so much to tell! (long post)

He did so many cute things today that I had to make a list of them so I wouldn't forget them! This morning, he was working on the front door knob and trying to get out (thank you, deadbolt) and he turned to me and asked "please go park?" a couple of times. I told him we couldn't go to the park because it was too wet outside and he said "bye bye park, bye bye slide".

After we put away "tubey head" (Mr. Potato Head) this morning, we were playing with the toys on his shelves when he suddenly grabbed me from behind and said "I wuv you". It came at a time when I admit to being a little frustrated by him and all his demands and a bit of whining, and his little declaration of love restored my mood and made my day. I invented a new activity for us: we made a fort out of four umbrellas today (and Dennis learned a new word). We had fun playing in our fort and he loved twirling the umbrellas around while he walked around carrying various ones. I asked him if he remembered watching Winnie the Pooh and seeing Christopher Robin walking under Pooh and the honey tree saying "Tut tut, it looks like rain". So for half an hour, Dennis walked around carrying the umbrella and saying "tut tut rain" (he apparently did remember, because he marched back and forth just like in the movie, which we watched yesterday).

The dessert quest is ongoing. He persists in asking for cookies and ice cream and cake when no such items exist in the house. Tonight when we were playing with the farm, he leaned two horses and cows over so that their mouths touched the table. He made some slurping sounds and said "look Mommy" and when I looked he said "eat ice cream". He gave me that look of mine with the raised eyebrow as if to say that the cows around here eat better than the humans.
He threw down his milk cup (as usual) onto the living room floor, but this time the spout from the cup popped out and a bit of milk spilled out onto the hardwood. He exclaimed "oh, gosh!" when it happened. I simply called in The Spillmaster (Honey the dog) and showed her where to lick. Sure, think your worst about me, but this was a quick fix in a house with a busy toddler and an absence of paper towels. After she finished her duty, she went back to her bed and he went and got her by the collar and pulled and then walked over and pointed and said "Honey" followed by a stream of unintelligible demonstrative speaking. Soon after this it was time to cook supper and I asked him not to open the oven again because it was hot (it wasn't, actually) and he immediately donned both oven mitts and opened it again. I was too flabbergasted by his logic to scold him.

Just before we sat down to eat, he rolled in his tricycle and said "Mommy push bicycle" and tried to get on. I told him we were about to eat and headed off a minor tantrum by immediately producing the smock he wears when we eat messy meals. The tears dried up quickly and he enjoyed his black beans and rice with chicken (we all did). After supper, we all played together here in the living room and he was happy to see his Daddy after he got in from work. All of a sudden, Dennis grabbed his winter coat and put it on and said "go outside snow" and "play snow". He wanted to go out and play in the snow. Since there isn't any snow, I didn't know what to tell him (although strangely enough they had predicted it for very late tonight--did he watch the news last night when I wasn't looking?). I'd like snow for his sake, but not my own since I am just as sick now as I was when we were on that snowed-in vacation in Washington. My ear was hurting so bad last night that I took one of the painkillers that were prescribed to me for my post childbirth pain (and I had a c-section, they were strong pills). Sure enough, it killed the ear pain and had a wonderful side benefit of stopping the cough that has kept me up every night this week. Surely I will get better soon. Dennis had an easy night since we set up his vaporizer with a menthol steam solution. He rested well and hardly coughed--and he was certainly charged up for his fun day today!

little conversationalist

So many sentences today--such funny ones! It started last night even. As we were sitting down to supper (thanks again to Gigi who brought us baked chicken, dressing, and green bean casserole!), I suddenly had to go and fetch my water glass and asked David to put Dennis in his high chair. Dennis turned and looked at David and said "Daddy my chair" and pointed to it.
This morning he was carrying his puzzle around and turned it vertical suddenly and the pieces all fell to the floor. He gasped and said "I very sorry" twice to the pieces and then put them all back in the puzzle. Several times today he told me "I want Daddy" because Daddy was at work and he was stuck with Mommy's (inferior?) company.

