When I picked Ari up at school one day, I think it was on Sam’s birthday, he showed me a “Joke Book” his class was making, and his contribution to it. Here is the title, referencing his favorite book at that time (made especially silly by his favorite clowns, Olive and Dingo, who had read it in a very entertaining way during one of their shows):

Here, he is showing me his pigeon drawing. Earlier, his teacher had told me how he’d been upset when he couldn’t draw a beak the way he wanted, and he tried to get the teacher to do it, but the teacher convinced him to keep trying and he ended up pleased with the final result. When he showed it to me, he said, “The pigeon has two beaks!”

Right after Sam’s birthday, my mom came to visit. She brought a workbook for Ari and he LOVED it! He independently colored in pictures of things that started with a certain letter, drew a cute stick figure picture of his family, and connected animal pictures with the sounds they make. Some of the word sounds he found on his own somehow, without us reading them to him, which was surprising to me!

At that time, Ari was also in a lovely phase of playing with his magnetic tiles a lot:

My mom took a picture of me with Sam while we were out walking:

And we took the kids to Westmoreland Park, where, as usual, they got much dirtier than I anticipated:

I got Ari changed and he sat around looking pleased with himself, wearing the necklace he’d chosen as a prize at a carnival game at a Reed College reunion event that day:

Later, I took a picture of my guys (the human ones) in the ADU:

Another day, I took the boys to Mt. Scott park for a second time to scope it out for Ari’s birthday party. Both of them had so much fun at the playground there! Sam was really into the swings (and he still is), and he boldly climbed on one of the play structures and dove down the slides, too! I had to keep stopping him from plunging down the large twisty slide because I didn’t trust him to go down on his own. I wanted to let him go, but I was hovering at the top of the structure with him because of some open spots where I worried he would fall, so I couldn’t catch him at the bottom of the slide, and I didn’t have another adult with me. I kept having to abandon Ari somewhere so that I could dart after Sam, scramble to the top of the play structure, and catch him by the ankle as he started down the slide headfirst! But when he went for the smaller slides, I stayed on the ground and watched him climb up and slide down all by himself.

At home, Sam was figuring out how to use his pound and roll toy,

escaping from his safe play area,

and getting around with his walker wagon.

I was also doing some reading around that time:

I love, love, love this one, and I’m still reading it:

Next up: Ari’s fourth birthday!