reading the pictures

Every night, after we read him bedtime stories, this little boy goes to his bed, turns on his flashlight and "reads" in the dark. He looks through all the pages of the books and inspects all of the pictures. Some of his favorite books are by Richard Scarry - books that include trains, cars, and airplanes. In the last 6 months, we've gone through about 4 different flashlights and many many AA batteries. I've been working with him on reading simple words, but we haven't been seriously doing it. And his preschool class is working on letter sounds and writing, but no concentration on reading just yet.

This boy is so ready to read. I will need to get some tools and resources to help him out soon. I've been researching Hooked on Phonics and already know that he is beyond his age level. This boy is a smart one! He will definitely surpass his Daddy's collection of books. Sadly, he'll probably be as blind as a bat by the time he gets to his 20's just like his Mama.

The background music is the same music he's been listening since he was born. We have a few different CD's but Daddy and I could only tolerate a few when he was co-sleeping with us. This music plays on a loop non-stop. Aside from going through flashlights and batteries, we'll probably go through many CD players.

Incidentally, the above flashlight may have died tonight. I changed the batteries and not 30 minutes later, I hear a scream about the flashlight being broken.

Big Boy Bedroom

Matty's big boy bedroom is finally finished. Actually, it's been finished for a while, we just had to wait a long time for missing parts. It was highly frustrating to wait for pieces that were missing, and replacement pieces for the ones that were broken.

But here it is finally. The Cars appliques are great, which are all removable. The pictures are special request by Matty. He wanted pictures of his family right there. The picture with Santa is his favorite one.

The Castle Bed is Here!

The Castle bed is finally here! It took a frustrating hour and a half to get it assembled (someone wanted to pound on everything with a rubber mallet and fit anything with a dowel to anything with a hole). Matty is very happy, even if the castle post and the hand rail for the ladder is yet to be delivered.

He loves the area underneath. It's perfect for hiding!

And of course, I just have to get a shot in of my lowly little set up on the floor. Ever since we moved Matty to his new room, I have been sleeping everywhere but my cozy king size bed. But I'm sure Daddy is enjoying it enough for the both of us. I spend a total of about 5 hours in the floor in Matty's room, and about an hour in my bed and awake and walking around in between. When I'm about to sink in into that deep sweet sweet slumber is when I usually get waken up with, "Mommy!! Mom! Come here and sleep with me on the floor!"