He must have been unnerved today by the bad weather and the big booms of thunder and the ever-sounding tornado siren. He wanted his pacifier all day long. I took it from him while I prepared supper for us and he was beside himself, lost in a wave of whining. He whined through dinner (even though his beloved Daddy came home) and whined after dinner and whined through part of the Elmo movie he insisted we sit on the couch and watch with him. He would stop whining when he had his pacifier and resume when we took it away. I'm at a loss on how to deal with this. I just cut him some slack today because he's sick and I let him have it more than usual, as he's used it heavily all week long. Pretty soon I'm going to have to figure out how to convince him to give it up.

Again tonight, just before David got in from work, I heard a loud crash from the living room and ran in to survey the damage. Dennis had pulled a heavy photo album from a shelf over his head and the books alongside it had fallen to the floor (he was unharmed). I walked in just in time to hear him apologize to the books and toys that had fallen: "I'm sorry, I'm sorry!".

Other than his attempts to help me cook supper by repeatedly opening the oven (gotta get a lock immediately), and thank goodness I wasn't cooking in the oven, it was a pretty good day. The word count is up over 280 and he can almost count to 10 reliably every time. Nice to know there's a significant brain in that cute little head. For your viewing pleasure--today's dry-erase easel artwork. He drew this and then asked me repeatedly for a yellow marker (which we don't have). Since there was no yellow, he quit drawing and went on to play with something else.

a long absence

I haven't been posting this week much--we are all pretty ill here. We all have colds in various stages. So I'm going to attempt to upload the past few days here from home with the crappy internet service. There aren't any pictures for the past few days (picture us with gnarly hair, snotty noses, and generally looking pathetic), and I couldn't load them from here at any rate.

He's been watching Bee Movie again today, happily so, and he curled up in his toddler bed for the first time today to watch. He looked so grown up stretched out in that bed. He cuddled a new toy today, his Ice Bat. He brought it to me and said "bat" and I told him he was right, but that the bat's name was Ice Bat. For an hour he went around saying "Ice Cream Bat". It was very cute.

David started at his new job today at a local grocery store. It isn't a wonderful position, but it's steady employment and perhaps something even better will come along very soon. We are certainly hopeful. And we are also hopeful that we will all be well soon.

Ash Wednesday

I usually love to go to our church's Ash Wednesday service--it's a nice preparation for the season of Lent, a time when I usually make even more of an effort to remember Jesus' sacrifice for us. It was not to be today, because we are now officially all sick. Dennis is a veritable factory of snot and drool and coughing and sneezing. He is still running around happily, though, and I wish I had just a portion of his energy, if only so I could keep up with him.

David was too ill to work today as well. It was family day home on the couch. Dennis slept with us last night because he was so miserable and pitiful that I felt sorry for him and brought him in there. This means that I didn't get any sleep because there were always toes poking my back and somehow he managed to take up all the space on my side of the bed. It's a king-sized mattress and still parts of me were hanging off one side.

Dennis dictated our activities today. He walked us into the den and said "Winnie Pooh movie" and then pointed to the television. We asked him if he wanted to watch it in his own room and he climbed onto the couch and patted the space beside him and said "Daddy chair". Just when I thought I was going to get to go lie down he said "Mommy sit down" while forcefully patting the space on the couch on the other side of him. He's the boss! And we were too feeble to put up any fight.

It's Mardi Gras

It may be a party holiday but I certainly don't feel like celebrating. I stayed in bed for half the day. Dennis' Gran and Gigi came and picked him up for a morning of shopping and then took him to lunch. He seemed disappointed to be returned home and continued to ask for them for the rest of the day.

We watched movies together, curled up together on the couch. Sure, it's not great for him, but we were too tired to do anything else. He's sneezes now and has a little cough, so I'm afraid he's coming down with the same cold. No fever yet, thank goodness, and we're giving him preventative vitamins and feeding him fruit to try and ward it off.

Happy Fat Tuesday. It's more like Snot Tuesday around here.

the plague is back

Oh, no. We're sick again. I asked David to hang around for a while so I could take a little nap since I woke up feeling so wretched. This was at 10 a.m. When I woke up, it was after 4 p.m. It feels like a bad cold but I have a little fever. Dennis still seems fine, thank goodness.

