Our little monkey...

Fun in the Leaves!!

Last weekend we happened upon a bunch of trees with fall leaves! It's funny the little things in life that can bring such joy. Trees and leaves aren't the most common sight what with living in a big city. All the kids wanted to do was to make a pile of leaves and jump in it . . . so, that's what we did!

Zeke the Realist...

Zeke's our little realist...

From Tami:

Zeke was feeding his Bonko Bear. I said, “Aww, you’re a good daddy.” Zeke looked shocked and said, “I’m not a daddy. This is just a pretend bear. I’m just pretending to feed him.” I looked at Kaiyah feeding her baby. “Are you that baby’s mommy?” Kaiyah, “Uh-huh!” Zeke to Kaiyah, “That’s just a pretend baby!”

The other night we were eating dinner and Kaiyah called me Daddy. So I took it upon myself to call her Zeke and call Zeke Kaiyah. Kaiyah thought it was the funniest thing in the world. She laughed so hard she got hiccups. Zeke, in the meantime was on the other side of the table yelling, “NO! I’m Zeke, not Kaiyah!” He kept saying, “You’re just joking, aren’t you, Mommy.” I finally told him I was and he said, “Well, why did you joke like that for so long?”

From Dan:

A few weeks ago, we were on a boat and Kaiyah started to pick something up off the ground, or at least I thought she did. So, I held out my hand, and she dropped something, which appeared to be nothing, in my hand. I proceeded to pop the imaginary food in my mouth, chew it up, and swallow it. She giggled and bent down to get me something else. Shortly thereafter, she held out her hand and I did the same for her. This was the first time I had tried this game with Kaiyah, and she's the one who instigated it. I tried something similar with Zeke when he was about Kaiyah's age, and he said, "But there's nothing there." He has also always felt a need to clarify whether things are real or pretend, whereas Kaiyah, pretends that everything is real. It's really funny.

Ah, the differences in children…

Zeke's speaking Turkish!!!

Well, a little. We picked Zeke up at preschool the other day and his teacher said, quite excitedly, "Zeke said 'Hayır' today!" Then, today, when we went to get him, she said, "He's not just saying 'Hayır' anymore. Today he said 'Yapma'!" "Hayır" means "no" and "yapma" means "don't do that." Well, it's a start. (-: