Two years ago, at 3 months of age, he slept through Christmas, giving his parents a break while they enjoyed their newly remodeled home and beautiful Christmas tree that Daddy surprised Mommy with. One year ago, he spent Christmas, after a harrowing, bad weather trip, in CA with his Abby-Grandma. This year I came to visit him (and his parents, of course!)
When he saw me arrive at the airport, he yelled, "GA-MA!" and ran straight into my waiting arms, and hugged my neck. It was a heart tugger, I tell you. He didn't want me to put him down; of course, I didn't for a few minutes.
At 27 months of age, he is full of the wonder of Christmas. He says "Kwismas Yites!" and "Mewwy Kwismas!" over the phone to adoring relatives. He knows exactly what he wants and lets you know with phrases like the following:
Do you want (for your bath) plain water or bubbles? "Pane wader."
When we are playing together on the floor, he will get up, sit in a chair and say,
"Ga-ma's turn pay" (grandma's turn to play). Cracks me up! He understands interlocking puzzle pieces and put the last four pieces in a puzzle of 12 pieces. He and daddy had done the puzzle together several times before.
He uses "-ing" forms and uses a wide variety of verbs. He even uses descriptive words such as colors, wet/dry, sticky, bad/good, scarey, and phrases like, /ready, set, go/, /please/, /thank you/ /hot, spicey, cold/. He even understands and uses /one/, /one more/, /lots/.
He played with a little toy doll in his bath water and said, "Spash" (splash) each time it fell, using "ready, set, go!" before dropping it in the water. He uses positional words like on/off, in/out, behind/under, all appropriately. I'm amazed that he knows his colors; he uses the color words in his conversation naturally or when making choices of what he wants. He follows 2 step directions...amazingly! He is really into feelings, copying mommy's "bad kitty" when the kitty attacks the Christmas tree, labeling other things 'bad'. He used the word "scawey" (scarey) when we were joking about what a low groaning noise was (turned out to be some of the new house construction settling in the extremely cold weather). He crawled over to sit on mommy's lap "Hug you?" after cuddling close to grandma while this conversation was going on. He has begun to be afraid of the dark and asks for a flashlight. He likes his "taggie" blanket for cuddling and talks about "Thomas" (the train). He tries to imitate 4 syllable words on command most of the time. He asks "(Wh)ere it go?" "(Wh)ere is it?" and "What dis? or "What dat?"
We were sitting in church, and as I looked at the bulletin he pointed to it and said, "words?" You could have knocked me over with a feather!
He sings, "Jingle bells, jingle bells" over and over while ringing his Christmas bell.
He rode his little train car while waiting for me to finish a task and, as he rode along, he said, quite clearly, "Chug-a-chug-a-chug".
He pretends daily routines with his doll house people, such as "Eat now, "Eat pancakes." Then he went to find a spoon from the real kitchen to feed the little dollhouse people. After feeding them,He said, "all done, bye-bye, Work" and he drove them away in a toy car. "Come on, Ga-ma, p(l)ay".
Daddy played hide 'n seek with him. "(Where)Are you Daddy?" With the cutest intonation for a question!
We lost a little F-P doggie figurine. "Doggie go?" "Up Esine's(Einstein's) Rocket." later, "doggie outside." "doggie all gone now. (I) Miss doggie". (Einstein's rocket is in the Baby Einstein DVDs.)
As I'm on the computer. he's saying, "No, Gama. Top payin." (stop playing) He sits beside me and fingers his taggie blanket.
He has a horrible runny nose. Poor thing. Still likes to blink lights off and on. Grrr. Do you think he's trying to get my attention? Hee, Hee.
I had trouble unlocking the front door and finally got it. O said, "We did it!"
We're driving down the road and Oliver sees a Christmas decorated window and says, "Ginger-man, Santa K(l)aus, Ga-ma!" His articulation is so clear!
Then we stop at a light and he says, "gween...GO!"
After we drop off daddy at work, I say, "After we play at home, we'll go to the store." And O says, "Book 'Tore? P(l)ay twain? (They have a train table). He's got it down, that's for sure!
On another car trip, O said, "Home Depot," Sure enough, there it was. He and his daddy's favorite store! Pause. Then, "Daddy, Home Depot, all done." I replied, "You and daddy don't go to Home Depot very much anymore?" "No," he answered. (Many of their home projects have slowed to a stop for the winter.)
And the clincher of the day: O had a huge messy diaper and had to go home from the store without pants. We put his shoes and socks on and laid a blanket over his lap. Later, driving down the road, he had taken off his shoes and socks. "Nekud," he declared! I had to LOL at that one!
As we are in the kitchen together, "Ga-ma, pig unner frizh. get fash-ite" and proceeded to run into the other room to get his 'cow' flashlight to help us find and retrieve the little magnet pig he was playing with. Success!
When he took a toy apart or a piece fell off, he said, "Fix it, Ga-ma."
We made bird seed cutouts for the Christmas tree that had been put outside. I cut out cardboard squares and circles, attached yarn to them and we spread on lard and coated them with bird seed. It took him about 4 times to get the sequence down of spread, dip into seeds. Then he's doing it. Mostly he really enjoyed playing in the bird seed!
After hanging the birdseed ornaments on the Christmas tree which had been taken outside to the front yard,he decided a snowball fight with grandma would be fun. He ended up throwing little chunks of icey snow backward every time, until he finally started running over to me and plopping the snow on my pants. Lots of uproarious giggles.
Icey fog today. Brrrrr. We only stayed outside about 20 minutes.
We had "hot shawkut" (hot chocolate) for lunch with his favorite...(vegan) hot dogs. He's begun to stuff his mouth and then spit out this big hunk because it's too hard to chew...at least it's on his napkin! The hot dog this day ended up being chewed twice, swallowed once....I didn't make him!
When I told him that in a few minutes it would be nap time, he covered his train track set with a road rug and said,"nite-time. twain seepy."
The most beautiful times were when he let me read stories to him at night and let me rock him to sleep. I loved nuzzling the crown of his head and smelling his hair. In fact, a couple of times he wasn't fully asleep and awoke, calling out, "more sing, Ga-ma" until he had finally closed his eyes for the long haul.
We began the process of potty training. Not in earnest, but to see if he would do it. We bought him pull-ups (that allow the kid to feel the wetness) and he liked his 'big boy' pants. Two times on Thursday (I left Friday) he realized he was wet. One time he pulled his pants down himself and the second time he brought me a clean pull-up and said "new diaper, Ga-ma." He'll get there!
He's a precious little soul. I'm so glad to be his 'Ga-ma.'
