Friends this week

Mostly, Hope would rather be an only child. She plays with Naomi because there aren't many other options, but she doesn't like her and certainly doesn't try to be nice to her.

The last week or so, Naomi has decided she wants to sleep wherever Hope is. If Hope sleeps in Zach's room, Naomi camps out in the hallway because Hope will just kick her out of the bed. But the other night, Naomi just waited until Hope went to sleep and then crawled in bed with her. They were still there the next morning, so Hope either never woke up or put up with Naomi being in the sacred territory of Zach's room. Saturday night both girls wanted to sleep in Zach's room, so in order to not have a fight ensue, I told them neither could sleep there, but they could both sleep in my room. They hopped right into our bed and went to sleep without any audible fighting.

Last night when I went upstairs, Naomi wasn't in her bed. I figured she had gotten in my bed, but she wasn't there when I checked. After I started looking around, I found her in bed with Hope in the top bunk. They both slept there all night. Hope says she woke up in the night and realized Naomi was in her bed, but she let her stay there. I cannot imagine how uncomfortable it would be to sleep with Hope in a twin bed; I don't enjoy sleeping with her in a queen bed where there's room to escape her flailing limbs. But Naomi loves her big sister and is a little scared of being alone, so she'll put up with being smacked around in the night to be close to her big sister.

Little Readers

Joel LOVES to be read to these days. He started liking it a few weeks ago with a Dora book of Hope's. He'd name all the things on the pages- ball, backpack, tree, umbrella, octopus, water. There was one picture of a goldfish. When we asked him what is was, he said 'cracker'. It took a minute to figure out he thought it looked like a goldfish cracker. He still says cracker; he'll point to the fish if you ask where a fish is, but if he's naming pictures, he says cracker.

Now he's much less picky with books. He still loves the Dora book, but he likes lots of others too. Several times a day he runs to wherever David or I are sitting and says "read book, read book". After every page or two, he'll say "the end" and try to close the book. I think grandpa needs to visit for a day or two so someone else can read book, read book.