a moment of hilarity

Dennis very much enjoyed his time with his Uncle Denny today. He even learned to say Uncle Denny, except a few times it came out as "Uncle Knee". It was clear who he was talking about, though, and we were all pleased that he finally learned the name of his very special uncle who is also his Godfather.

There were bouts of spontaneous affection today. Suddenly he announced to everyone after dinner that he loved them ("love Gran, love Uncle Denny, love Mommy") and he ran around the table to hug each of us in turn (and Gran twice). This was so sweet! And later he grabbed me by the face, with one hand on either side, and said "I love you Mommy" then "want kiss" and proceeded to smother my face with open-mouthed slobbery kisses. I loved it, of course.

Tonight we had the most interesting conversation on the way home. We passed the fire station and a little voice piped up from the backseat "fire truck". I agreed that there were indeed fire trucks. Then he said "fire hot", and impressed by this logic, I agreed that fire was indeed very hot. Then he said "cool" and I asked him what was cool. He said "ice cream" and "water" and "apple juice". Do I dare to think that he's grasped the idea of hot versus cold and what objects are hot and cold? Wow. That's quite a little brain in there.

The funniest moment came when he'd been running around the lake house like a wild man for quite a while. He'd already said goodbye to everybody "bye bye Gran, bye bye Uncle Denny, bye bye Dennis" (we don't know why he said goodbye to himself) and passed out hugs a few times (going over to Uncle Denny and demanding "hug" which sounds rather like "howg" when he says it). I suddenly remembered to ask David to hook up the boat battery to the charger in anticipation of the lovely weather predicted for tomorrow. So Dennis had some more time to kill, and when David came back in, we asked Dennis if he was ready to go home. He immediately replied "of course" and we all cracked up. He was so pleased with our response that he tried it out a few more times, saying "of course" and then bursting into peals of baby laughter while watching to see if we were all going to laugh again. What a sense of humor he's getting!