Woah, Cool

We have settled into a nice routine here, for a few weeks anyhow (Katie's wedding and a trip to CA fast approach). We have activities scheduled three days a week, a day at home for laundry, and a day that is flexible. Tommy has a very social nature, and thus I have to make sure to get him out of the house regularly. Judging from his reactions at the end of various activities, his favorite thing appears to be playing in the church nursery while I attend bible study. It is the only place he typically is reluctant to leave. I don't blame him- they have really good toys there.

The cold weather is hard on both of us. Tommy and I were made for moderate climates. On days that we stay home and stay in I have found a few games to get the wiggles out. I set up pillows for one of his new loves: dog-pile (pronounced Bog-pile). Yes, my child is in desperate need of siblings and has instead resorted to hurling himself on piles of pillows while yelling "bog-pile." Or worse, diving on me! He also got some neat tunnels to crawl through for Christmas, uses all of our furniture for climbing, and, unfortunately, diving, enjoys dancing around to his eclectic music collection, and loves a good game of horsey. Guess who is the horsey? He enjoys a few quite pursuits, such as reading, and playing with cars and animals.

You know that old theory about how women like to talk to their husbands more than their husbands like to talk to them because men have to talk at work all day and use up their word quota while women stay at home and don't? Whoever thought of that one did not stay at home with a toddler. I am pretty sure my word quota is used up by about 11am! I am talking constantly- and Tommy is listening. It seems like every day brings a new word or three, and more phrases. His vocabulary (words he can say on his own) is over a hundred words, and he has been putting together two word ideas, and copying three word phrases. He likes to use adjectives, especially "big," "icky," and colors (which may or may not be properly applied). "No" is out in full force. He has started figuring out what belongs to each of us and describes it as Tommy's, Muma's, or Daddy's. It can't be too much longer before we here the dreaded word "mine." He loves to repeat, and today we went through the alphabet and he was able to make all the sounds after I demonstrated them.

Some of our favorite "cute" things he has been doing:

In the bath he will stand up, then say sternly "sit down," and then follow his own instructions. Pretty handy. If only he wouldn't do it repeatedly!

He adores brushing his teeth, still. He will now say "eeeeee" with his teeth clenched together and hold the brush with both hands to make sure he gets his front teeth, then say "ahhhh" with his mouth wide open and make a hap-hazard attempt at his molars. We still get to take a turn.

His response to most everything lately is "Woah, cool."

Throwing away trash is big. That is handy when the junk mail arrives. The other day we were in the kitchen and he was playing with his magnets on the fridge, and then I noticed that he had stopped playing was was crawling under the table. He picked something up, took it to the trashcan, but instead of throwing it away, got the whisk broom and dustpan that I use to clean up food from the floor out from next to the trash and threw the thing in there. I looked, and it was a little hard crust of bread- and he put it in the appropriate place. He pays better attention than I realize.

He will try and hide a part of his body- hand, arm, foot, head, etc, then say "oh no" before revealing it. Today he came up to me with an envelop discarded from the mail, and put it over my hand until it covered it completely and, with a very serious expression, exclaimed "oh no!" Then grabbed the envelop off and gave me a big smile.