David said they had a nice time playing today. Dennis has recently become very fond of Bee Movie and insists on watching it often. He loves to point to the bees and during a certain point of the movie, a bee and another bug are clinging to a car antenna and screaming--Dennis likes to scream along with them. It's quite hilarious.

He also loves the Winnie the Pooh movie and says "Oh, no Owl" and "Oh, no Pooh and Piggie (piglet)" when the tree house falls down. He says "Hi, Tigger" whenever Tigger appears. He likes to talk to Rabbit and Eeyore, too. At least movie watching is interactive for him!

post party

We spent a good portion of today at the lake house. The Gallmans were with us and Dennis and Chloe enjoyed each other this afternoon after a morning where they were tired of each other. At one point I passed by Dennis' room and saw him glaring at her furiously, holding his train to his chest and demanding that she "GO! Go Go!!!". They got over it after their naps.

He was happy to get to see his great-Granny and his Grandma when they stopped by the lake on their way to Dadeville (to see the new baby). And when it was time to leave to go home, he was more than ready. He ran around our house happily reclaiming all the space as his own. Yes, he loves company and loves having people around, but he also loves his privacy!

Today's super cute moment: we were worried when there was quiet, and we turned to find Dennis and Chloe playing with a tube of caulk and a paintbrush. The paintbrush was clean and the caulk was sealed, but they were caulking and painting together very happily. Big smiles and super giggles are always fun to see.

Mardi Gras Party!

Tonight we had so much fun at our Mardi Gras get together for friends and family. I had wanted to have this party for quite awhile (since I have so many beads from previous visits to Mardi Gras parades in Mobile), and when things went really south for us financially, I thought I'd be cancelling it. Instead it became bring-a-cajun-dish and everyone brought such delicious stuff. We had jambalaya with chicken and shrimp, gumbo with chicken and sausage, red beans and rice with smoked sausage, dirty rice with beef, macaroni and cheese and beef, moon pies, king cake, hurricanes, punch... Mmmmmm.... Thank goodness there are leftovers!

I even lucked out on the decor--Dennis' godmother Janet ("Gigi") had some great decorations and masks from some of her previous parties and very kindly brought them to me to borrow. We were all decorated very festively with our masks and beads, and the house was festive as well. The kids were our floor show--Dennis and Chloe learned to play "Ring Around The Rosie" with each other and played it again and again. Gigi taught us the Chicken Dance and the kids attempted that as well. Laine and Emily reorganized Dennis' play kitchen and enjoyed the ball pit. And we adults enjoyed conversations and laughs, some of us enriched by the rum, of course. We love hanging out with family and friends, and Mardi Gras was such a great excuse to do so! Dennis looked adorable in his Mardi Gras t-shirt that our friend Allison brought him from New Orleans last week, which he paired with a red cowboy hat and several strands of beads. We were stylin'. All of us.

important question

Tonight as we were preparing to eat supper, we were waiting on Pop to get home from work. I told Dennis he should call and ask "Where are you, Pop?" and he promptly picked up the phone and did just that. He didn't actually dial through, just punched the number 2 and said "are you, Pop?" a few times. He continued to ask until Pop walked through the door. He also learned to say bronco (when requesting a particularly wild knee ride) and soup (which was supper). I was super impressed with his soup-eating skills as well. And yes, after supper he asked for cake, ice cream, and cookies. He got two tiny cookies and later convinced Gran to give him some ice cream. It was a successful Dennis day.

Here is one exhausted little guy in the car on the way home, snapped by camera phone quickly while he tried to grab it from my hand.

bedtime stories

We discovered a neat new trick last night. When it was time for bed, he couldn't bear to part with his beloved books, so into the crib they went right along with him. This morning, instead of waking up to shouts of "Oh, NO!", we heard "night night moon, night night balloon, night night socks" (he was reading Goodnight Moon to himself), followed by "night night truck, night night frog" (items that are not in the book that he felt should be honored as well). It was a very cute way to wake up.

There's a new trend in the food department now. He asks for dessert during EVERY meal. He'll be eating and suddenly say "cake?". We'll tell him there's no cake and, undeterred, he'll ask "ice cream?" to which we'll reply that we don't have any. Then he'll ask "cookies?". As much as I hate to disappoint him, we often don't have those either. Poor little guy. He's got me craving sweet stuff all the time now as well!

