snippets

He said so many cute things today, so many hilarious things, I couldn't get to my computer fast enough. I wish I'd had the video camera on all day long. This stuff was golden.

Let me say, we've noticed an extreme leap forward in his conversation skills in the past couple of weeks. We think it's PBS, truly. He was so amazingly verbal all day today, too, and I was constantly suppressing laughter at how funny he is. His Gran and Pop showed up down at the lake after we'd had our sandwiches for lunch and he marched himself right outside and said "I go see Gran and Pop". They told him they were headed to the dump, and he said "I get in carseat, I go too" and he sure enough did. They reported that he entertained them the whole time.

Once he got back from his trip with them, it was non-stop (except for naptime) chatter and fun. It was so beautiful outside that I suggested we go for a walk. Dennis lobbied hard for a golf cart ride but settled happily for the walk. I thought we'd take the short walk to the marina and Dennis said "yes, Mommy, we go to turina" (which means marina in dennis-speak). I commented on what a beautiful night it was for a walk and Dennis said "yes it is bootiful, good idea, Mommy". Once at the marina, we looked at the water, sat on a bench, looked at some boats, petted the cats, and then walked back. Dennis commented on all of this. When we were on our way back, he said "let's go fast, ready, set, go" and we took off running. He announced "that was so much fun. Now let's go backwards." He began walking backwards and told us "turn around Mommy and Daddy, go backwards". When we did, he watched us and then said "bye!" with a big grin on his face and headed the other way! He got us!

We had spaghetti tonight and when we were finished, we needed to de-orangify his face and hands and chest. I told him we needed to wipe him off and he said "I wipe" and started to use his own hair to clean his hands. I asked him if he wanted to take a bath (which he has always answered yes to before) and he said "No, I get down and build house with blocks. Go get the baby wipes". Astonished, I did just that and wiped him down. He insisted I sit and play blocks with him, and this was the most fun half hour I've spent in ages. He built a beautiful structure right off and said "look at my building house". I raved over it, of course, and then he said "you build blocks too, Mommy, sit right here". I built a couple and he went and got the Noah's ark animals to inhabit our houses. He walked the lion over to my zebra condo and said (while growling) "Hello, Zebra, I scary lion. Come to my party. Roarrrrr". We had animal conversations and he suddenly knocked down all my structures. I announced an 'earthquake' and knocked down his structure. He looked dismayed, bottom lip quivering, eyes tearing up as he yelled "Oh NO! My bootiful building house! What happened?". I apologized immediately and rebuilt it and when I looked up I saw him laughing. He faked the upset reaction. I could hardly believe it. The animals all marched off to a party in the toy cabinet (two-by-two, incidentally, under Dennis' control) and Daddy came over to play with us. Mommy was a little punchy from not getting any sleep last night and so, for amusement, added the super ugly Star Wars Happy Meal toy featuring an AT-AT walker with a Storm Trooper bobble head attached (totally channeled my Inner Geek there--pretty cool for a girl, huh?) to the play session. David wound it up and set it loose, and it staggered there among the plastic animals. Dennis seemed pretty happy about this until David leaned over and blew it over. Dennis shouted out "WHY DID YOU DO THAT, DADDY?" over and over in a stern voice. It cracked us up, but we could tell how serious he was about it and had to stifle our giggles. It was almost a shame to put him to bed. He knew it, too. I'd tuck him in and turn off the light and he'd call out "Mommy, come back here, where's Froggy?" and I'd go in and find him. Then it was "Mommy, I want a kiss" and "Mommy, I want anudder hug". I finally had to tell him it was the last time I was going in there and he said okay and went to sleep. I have smiled so much today!