Which is great! We love to let you explore, bounce, discover, run, dance and burn off all that energy! Now, that's not to say there's not downtime: we have plenty of time to relax and cuddle and make french toast breakfasts and just play imaginatively upstairs.
But, we also get to go to the bounce house:
(p.s. I was very proud of you on this visit to the bounce house, because you decided to leave the Pirate Game (a video game demo you love to sit and watch for...ever....) on your own accord!)
And Chuck E. Cheese:
And the Dallas World Aquarium:
And Mimi and Pops even took you to "Old MacDonalds" on your special day with them on Monday!
There's a lot of world to explore out there, and we're glad to give you and your sister the green light.
You both grow up so much, so fast, and always surprise us.
This weekend, Aidan, you cracked us up in the car. You were telling us the traffic light colors and meanings, like you love to do. But the ending was all new...
"Green means Go!" you said.
"Red means STOP!" you said.
"Yellow means...slow down...baby!"
You had us in stitches, and you knew it too. So you kept saying "Slow down, baby!"
And Julia, this week and weekend, you've really started to grasp several things: you're grasping toys and hair (and the glasses right off your mommy's face) with your hands; you're grasping your feet and you're grasping communication too.
You've recently taken to blowing bubbles and raspberries as an alternative form of communication.
And it's most welcome, indeed!
So, no matter what light we hit on the road, you both seem to be accelerating and growing and going...green green green.
I love it, and love watching you grow. But not so fast.
As your vocabulary grows and your thought processes advance, you're becoming downright garrulous. And some of the things you say are priceless, hilarious, touching, sweet and so so smart.
Here's a few that I've managed to remember.
The other day you were holding Julia and just having a lovely time kissing on her.
You say: "Where Julia comes from?"
I say: "Julia came from Mommy's tummy, remember?"
You just crack up with laughter and laugh and laugh and laugh.
And say: "That SO WEIRD!"
That's gotta be my favorite.
Speaking of favorites, you're really into telling us your favorites lately.
You climbed up on the counter to ask for some challah bread.
"Bread please!"
"Aidan, that's called 'challah bread.'"
"Challah bread. Oh yes. Favorites! Food!"
You sat on the stairs looking at my guitar stand, which is orange.
You: "Red! Red! Red thing!"
Me: "That's orange..."
You: "Red...favorites color!"
Me: "What about yellow?"
You: "Oh yeah!!!!"
You were hanging out with your puppies and just blurted out: "Toby! Favorites dog!"
But I think you secretly love both dogs the same. They provide you with a lot of inspiration.
You know you're not supposed to feed the dogs people food. You also know you're not supposed to eat dog food. These rules get broken regularly.
While sitting at the table, you seemed to be eating your lunch. You picked up a piece of food. Maybe you knew you were tricking me, or maybe I'm just thick as a brick- but either way, you fooled me. You held the food in your hands and said, "Food for boys!"
I said, "Yes! That's food for boys! Go ahead."
And you threw it down to the dogs, who we routinely call "the boys."
But, you are learning the difference between boy and girl too. Mommy taught you well. "Mommy's girl. Julia's girl. Aidan boy."
We took you to a new bounce house called "Going Bonkers." After initial trepidation, you really got comfortable with the place and had SO much fun.
On the drive home you told us your thoughts: "Bounce house. That so fun! Good boy."
You tell us lots of things in the car, and you surprise us too. Two times last weekend on kinda-long car rides, without prompting you looked to Julia and kindly, reassuringly said "Almost there, Julia!" Good boy, indeed.
You also like to talk like a car. All of a sudden you started telling us that "car says 'beep beep honk honk'."
At home, one of your new favorite games is "hide and seek." But all of a sudden you surprised us: "Hide and Seek. You hide first!"
It's not that you're parroting our phrases and words anymore. You truly understand what the word 'first' means and have started using it everywhere. "Read this book first." Now, the rules of hide and seek and who does what when are still a little bit cloudy, but you're really understanding now, and it's really amazing.