We stayed in all day, he and I, except for a wagon ride down our long driveway to fetch the mail. He had a nice time reading the Bass Pro Shop circular on the ride back up to the house. We also played with the Mr. Potato Heads for hours (shown is Monkey Potato Head--Dennis likes to make him say "ooo ooo hee hee"). We watched Bee Movie (which delighted him, what with all the flying and bees that he could point to and say "look, Mommy!"). It was a toy-filled, book reading, full-of-smiles day. I loved every minute of it.

new eating skill

Dennis has been asking us for ice cream many times a day for over a week now, and when I talked to his Gran earlier today, I asked her to bring some with her to the lake when she came back down this afternoon. She did, much to Dennis' delight. I was very impressed that he was able to spoon up and eat the entire bowl of it all by himself. He was just so happy to get it!

His Gigi left this morning after breakfast and he spent the rest of the day asking for her. Every time we passed by the room where she slept, he mentioned her name. He's also been talking about some other relatives--JuJu, Uncle Michael, and Granny--and luckily there are plans to see all of them in the coming months. At supper he asked for Chloe, and then he looked around and realized that she wasn't there and gave us an 'oops' expression and covered his mouth with his hand. It was so unbelievably cute and funny that we all laughed, so he's been covering his mouth with his hand frequently since then to see how we react. What a little ham!

banana sandwich anyone?

I made Dennis this delicacy to try for the first time today: a banana sandwich with mayo. He seemed to like it at first, then went through a phase where he picked out the bananas. I refilled it for him and he eventually ate it. My father made it for me years and years ago, and I remember being skeptical about eating it but liking it very much.

We went back to the lake today and plan to spend the night. We enjoyed a Wild Bird supper (Gran fixed duck and quail), but it was ready so late that Dennis just couldn't wait up for it. He snacked for a while and we eventually just prepared him a supper of leftover barbecue and rice and peas and potato salad. He happily ate that and then went to bed, where we listened to him talk to himself for half an hour on the baby monitor, running through that enormous vocabulary of his. He loves having all these people around to pay attention to him!

Gigi visit!

We spent the afternoon at the lake today and enjoyed a big fish fry for supper tonight. Dennis loves catfish and ate a large portion of what was on my plate. He enjoyed his time with Gigi and Gran and Pop and Grandma and Bob as well. His Gigi brought him a couple of very special toys, a musical caterpillar and a set of Thomas the Train puzzle cards. He had a wonderful time playing with them and telling us the names of all the trains in the set.

We started cataloging his words today and we are close to 250 words that he knows how to say and knows the meaning of. He learns more and more every day. A child his age should know about 50 words, so we are thrilled with his big vocabulary. I am only counting so that I can give the pediatrician an approximate count when we go for his two year visit--I imagine that pretty soon he'll be learning them so fast that I can no longer keep up.

I am trying to publish this over a long range wireless connection in a windstorm. Tough. Can't keep the connection!

bye bye puppies

Tonight we took the guest dogs back to their Mommy (who went to Mardi Gras in New Orleans). Dennis is already asking for them. He sure enjoyed playing with them all weekend.

Today was my day out, so Dennis spent the day with his Daddy. I arrived home to find every wheeled toy in the house scattered about and my two guys were both still in their pajamas. It was apparently a great Men's Day In. I enjoyed some hiking with my mother. It was a good day for all of us.

David says that Dennis was happy all day and they played and read books together for hours. Tonight they shared a juice popsicle. That sounds like a sticky, messy nightmare to me (because I've shared a popsicle with Dennis before), but Dennis seems clean and happy. I presume the popsicle consumption went a little more smoothly this time.

Tonight I figured out why he is constantly asking his Grandma for cookies. One of the books we read daily is about a Grandma who comes to visit, and she bakes cookies. He has clearly associated cookie baking with Grandma--it's apparently one of her top duties (along with giving kisses). I am more and more amazed every day with the way he is assimilating knowledge about his world and using it to create expectations about what's coming up in his daily life. Of course I think he's totally brilliant, but this is probably the time when most children develop this skill. It doesn't matter. I will continue to think he's totally brilliant. I'm his Mommy, and he's gold in my eyes. Platinum, even.

