Inspector Busybody

I think he might be destined to be a home inspector. He certainly inspected one today! His Daddy was finishing up some detail work on one of Gran's and Pop's For Sale properties, and we stopped by for a visit. Dennis gave the house a complete walk through, several times, and opened the bathroom cabinets in both bathrooms a few times. He was just making sure they worked ok. And checking the plumbing... He reached into the bathtub to jiggle the new faucet a couple of times--it held. He examined the new oven to see if it was up to code. He kicked all the new thresholds and bounced on them, to test soundness. He tried out a range of vocalizations to test the acoustical properties of the house. All in all, he pronounced the house Ready To Sell.

Gran and Pop have a tree in their house, possibly a ficus tree, and Dennis likes to pat the trunk of the tree (hmmm... new generation of tree hugger?) when he visits. His Pop saw him going for the tree and said (like you would say to correct a dog) "unh unh unh" in a guttural voice. This deterred Dennis for 3.5 seconds, and he immediately walked back to the tree, yelling "HUH HUH HUH" in his best imitation of Pop's corrections. Gran and Pop were kind enough to watch him while I ran some errands today, and when I arrived to pick him up, they looked exhausted. Toddler wrangling should be an olympic event. It's about as easy as herding cats, I think.

He's getting better and better at identifying pictures of things. He can name the objects you point out to him in a book. And today, while we were checking out Gran's Las Vegas scrapbook, he saw a picture of David and began gleefully yelling "DADDY!". We took him back over to visit his daddy (still hard at work on the house), and Dennis decided to help by picking up various tools and walking them in to David while he was installing some vinyl floor strips. This was cute, but I admit to being a bit unnerved when he picked up the hammer!

I think he walked 5 miles today, around his room, around the empty house, around Gran's house while pushing his ride-on firetruck and collecting Easter eggs to store in the space under the seat, around our yard, halfway down the driveway... He was playing with some boys at Gran's today, and they told Gran he wanted out of his high chair. When they let him down, the kids commented that it was like watching a midget running by--he moves a little faster than they expected.

He was so busy that he decided that 2 naps of 15 minutes duration would suffice for the day, and that is why he went to bed before 7 pm. I almost dread seeing what time he'll wake up in the morning, but since I conked out at 7 pm as well (I rarely nap, but today called for it), maybe it won't be so bad. We have a long car trip on the agenda for tomorrow, so I imagine I'll need my sleep so that I can keep him entertained instead of him keeping us entertained (loudly).

I don't know if I've mentioned it or not. He sings now. It's the Cutest. Thing. Ever. Maybe I can catch it on video soon.