James' Adjustment - Playing & Siblings

James is a funny, silly, playful kid most of the time. He always has something he's doing:
playing on a toy guitar,
pushing cars and trucks all over,
building with blocks (or rather, knocking over the block towers mommy builds!),
running the train,
or throwing and chasing bouncy balls.

Elijah has been really patient with James, he loves his little brother so much! Although at times he gets a little too rough and we have to remind him that James isn't his size. James loves to play with cars with Elijah.
Something he and Elijah do frequently is push the biggest trucks we have (firetruck and Tonka dump truck) in circles around the furniture or the rooms in the house, racing each other (yes, he knows how to say "Ready, Go!"), then pretend to crash when they get back to the living room and collapse on the carpet.

LOVE the camaraderie between these two. Elijah was in time-out for having to be told too many times he was playing too rough. James kept on playing, but finally came over to sit next to Elijah, even putting his hand on his chin just like Elijah... So cute!!!

James took a while to warm up to Josephine, as she can be a little hyper and in-your-face - like she's trying too hard. I told her that she doesn't need to try to hard to get his attention, but just find something she wants to play with or that she thinks James would like to play with, and go play it. He will then sometimes join her, or sometimes I try to get him to join her. He's warmed up to her better by now. I caught him helping her feed her baby-doll a bottle one day. They also are often found playing with a few bouncy-balls down the front hallway.

Kaylen has been found at times, holding James while watching movies, or showing him things on the iPad. She also likes to try to chase him, and he giggles non-stop running around the house, trying to get caught and tickled! Kaylen was probably the one that was the most worried about us adding to our family. You see, her world was turned upside down when we added Elijah and Josephine to the family. She also though since James is a boy that he would be just like Elijah, who she doesn't always get along with the best. But there's enough age difference, that there's a cuteness factor, and she's really taken on a great big-sister role. She's super-helpful when I just need help keeping him occupied while I get something accomplished without him under-foot.

James has been very afraid of stuffed animals. We took a small one to Haiti with us, and anytime he saw it, he would say no, and run away from it, or whine and cling to us - so we kept it hidden from him. He's not quite as afraid of them, but we've been trying to keep them in one place and not get them out. The other morning the kids were playing house before school, with the stuffed animals. James suddenly came out of the office carrying two stuffed animals to show me! The girls were hollering at me to look - what a surprise! He went back in the office and found another and came back to show it to me also. Just then, Elijah took one of the ones he'd dropped and held it up and made it growl at James. He came running out to me. Not quite ready for that yet, but apparently it's OK to touch them now, and make them "woof-woof" (which sounds like "Whoo-Whoo" when James says it)! James still isn't too keen on Elijah's big dinosaurs either.

We haven't really played outside much yet. Someone asked me how James liked playing in the snow, but we haven't really had much of a chance to do that. The foot of snow we got right before Christmas mostly melted while we were in Haiti. Then when it snowed another couple inches last week it was bitterly cold, and nobody was going outside then! In between, and since then, it's been warmer, but muddy and mucky. Tuesday, it was 40 degrees outside, so I took the opportunity to get in a walk. I took James in the stroller to pick up the other three kids from school. While we were waiting for them, he got to go down the slide on the school playground a few times, which he really enjoyed. The camera on my phone isn't focusing right, thus the fuzzy photo. :( I can't wait until we either get some more snow with decent temps and time to play in it, or it warms up so we can head to the playground again! It was raining yesterday!

And a couple more fun photos just for fun: