do is build or create. He has three sizes of Legos and many other kinds of building sets. Recently he has been interested in ‘building’ is art projects. He doesn’t care much for coloring or other traditional art project staples, he is much more interested in creating something out of the paper or other materials.
When he goes outside to play, it doesn’t take long before I find him trying to “build†with outdoor toys and yard tools. Below you can see him beginning one of his creative sessions. He used the rake to attach and then pull his bike/step ladder creation.
He will build with anything and has at times annoyed his parents with things like furniture creations. His favorite books at the library are “mechanical books†and he enjoys studying maps and pictures that show the inside of electronics. His building toys include:
- Quatro Legos
- Duplo Legos
- “Big Boy†Legos
- Klikko
- BYGGA construction set
- Rokenbok set
- Train tracks
- Lincoln Logs
- Airblox
- Alphabet blocks
- Hot Wheels Tracks
He has also enjoyed using Bristle Blocks which we borrowed from PERC when we lived in Utah and we’ve already purchased a Georello Tollbox for his next birthday.
Nicole
She’s a funny little girl. She seems to really like Ila, but she’s not quite two and can be a little rough in her attempts to be kind. I generally try to avoid laying Ila anywhere Nicole can reach her when Nicole is awake, but today I thought Nicole was distracted so I laid Ila down while I poured drinks for dinner and when I went back to check on her, this is what I found:
Nicole had neatly laid trucks and trains around Ila
I came into the kitchen the other day and found this: 
It made me smile because I am sure I know exactly which child made the mess. Nicole has a thing for wire whisks.
Minor Milestone
I’ve never been that good at documenting my kids milestones, but I’m trying to blog more often and I’m too tired to write a longer blog so here it is.
Minor Milestone = Ila has just started to have an interest in toys and has been holding them. She has been calmed down with a toy and even got a few all the way up to her mouth to suck on.
Popcorn and a Movie
This was my solution for allowing the kids to have popcorn while watching a movie without making a huge mess. They are sitting on a towel and Nicole was asleep, so it actually worked out quite well.
The movie they have been choosing lately is “The Sword and the Stone†because they’ve been listening to the audio book while they fall asleep each night. I’ve put the movie on several times, but Isaac would rather be creating than watching, so he has yet to see the entire movie.
It was nice out
So I went out with the kids to play, even though I had cleaning to do inside.
Nicole enjoyed laying on her tummy in the dirt with her arms reached out as if to make upside-down dirt angels, she also tasted the dirt.
The family dynamics as they are now
Since moving to Tennessee and adding one more child, I’ve noticed some changes in 
how the kids relate to each other.
Isaac and Charlotte still get along very well and play together all the time. It seems like they’ve been conspiring more and getting into more trouble since the move, but maybe I just think that because I am much busier and have less family support out here.
Charlotte(s)
Charlotte has missed all the little girls her age back in Utah. 
In primary, there are no girls in Isaac’s class and she’s the only girl in her class. So the closest girl in age is in the class one year younger than her and ironically that girl’s name is also Charlotte. If that wasn’t enough of a coincidence, the other Charlotte’s birthday is the day before my Charlotte’s birthday (Charlotte C = 12/14 /05 Charlotte H = 12/13/06).
Anyone who knows my Charlotte knows that she loves her name. For a long time, the phrase you’d hear her say the most was “I’m Charlotte.†The day she
severed her thumb, we knew the pain was relieved when she looked at us and said “I’m Charlotte.†So you can only imagine her excitement to meet another Charlotte who happens to be close to her age.
She announced to me the other day that she wanted to write a book about Charlotte coming. She choose paper the color of the sun and came up with the text all on her own. For days she would make comments about the other Charlotte regularly. She’d say things like “the other Charlotte likes pink too.†Today, after Charlotte H left, she said “Jesus accidently made two Charlottes. One is four and the other is three.â€