The little guy

I read through some of the archives this morning and can't believe how spotty this record is.  It's not NaBloPoMo, but I have a little pledge for my own Rest-of-June-Blo-Po-Mo.  We have too much cuteness not to share! 

Last summer I wrote Andrew was just on the edge of language explosion, but then I never got around to describing it.  He's amazing - Elizabeth was and is a very verbal child, but I can't tell you how people gush about Andrew.  He may be more talkative than she ever was.  At 2.5, you can have clear conversations with him.  He's the most verbal boy on our street.  We saw a child-free friend last weekend we hadn't seen for awhile and after their conversation she turned to us and asked the usual question - how old is he?  Is it typical for 2.5 year old boys to talk this much? 

Last summer, he started counting.  It started on pool trips.  He would walk to the edge of the pool, shout TWOOOOOOO and then jump in.  Whether or not anyone was there to catch him.  We kinda sorta use the 1-2-3 discipline method, which means you count to 3 and if child is not complying by 3, there are consequences.  However, both Rich and I are too loathe to impose said consequences, so we tend to drag out the twoooooooo.  And Andrew picked up on it perfectly. And he's not looked back since - he can count to 12 now without any problems (5 was a little left out for a while), and keeps trying to  push it further. 

I always get freaked out at the pediatrician when the nurses ask all these development questions at the beginning.  I think I take them too literally and get all worked out about being precise with my answer.  Last November, at the 2 year mark, the question that through me was does he know his colors?  My reply, is he supposed to know his colors?  I had no idea - it wasn't something we were working on.  The answer was he knew no colors, so we started working on that.  For a while, he would just simply guess green for any color.  And if we said no, he'd guess blue.  Then, lellow?  But by the spring he was getting it right more often than not, and now he's pretty good, except last week we noticed he clearly had trouble with red/green.  We'll see where that goes. 

And he loves to pretend to be his trucks or animals or whatever toy.  He grabs two similar toys, holds onto one, hands you the other and says, you be dis vun, I be dat vun.  He's losing the dis and dat for a more clearer this and that, and vun is slowly becoming one, but I loved the way he said it.  Initially, he didn't know what to do after you'd agreed to be dis vun, so the two toys would just look at each other and say hi repeatedly, but now he constructs adventures and expects you to follow along in character. 

And he does not like it when you do things for him.  "I fought I was goin' to do dat,' he'll say accusingly.  So you have to back off and let him do it. 

The video above is from May - Elizabeth's school does a mother's day program that he and I attended.  There was a delay in staring it (*eyeroll*) and so to occupy him, I suggested he run around.  He LLOOOOVVVES this video and we watch it all that time.  Andrew running?  Let's see Andrew running! 

Last weekend, Rich attempted to put him down for a nap, only to hear, today is not nap day! 

But my all time favorite started about a month ago.  When we put him in his crib at night and he lays down and is ready to sleep (as opposed to when he stays standing and insists on one more book or playing dis vun dat vun) he lays down and snuggles in and then says, when the sun comes up, I will wake up. 

And we say, ok, little guy, that sounds like a good plan.