Language is such a useful tool for imagination. You've been many different animals lately. When on top of my shoulders, you announced "I am baby elephant!" At the zoo, you climbed on a rock and said "I am lion!" And then...
Language is also such a useful tool for playing with friends and making new ones. After a weekend of play, you told us "Share Brady! Share Luke!"
While wrestling with Brady (good natured wrestling, of course) you said "That Fun!"
After playing at Luke's house you've been telling us "Luke screaming. Fun! Screaming Luke!" I wonder why!
And at the zoo, you asked to get down off my shoulders to see the warthogs. There was a much younger boy-on-a-leash next to you. Both of you stared at the warthogs. The boy started babbling excited to you, standard 17-month-old excited babbling stuff. Nonsense. To us any way.
You let him finish talking to him and replied "...oh, yes."
And that's the crux of it. Your language is showing your true self. You're growing and figuring stuff out. Sometimes it's a bit...rude. You tell us "Go away!" when you want to get into some sort of trouble that you know we'll object to.
But mostly, it's funny, informative and often sweet. For instance, yesterday you told your Mommy, "I need kisses."
Either way, it's enlightening. You found your voice a while ago, but it seems that lately it's becoming louder, clearer...and distinctly you!
They say you say the darndest things. I think that some of the material is 'darndest', but all of it is amazing..and really shines the light on the wonderment you see in the world.
Aidan, over Thanksgiving, you really seemed to nail your list-making skills. By which, I mean, something really just clicked and you realized how to use the word 'and.' And ever since, you've been listing things and telling us about them and genereally being exciged about the word 'and' ever since.
It all started when we were at Mimi and Pops' house and you and Mommy were sitting underneath Mimi's 'Medusa Lamp.' It's got about 12 lights on it, and each one has a different colored glass shade.
You were excited by this and started listing the colors:
"Blue and Pink and yellow and Red and Green."
Ever since, you've been listing all sorts of things...sometimes you skip like a record, but no matter what, it's adorable and amazing and just, generally, awesome.
Sometimes you climb into bed with us in the morning and tell us all about the farm: "rooster and cow and chicken and chicken and pig and cow."
Sometimes you tell us all about your favorite movie: "Buzz and Woody and Jesse and Lotso and Hamm and Buzz and Green and Buzz."
Typing this out isn't really getting the point across too well about how cute this listing is, so I will try to capture it on video. But if I don't, rest assured, it's adorable. Something about the cadence of your voice and the lilting way you say 'and' when you're thinking about what to say next!
"Next Dinosaur. Two Dinosaurs"
And you don't really need to think too hard about what you're saying next, because words just seem to come to you. Sometimes we know where they come from, and they're simply adorable.
When playing upstairs, I introduced you to "Pinnochio." This is hard to say, but you tried your darndest:
"Hi Hokey ko pokey!"
"Hi pokey pokey!"
"Hi Mokey po kokey!"
Sometimes you just make a phrase you've heard your own. Like when at Gigi's house for Thanksgiving, I took your Hulk toy out of the bag of toys we brought and you said "What's up, Hulk?"
Other times, you really floor us by saying something we didn't teach you.
Like when you see something amazing you used to whisper "Wow!" Now you say "Wow, Cool thing!"
And, all of a sudden, your catch-all, all purpose phrase has been "Oh. My. Goodness!"
It comes out of your mouth at the cutest and most unexpected times. I know you know how to say it, but everytime you do on your own accord, it cracks me up. For instance, last night I told you that Aunt Kari had a baby in her belly. And you whispered: "oh. my. goodness!"
You also have been telling your mom and me how "sited" Julia is. We cracked the code, and we're excited that you're excited that Julia's excited!
With your communication skills really kicking butt lately, we all have a lot to be excited about!
Aidan, every day you continue to amaze your mother and me. These little looks, or actions, or connections you make are just a testament to how wonderfully you are learning about the world around you.
You are doing so much better at being left at school now, and you even have been spotted by Miss Jessica interacting and 'talking' to the other kids.