23 months

In just one month Dennis will be two years old. Hard to believe.

We spent today, Valentine's Day, at the lake. We cooked up a mess of pancakes and enjoyed them with Gran and Pop. Dennis went fishing today with Gran and Pop, and he and Pop caught a very nice bream. Dennis was very excited. Tonight as he was telling us about his day, he said "Dennis fish" and "bird tweet tweet" and "goose fly" and "boat", telling us about all the things he saw and heard. We were there with him all day, but I enjoyed hearing him tell me about it anyway.

Mostly our conversations have been about trucks lately. The boy loves trucks. He likes to point out fire trucks (since he can say "fire truck"). He's learning about dump trucks as well, but he misunderstood me when I told him what they are. He now calls them "don't trucks". How many more adorable phrases like this are to come this year? Dozens and dozens I hope.

The picture shows one of our houseguests, Maggie the Dog. She and her sister Sadie have been staying with us this weekend. Dennis has very much enjoyed playing with them and will miss them dreadfully when they return home tomorrow. I've enjoyed watching him boss them around "sadie no" and "maggie potty (when we walk them)". I think he likes feeling superior. He has lately been standing up in his high chair and then yelling "SIT DOWN". And when he's doing something he knows he shouldn't do, he says "no no no" the whole time he's doing it. It was nice for him to be able to tell the dogs to get down for a change, rather than telling himself.

my first cookie ring

A kid tradition--butter cookies worn on your fingers. We introduced Dennis to this very fun concept for the first time today. He was delighted, of course. The proper drink to accompany this feast is kool-aid, which he had (though I did water it down a little). He turned his tongue blue from the berry flavored blue drink. After the snack, we took him to the playground and let him run and jump and climb and slide and swing as much as he wanted to (about 40 minutes). It was a fun day for a toddler. And for his parents!

We love Friday the 13th. We always have. And good things happened today, as they usually do. We got a tip on a wonderful job that David will be pursuing immediately, and it's a job here in town with good benefits, decent pay, great insurance, and good retirement. And he'd get to put his college degree to some use. Let's all pray that this is the one. It would be so incredible if he didn't have to commute! We would see so much more of each other.

i got a valentine

Every day I check the mail, secretly wishing for something unexpected and wonderful (like money, perhaps, or a new parenting magazine to read, or a card). The only one of us who got mail today was Dennis. He was delighted to get a Valentine from his cousins Caedmon and Mirella. He studied it for a long time, turning it over and over to examine the craftsmanship. He tore off one of the small hearts glued to it. He tasted it. He hugged it. He said "Dennis card". He was very proud.

I suppose that qualifies as something unexpected and wonderful in the mailbox. Thanks, Caedmon and Mirella (and Aunt Kristin, especially).

welcome, cousin!

Tonight at 5:32, Dennis' brand new cousin Jeffrey Austin was born. At birth he weighed 8 lbs. 9 oz. and was 21" long. Laine and Emily have a brand new baby brother. Lee and Larissa have the son they are thrilled about. Mom and baby are doing just fine. I hope we'll get to meet little Jeffrey very very soon.

The arrival of a new baby has me feeling nostalgic about my first days with Dennis almost two years ago. Looking at him tonight I wonder where my little baby went. Now I spend my time with this walking, talking little person with real ideas and a great sense of humor. Babies are sweet and exhausting. Toddlers are probably just as much work as newborns (but you get to sleep, at least, with older babies!).

In case you're wondering (and I know all of you are), there are no plans for a sibling for Dennis in the near future. We are beyond thrilled just being his parents. So all of you who know how old I am and wonder if my biological alarm is going off... It isn't. I am fulfilled, wonderfully so. God bless Larissa for having THREE of them!! She is an incredible mom of some extremely beautiful children.

you can't make this stuff up

Last night at dinner, he mostly finished his bowl of dirty rice (beef & rice dish--hey it's Mardi Gras season) and suddenly grabbed up the bowl. He perched it atop his head, looked at both of us and then he said "nice hat". We couldn't even act like parents and try and stop him from wearing his bowl because we were laughing too hard.

