Klingon

Dennis was clingy today, as sometimes happens when I go to work after spending a day with him. He loves his Daddy, of course, and needed lots of attention today. I think it's good that we both get to spend so much time with him, sharing the care, but it's so hard to leave him when I have to! He was basically happy, he just wanted David very close by all day. Some days he's more independent, but today wasn't one of those days.

The newest milestone we're watching for: knowing Mommy and Daddy and using their names discriminately. He certainly knows Daddy, and says Daddy whenever he sees David. He rarely says Mama, although he used to say it a good bit. We think he can tell who's who, because when we ask him "Where's Daddy?", he will look at David and he does the same for me. And this morning, he marched across the bed, fell into my arms, looked me straight in the eye, smiled hugely, and said Mama. Naturally, I'll be buying him a car next week...

I had hoped he wouldn't learn to screech, but I'm pretty sure I heard him doing so this evening in the background when I was on the phone with David. It was a gleeful screech (well, several gleeful screeches), but loud. Everyone told me it was inevitable, and they were right. He was extremely tickled over something, and I heard maniacal giggling and screeching. Wonder how long before he does it in church...

Speaking of church, he does tend to offer commentary during the sermon. We are trying to teach him to say "amen", which would be more acceptable than some of his other words (for example, "booger", which is a new favorite). And if a sermon was getting a little long, a nice round of amens from Dennis might speed things along. Who knows? He certainly likes church, especially the singing and the tasty offering envelopes and the big hymnals with all the great pages to flip and the opportunity to break loose and crawl under the pew to go visiting. It's amazing that we actually manage to worship, but we do. Happily so.