Yesterday you made a birdfeeder. It was basically a bagel, spread with peanut butter and then dipped in bird seed. You were so proud of your 'cookie' and for some reason kept trying to eat it. You were a bit upset when your Mom hung it in a tree in our backyard.
But, you did get a real cookie anyway. It's Girl Scout season and we have a box of the chocolatey, coconutty, ringed goodness that we call Samoas. I left the box within your reach and you brought it to your Mom, saying 'cookie,' in your convincing manner. So she let you have one. And you LOVED it.
You're making pretty advanced connections. On Tuesday morning, after an awesome three-day weekend together (and pretty much a full Monday of Daddy and me time), your Mom brought you into our bed. You saw a lump of comforters and covers and pillows where I usually sleep and you excitedly said "Dada? Dada!" Your mom pulled back the covers to reveal that I wasn't there and you were sad. This story hurt a little...but it also made me proud that you knew to look for me...and knew that I resemble I pile of linens!
You've been sick recently (double ear infection and bronchitis), so we've been having to give you some nasty medicine. After two days of fighting us with the medicine, you realized that that tactic wasn't working. And without prompting, you figured out what you thought would be a better way to avoid the medicine. I came in with the oral syringe and, upon seeing me, you hid your face behind your hands. If you were hiding, and therefore 'gone', how could we give you the medicine? Luckily, we still found a way (and you adapted again, by spitting most of it out); but I give you an A for effort. Your Mom and I were in awe of your cleverness!
Your vocabulary continues to grow too... you went up to Miss Jessica yesterday and said 'hug!' because you wanted a hug.
On Monday, you and I were playing with cars and you said "Blue" (although it's more like "booo") when holding a blue car. I tested you with some more blue cars, which you correctly identified. But then I held up a red car and you were stumped. So, I knew that you knew blue!
Yesterday at dinner, you got crayons to play with, and you picked up the blue one and said 'blue!'
Then you through the blue one to the ground and held on to the yellow one really tight. Yellow seems to be your favorite color (you also held a yellow crayon for a few hours the other day as well). But you're just at the beginning stages of being able to say 'yellow.' But, at the restaurant, you did say "green" for the green crayon, with some encouragment.
And you've started to identify crayons as "colors" (although it's more like "curr")...but we know what you're saying. And more importantly, you know what you're saying!
Color me proud!
More into the world of colors, back on Valentine's Day, I decided that we needed to do the inaugural dip into the non-toxic finger paints we got while back so you could make your Mommy a V-Day present. You've finger painted before with this colorless stuff that doesn't appear until it's placed on the special paper. That's pretty fun, but mostly you like opening and closing the paint container.
But this finger paint....you loved it...all 2 minutes of the finger painting experience (until it quickly turned into a disaster). I gave you a little squirt of each color: green, blue, red and yellow.
As you can see from the finished result, you really aren't a fan of using blue, although you're a fan of saying it.
So you started sheepishly touching the paint dollops. I showed you how to paint it on the paper.
You were intrigued. You did it a little more by yourself. A little green...a lot of red...
Then you started piling the paint on the paper and smushing it around. I pushed your hand down to make a handprint.
Then you started smearing the pallette's paints altogether into a lovely brown.
This was fun...and messy...good thing I got us both down to our undergarments only for the painting experience.
I momentarily thought, "he'll be fine...I'll just go grab my camera and take a few pictures."
Good thing I didn't! Because in a split second the following happened:
You decided to start just rubbing your hands together.
Then you began clapping.
Then the paint started flying everywhere (I'm still finding it in the kitchen).
Then it got on your face, to which you logically and immediately responded by rubbing your eyes with your hands, which were covered in paint. You immediately responded by crying and screaming loudly...having paint all over your eyes.
Emergency eye wash in the kitchen sink, and the crying subsided a little.
Then straight to the bath, where I managed to get all the paint off your eyes, face, hands and arms. And off of me too.
But you know what? You were fine in a few minutes and your Mom loved the painting.
We're even going to frame it.
With all your connecting and learning and experimenting, you are truly an amazing almost-two year old. You are a work of art (and a piece of work) and we're just constantly amazed at how much you are growing every day.
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