Right now he's sitting with me at the table on the screened porch overlooking the lake. He's eating Combos and spitting out the cheese filling. I'm tempted to keep typing, if only to delay the major cleanup that's going to have to happen when I finish.

little plumber

It was a kodak moment and the camera was in the car, so I don't have a photo. I heard multiple flushes coming from the bathroom and ran in there to find Dennis very busy on his latest project. He was wearing my baseball cap turned backwards (he must have found it in our bedroom) and I could see a little plumber's crack showing above the diaper because the pants he was wearing today were 12 month ones and pretty small on him. He had the toilet lid up and he was ardently using the plunger (correctly) in the toilet. Water was everywhere. When he heard me come in the bathroom, he turned around and gave me that million dollar smile, eyes all lit up, big baby giggles echoing through the bathroom. I couldn't do anything but laugh. It was truly hilarious. And we can all rest assured that Plumber Dennis will be on hand to unstop our toilets competently in the future.

propulsion method

I don't know that he's worn anything else since these little shoes came into his life. They've climbed and danced and crawled. He unstraps and restraps the velcro constantly. He likes to tell us the names of the three trains on his shoes: Thomas, James, and Percy. He can almost get them on by himself (admittedly he is not as advanced in the shoe-donning area as the girl toddlers in his life). These shoes have danced in a boat, in a cabin, on a bridge, at the playground. They run and walk. They were on his feet the first time he climbed the metal ladder at the playground. And they were on his feet yesterday when he announced to me "I drive boat" as he was climbing into the captain's chair on the pontoon boat (that remained docked while he drove).

These are the shoes we attempted to purchase weeks before when he kept throwing them out of the shopping cart. He knew what he was doing. The price dropped to about sixty percent off before we bought them. I'm just glad to see him getting excited about putting shoes on now. Who would have thought five dollars would buy so much?

a name change

Last week, David went from Da-da to Daddy. Dennis calls him Daddy now, and I asked him how he felt about it. He didn't see much significance. But yesterday, I became Mommy instead of Mama. The transition is still going on. He says "Mama--Mommy" and then will say "Mommy" for a while before he forgets himself. We didn't encourage the transition at all and we never corrected his names for us. I don't know what sparked the change. But it's such a sweet little sound, hearing him call me "Mommy". I wondered if I'd miss "Mama", but I don't know that I will. I still heard "Mama" late last night from his crib as he was having trouble getting to sleep. But this morning I was Mommy again.

I must interview Dennis on video camera soon. I'd love to get his little 'conversations' recorded for posterity (or at least to embarrass him with one day). One day his children might want to see how very adorable he is as a toddler. And I'll probably need to watch to remind myself of that same adorableness once he hits his teen years.

I can climb

Today at the playground I watched in amazement as Dennis climbed a metal ladder with rungs about 8 inches apart and hoisted himself up onto the Big Play Structure. I guess there's no stopping him now. He can climb up that one by himself, and the other two play structures have stairs that he can easily climb. He goes down all the slides, big, small, twisty, tunnel, tall, short... I love watching him run to the playground with a big smile on his face, trying to decide what to do first. Today as we drove up, he was chanting "slide! slide!" and that is where he headed first thing. He nearly got clobbered running in front of the swings, so I can see that this is something we're really going to have to work on.

He also used his fork and spoon all the way through dinner, and as I was congratulating him on the wonderful job he was doing with eating, he began tossing single corn kernels from his chair, as far as he could throw them. Since Honey wasn't there at the lake house with us, picture me on all fours crawling around picking up individual pieces of corn. Very nice.

Currently I'm watching him play with stickers for the first time. He likes peeling them off the paper but gets pretty frustrated when he can't get them unstuck from his finger. He used two word sentences all day, and sometimes more than two words. I told him we were going to our house and he said to Gran "Home? Go go Gran! Drive!". He has no trouble communicating now!

mr. mechanical

While Gran and I were getting ready to go to the lake today, Dennis was amusing himself by pushing various buttons and working various levers in the van. Tonight on our way home, we couldn't figure out how to get the instrument panels to light up without consulting the vehicle owner's manual. It turns out that you have to turn the odometer reset knob, a little skinny rod type knob in the middle of the speedometer. How in the world did Dennis manage to turn it? He's more capable every day. Nothing is safe in our house anymore. Dennis can open all our doorknobs in the place and can get anywhere.

