most anticipated word

He finally said it today. His Gran called to check in on us since the 3 of us were cooped up here at home with a wretched lower intestinal virus of some vile sort. The worst seems to have passed us now, but none of us had much energy for anything today. We just sort of snuggled up together and watched movies. By the way, I highly recommend Bee Movie, which I didn't think I would like. All 3 of us liked it very much. At any rate, when she was on the phone, I asked if she wanted to speak to Dennis, and she said she did, so I passed the phone to him. He gave her an adorable earful of happy chatter, and after his initial "hey gheee" greeting, he actually said "Gran", which thrilled all of us beyond belief. He was so happy to talk to her, and he said a lot of words to her, so much more than he usually says to anyone on the phone. After their conversation, she said to tell him that Pop said hello as well, and he began saying "Pop", one of his favorite words. He is getting so much better on the phone. Earlier, when he was dialing numbers on our phone that fortunately didn't get connected, he would put the phone up to his ear and say "hewwo" and it sounded very very close to hello.

Also today he had a massive temper tantrum. We are not used to this (who is?), and we tried to let him cry it out and calm down in his room, but he cried so hard he made himself sick. So we relented, and he got away with only taking one nap today, but after 45 minutes of yelling and screaming and crying so hard he was gasping, it was pointless to hope that he'd fall asleep. I got him back up and let him play in his room alone for a bit before going in to spend time with him. I fed him dinner then, and afterward he helped me pick up all his toys. We read a couple of stories, and then we got ready for bed. I asked him where his toes were, and he showed me, and then we put the toes into his footie pajamas. He actually helped me put on his pjs tonight. He went to bed without a fuss, and I'm glad, because it was hard on me to hear him so upset earlier. He cried so hard that his tears mixed with oodles of snot. When he was wiping at his face, he managed to ground this mixture of yuck into his eyebrows, which he inadvertently groomed into stiff and wavy awkward shapes held fast in their positions by hardened snot. When I went in to get him up, he looked like he had deranged caterpillars over his eyes, and there were boogers in his hair. His little face was red and splotchy as well, and while my heart went out to him, part of me was a little bit tempted to laugh at the after-effects of his mad fit. He was back to his usual sunny self pretty much immediately, and is sleeping peacefully now. So is David, incidentally, and I presume I soon will be as well. Surely tomorrow will be a wonderful day.