Practicing letters, expanding our vocabulary, and a family rant.

I know Oliver is only 17 months old, but we have been playing with flash cards for about six or eight weeks now.  He has a great time with them, and any time we ask if he wants to read a book and go over to the shelf, he says, "Cards?"  =)  It's adorable.

Today while we were doing our cards, which cycle through A-Z twice, we got to the first Y card which was yo-yo.  I LOVE this card...because he will say both the letter Y AND the word yo-yo, and BOTH are suuuuper adorable to hear!  So I started playing around saying, "Y-Y-Y!"  And he loved it!  So we started saying each letter three times, and he can repeat almost every single letter.  My heart!  It's over flowing with pride, for serious.

He has trouble with H, L, M, and W.  We'll keep working on those.  But hey!  That's still pretty good!

We're also trying to teach him names.  He can simply NOT say Oliver, but we're working on it.  He can say "Ada", which is my best friend Stephanie's little girl's name, and that's cute.  He also learned "Robert" (Well, Woe-burt or Wah-burt), which is Ada's Daddy's name!  I doubt he will learn Stephanie's name, because it's just too darn long.  So sad for Aunt Sesame!

I am so overwhelmed sometimes (thank you, pregnancy hormones) by how smart Oliver is.  It makes me so proud!

Today, though, it got me in trouble.  I was visiting at my mom's house, and my sister was there.  My mom wanted to turn the tv on for Oliver, and I told her he doesn't really watch much tv, just one thirty minute video almost every day, but not always.  My sister, on the other hand, lets her 19 month old watch hours and hours of tv a day.  I don't think this is the best thing for MY child, but she can do what she wants with hers.  And my nephew is really really smart, don't get me wrong.  So it went from me saying that Oliver doesn't need to watch tv to my sister saying that I think Oliver is smarter than her son...which is so not true!!  Babies are smart.  They all are!  I don't think there is any way you can rationally say that any baby is smarter than another.  Anyway, my sister  got really upset and stomped off and muttered things under her breath (a habit I LOATHE, because we are dang grown ups, give me a break) about how she couldn't wait to move out of state with her husband (they live with my parents right now and want to eventually move to Colorado...I don't know what is stopping them) and I couldn't help myself...I just said, "Good, bye!   See ya!"

I'm not proud of the way I acted.  However, I feel very strongly that up until the end there, I didn't do anything wrong.  I wasn't trying to be hurtful, and I wasn't trying to tell her how to parent.  Frankly, almost every thing she does with her children I think is almost the exact opposite of what I would do with mine, but as their parent it is her prerogative to do.  It is very hard for me to be around my family and not act a fool like I used to.  My family is very loud and opinionated and...well, rude.  It is hard for me to keep my cool there sometimes.  All the time.  Anyway.  It was very...ugh.  I'm not looking forward to the next time I have to see my sister, either.  I said goodbye when I left, but she ignored me.  Such is life.

It really makes it difficult when I am trying so hard to break out of the habits I developed living at home.  It is not a very positive environment, and it is a very soul sucking, tearing down sort of environment.  It is hard to try to make my own home an edifying environment...to build up my husband and children and to provide a loving environment for my family.  It's not that I don't love my parents and my sister, it's just that I don't agree with the sort of family life we were brought up in, and I will fight tooth and nail to make sure my family doesn't turn out the same way.

Heh..sorry this turned into a big rant and escalated into a deep discussion about how hard it is to be positive when you grew up with just the negative.  I needed to get that out, though...thanks for letting me, internet!