The verbal skills are still exponentially increasing. He's saying "I eat" now when he's hungry and "ready go" when he's ready to go out. He says "thank you cheese" or "thank you juice" or whatever word to thank us for giving him something. And today he said "Mama, see fish beads?" when he wanted me to hand him the set of party beads (with fish on them) that were hanging out of his reach at the lake house. And then "See green beads?" when he wanted the other set of beads. I love the little sentences and questions. I can't believe how fast he's changing!

read to me

All day long, all Dennis wanted to do was climb in my lap and read or have me read to him. This was fun but made it difficult to accomplish even the smallest household task. Everywhere I walked, I was followed by a short person holding up a book. I don't know what sparked his sudden interest in literature, but it was certainly timely. David had read to him all morning and then, just after naptime (when Gran and Pop were visiting and enjoying tea and cookies with us), the doorbell rang. It was the mail lady bringing a surprise package addressed to Dennis from his Aunt Kristin, and I cut it open and let Dennis unpack it himself. He was so excited to discover a box full of books from his cousins, and I know I read at least half of them to him this afternoon. He sat still through even the longest ones. And I'll admit, I enjoyed snuggling with him while I read to him.

I wonder if he'll be able to continue to enjoy longer stories. I'm excited about the possibility of being able to finish an entire Dr. Seuss book!

look what I can do

While we were in Gatlinburg, Dennis learned this new trick. He can open the refrigerator, get something out, and then close the refrigerator. He did this with juice, milk, his sippy cups, and some ground beef. He also carefully grabbed an egg (and said "egg") but gently put it back before I had time to get a good panic going.

The pictures show him opening the fridge, climbing in, and showing off his find (apple juice).

BIG NEWS!!

I have been remiss in putting pictures with these posts, I know, and even worse about posting them on time. At the moment, we are unable to get on the internet from home. And since I'm fighting a scary cough, I haven't been out of the house. Looks like I'll be flooding the blog all in one day when I finally get out again.
We had a Very Big Event here today. I was napping (yes, I missed it) when my bedroom door was knocked on and I heard David say "Go find Mommy. Tell her what you did." My first thought was of course 'uh-oh', but Dennis came running over to the bed with the biggest smile on his face and mumbled some baby jargon that I totally didn't understand. I did get the word 'potty' and 'diaper' and looked to David to see what the big deal was. Dennis used the potty succesfully for the first time today. We praised him lavishly for putting his pee pee in the potty, and for an hour, he kept saying "pee pee potty YAY!" or "YAY potty!".
I'm so proud. It's the beginning of a new era. Of course now when we ask him if he needs to potty, he just says 'no'. Sometimes he runs to it, sometimes he doesn't. Time to teach him the meaning of the word 'yes'.
Happy Groundhog Day. We need to remember to be glad about the extended winter when we're miserably hot in August. The groundhog tried to help us out.

Ernie parade

Dennis got an Ernie for Christmas from his aunt and uncle and cousins. After we got home from visiting them, I was going through some old toys of mine and he found my old Ernie and Bert puppets. He also found another Ernie that was his Uncle Michael's. And, in our bathroom, we used to have a couple of bottles of bubble bath, and the bottles were Ernie and Bert (you remove their heads--scary--and find the screw tops to the bottles). Those bottles aren't always in the bathroom any more since Dennis discovered them. Sometimes they use his potty and we find them in there. Sometimes they visit the den and sometimes his room. At any rate, he LOVES Ernie and Bert.
He was eating some beloved cocoa puffs cereal today, saying "mmmmm... co-cos". He loves that cereal so much that he decided Ernie might want to share it with him. He 'fed' all his Ernies some cereal. Later he fed them some ramen noodles. Bert was lucky enough to get some noodles as well, but Ernie is still the clear favorite. Elmo looked on hungrily from the floor. Poor Elmo. It's a shame, too, because we taught Elmo how to use the potty a week ago when Dennis got his new potty. We haven't potty trained Ernie or Bert.