Mmm... Apples
Okay, Paulchen is really wowing me! I was cleaning out Aveline's room to get it ready for her. The base's furniture office came to pick up the spare bed, and I put the crib back together. After that, I went through all the loose papers and other odds and ends and tried to organize them. Paulchen came across a little paper apple that I saved for a craft project and said "Ah-mmm". WOW! I asked him a few more times what it was and he kept telling me it was an apple. I'm so impressed!

I'd been working on the letter "A" with him and pointing to the words on the page that start with "A", such as "alligator", "ant", "astronaut" and "apple". He also recognizes the ant now and says "and". I have to say though, "apple" is what really surprised and impressed me. Now we're starting "B", since he has "A" down pretty well.

I have started Paulchen on tracing shapes. I placed fresh paper on his table and took my circle stencil to it. I traced a bunch of dotted line circles for him to trace completely. His hand isn't steady yet, as he's not that comfortable writing yet, but he did really well for his first try. Some of his lines are really close to the dashes on the circles. We'll do circles for about a week and we'll change to a new shape every week after. We'll also do one letter with each shape. So we're starting with "A".

As for Aveline, oh, she is so spoiled. I left her in the living room while I worked on her bedroom. Then she screamed bloody murder. It wasn't just a little cry to say she wasn't too thrilled about being left alone for a bit. It was a heart-wrenching wail that made her choke a little from crying so hard. Yet the moment I came running back in to check on her, she stopped. And she gave me a big grin, as if to say "See Mommy, I knew I could make you come back." Then she was all grins. The little brat. She's doing the same thing Paulchen did at about the same age.

I used to hate letting him cry it out when I put him to bed. But our first or second night in Germany, when I picked him up, he gave his father such a smug, self-satisfied grin, knowing he got his way. At that moment Paul knew our son was playing me and took him and placed him right back into his crib. Then we went through a few nights of me pacing and wringing my hands at the constant crying, until Paulchen understood that bedtime was bedtime. Now it looks like we're about to go through the same thing with Aveline. Oh she's adorable, just like her brother, but she is totally playing it.