Jude: 10 things

1. Look out; there's a new obsession in town. Octonauts! Have you ever seen this show? It's actually pretty cute and very educational; I know quite a bit about random marine life now. But as usual with Jude, now everything, everything is Octonaut related. Even his precious trains are "Octo-trains." He calls us "Octo-mom," "Octo-dad," and "Octonaut Ellie." The funniest part is wherever he goes he has to go through an "octo-tunnel." He'll run, yell "CHHH!" (like hatch doors opening), and then jump. Jude does every time he enters or exits a doorway; sometimes it takes an extra 5 minutes to clean up toys because he has to jump constantly through the "octo-hatch."

2. Jude started preschool! Hallelujah!!! It's only two days a week for a few hours, but it's wonderful. He loves it, too! We're very glad we decided to send him this year; even with the ridiculous price tag, it's totally great for both Jude and my sanity. 

3. Oh boy, Jude is such the little instigator these days. He just knows how to get Ellie to do bad things. I'll say, "Eleanor, don't jump on the couch!" And immediately, he'll yell "Ellie! Go jump on the couch!!" And of course, she listens to him. Other times Jude will just start running, or screaming, or doing whatever I told him not to do, and quickly get Ellie to join in. It's madness some days!

4. Ok, this one is included by special request of Peter, who thinks it's just too funny. One day we were driving in the car and Jude says to me, "Mom! You're junk! You're trash!" He then proceeded to chant "Mom's trashy!" over and over. Thanks, kid. 

5. Little Jude loves going to primary on Sundays. He loves it so much we often "play primary" during the week. His favorite part? The birthdays! We have to roll the birthday dice to choose a song to sing and he gives out little presents. Today, we were all sick and had to miss church, so Jude lead Peter and Ellie (mom was laying down upstairs) in primary for the day. I heard them sing songs, do birthdays, even have a lesson. Jude's lesson? "For today's lesson we're going to go through this tunnel!!" (our little pop up tunnel). It was heartwarming, adorable, and hilarious all at the same time. 

6. Speaking of primary and birthdays, Jude has a very favorite birthday song he loves to sing. He sings it all the time actually! The best part is he doesn't quite get the words, and it just cracks me up every time for some reason. The lyrics are supposed to be "This month is such a special one, it's birthday time for you..." but he always sings "This Monday's just a special one!"

7. It's a small miracle we haven't chased our other neighbors out of their house yet. Or scared off half the neighborhood. Jude is such a YELLER. Not like angry tantrum yeller. He's just LOUD. All the time. His normal speaking voice it just basically yelling. I know Peter and I can both get loud sometimes, so it's not super surprising, but Jude just never turns it off. I've started a new strategy to combat this; I keep trying to speak softer and softer, especially when we are out. It's not really working so far... but maybe one day. 

8. Every night before bed the kids say their personal prayers. Most of the time, Jude just says the same few things over and over, but sometimes he'll actually try to think about his day and talk to Heavenly Father about it. Recently he prayed, "Please bless Poppy and Hudson to be okay without me." (Poppy and Hudson are our little neighbor friends.) It was too cute! I'm so glad Jude has such good friends that loves so much. 

9. Really, Jude is a pretty good helper with Eleanor. He desperately wants her to play with him most of the time, even though she sadly doesn't always want to. He'll break down in tears when Ellie refuses to play with him. Some days the stars align and they just play happily together for long periods of time. It's the best time ever for me! They'll play hide and seek together, princess castle, octonauts, or whatever destructive idea comes to Jude's head at the time. For every sweet moment together, there is a "let's go destroy this together!" moment. At least we're starting to see some of the fruits of that two year age gap. 

10. If I had an abundance of extra cash, I know exactly what I would spend it on: 5 days of preschool. Don't get me wrong; Jude is overall a really good kid and I love being his mom. But Jude has reached the stage of "I'm bored, no one's entertaining me, so let's act out for attention." It's usually just during Ellie's naptime when I'm trying to get things done around the house and he won't play by himself that he just turns into this little punk, doing whatever mischievous thing he can think of to get my attention. I know what he's doing and I honestly feel super guilty that I can't give him all the time and attention he wants, but I just have to get stuff done! Hopefully Jude will figure it out soon. I wish I could send him to school just so he could get the interaction he craves, but for now we'll just have to keep learning this "be self-entertained" thing.