Many "Starts"

Joey realized he is two years old and started throwing more tantrums. Monday he had at least 6 major tantrums, and since then he's been having fewer. I forgot about this stage in a child's development and had hoped that our sweet, joyful Joey would simply skip over all of this. He actually seems to be handling them quite well. He is growing up in so many ways. I think we should officially start toilet training for Joey as for the last month he's been occasionally using it. The last 2 weeks he has been consistent just before his bath but likes to stand up like MJ does. This is just going to be so different from toilet training MJ...we'll see how it goes.

Sheila has started being awake more during the day and we've all enjoyed making her smile. It's cute when MJ makes up his own songs to sing to her. I believe Joey and Sheila understand each other in a way we cannot see. Here is Joey sharing his favorite cars with Sheila (this reminds me of MJ's first encounter with baby Joey).

As MJ is now 4 years old, I thought we should start trying pre-school with him for a bit. We've only had 2 days of it, but I really love teaching him. It's been fun going through the many materials that I saved from my teaching days (which Mario always felt accumulated way too many boxes). But I really enjoy seeing how MJ thinks and seeing him as a big kid like the ones I taught 5 years ago. Our first day he decided to call me Teacher when we were doing school, and thought it was pretty funny that when school was finished and I made lunch for him I became Mommy again. We've been doing school in the morning, and today as I was finished with all I wanted to get through, MJ was still asking for more. And then around dinner time, MJ asked if we could do more school. Now, I know this is not a compliment to me as that kids his age just love to learn. I fondly remember the comment of one of my kindergarten student's on her first day of school, "I've been waiting for this my whole life!"

Here are a few pictures from our visit to St. Louis 2 weeks ago... I realize I never posted them, and I was out of cute pictures of the kids.

Big Girl bath tub!
In the same bassinet that I had as a kid.
This onesie was made at a baby shower when I was pregnant with MJ. We've gotten a lot of use out of it!