August 2020!!!

August has been a tough month. The semester started at ASU, so I'm back to work full time and Craig's still working on LunaH-Map and other projects, but he (thankfully) doesn't have to teach any classes this semester. We're still keeping the kids at home to avoid infection, so it's quite the juggling act. Craig's had some health struggles that started in May - his doctors are starting to narrow down the causes, which is a relief.

Ben has started sounding out letters in words - it's not unusual to hear him walking around the house repeating the first letter of a word (ex: "suh-suh-Sun"). He's able to spell his name now ("Ben", not "Benjamin") and is getting good at matching sounds with letters. Also this month, we caught him playing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star on our piano. He somehow sounded it out by himself, which was fun to see/hear. He loves watching Blippi videos, playing outside, dancing, singing, playing with Vincent, taking pictures with his camera and holding Nora in his lap. He's an accomplished negotiator (at least with us) and can be very stubborn when he wants something. He's also super sweet and loves to be involved in everything we're doing, whether it's cooking, having a conversation, entertaining Nora, etc.

Ben-isms:

• Starting his stories with "When I was driving my Toyota Supra..." or "When Blippi and I were at the...".
• Telling Siri to set a timer for "squid minutes". In case you don't know, Siri doesn't know what squid minutes are ;)
• Telling Nora stories to calm her down when she's upset.
• Trying to parent us when we parent him. One time, when I was falling asleep in his bed with him he told me "Mom, if you're going to stay in my bed you need to be quiet, calm and no moving around". For the record, I was already doing all three. Lol.

Nora is growing very fast! She's laughing, grabbing things with both hands, anticipating being picked up, It's funny when she grabs large objects with both hands. She opens her arms really wide then slowly closes them on the object like a Venus fly trap. She's also making more varied sounds - right now her favorite noise to make sounds like radio static (breaker breaker...). She LOVES Ben - she watches him all day and tries to get involved with whatever he's doing. She'll be chasing after him soon enough :)

Ben tells Nori-bean a story.

Ben and dad play guitar.