Always Watching and Learning

Gus just loves to watch people, but especially his brother.  John teaches Gus a lot of things; some good, some bad.  I love when John is dancing around or just being silly and Gus just watches intently then gets all crazy himself.  Sometimes John is a little too crazy for Gus, but I'm sure someday Gus will be too crazy for the next teeny Fiene.

 

"Are you sure you are supposed to do that?"

"Well, it looks fun so I'm going to give it a try."

John is also the only one that can get Gus to "talk" on command.  Hans and I can say "Gus, say ma ma ma" or "da da da", all day long and he just looks at us and smiles.  John can say, "Say ma ma ma," or "da da da", and most of the time Gus does it.

The Tales of John

Hans and I were just writing down a list of the things John has done since my last "Tales of John" post and I'm amazed.  My little boy never ceases to amaze me.

On Sunday, when we were getting ready for church, I was trying to button one of the last buttons on John's shirt when he said, "Just leave it alone Mommy, it's perfect."

John was excitedly telling me about the Cars movie and I asked him if he liked it to which he replied, "The Cars movie was FANTASTIC."

Just like his father, John is full of boy humor.  John's latest thing is to give all of us, including August, a wedgie.  We've talked extensively about how that is a family thing only.  I'm sure I'll have another "Tales of John" post when he decides to do it to an old lady at church.

John knows we need to pray before we eat, but insists on having everyone present before we do so.  There have been a couple of times when Hans will start to pray with John while I finish cooking, but John won't participate unless everyone is in attendance.  John also likes to start the prayer and gets very upset if he doesn't get to.  A few Sundays ago we started saying the Lord's Prayer and usually John knows when in the service it is, but he must have been off his game.  He was so upset he missed the beginning that Hans had to say it again with John after the service.

Last night we had a family outing at the mall.  That was pretty exhausting since we forgot the stroller and John was running around shrieking, "Look, it's Christmas, it's Christmas."  The Santa display was set up and, while John doesn't grasp the concept of Santa at all, he does recognize Christmas decorations.  John has been uber excited about Christmas decorations since Kelsey took him in to a Christmas store in Estes Park when she came to visit this summer.  After we got the kids strapped in the car, Hans decided to do a little dance outside, because Hans is 5.  John was getting very agitated and yelled, "Daddy, stop dancing and just get into your carseat."

I'll leave you with our experience tonight while reading a Thomas Seek and Find Book.  John is great at finding all of the items, but there are a lot of pages so Hans decided to discretely skip a few.  When they hit the last page and it was time for bed, John insisted that they had missed a page and had to find it.  He could tell us all of the pages that were missed and would not be satisfied until we read every one of them.

What Goes Up Must Come Down

Now that Gus is mobile he loves getting into John's things.  John makes playing look so much fun that Gus just feels compelled to participate, or take over.  I have to say John has been very good about it all so far.  Instead of getting mad and yelling he has decided to embrace it.  I think he likes having a playmate.

This is how it all starts.

 

We try to keep Gus away until the tower is built.  This is hard to do.

Yay!  John loves when Gus knocks down the tower.  He jumps and screams and tells me Gus is such a big boy.

We'll see what happens when Gus starts messing up the train tracks.