two of my favorite people are abby and dan. they are the volunteers that are in my sunday school class every week to play with me (and i suppose the rest of the kids too). abby is always there to check me in and say hi to me, and dan is always ready to break out some bubbles or play food with me (and he has a great haircut). i sometimes ask to see them in the middle of the week, but evidently, they do other things than hang out at church and teach kids. i really like going to church and playing there. i also really like it when after sunday school dad and i can run around the track for a couple laps (you see, our church meets in a college gym right now). yesterday was such a day. we got a couple laps in and then headed home.
after i got up from my nap i was greeted by two of my favoriter people – gram and pa! they watched luke and i while momma and dad went off to small group. i showed them how well i ride my zebra, and we played cars and read stories. we ate dinner together as well and while luke packed away his spinach ravioli and baby food, i enjoyed my chicken dinosaurs and fries. luke and i have loads of fun with gram and pa – especially because they get down on the floor and play with us. pa sometimes chases after us on all fours, or i get to go for a ride on his back. gram marches with luke and takes him around. they are very hands-on and we love that! so although saturday was ordinary and sunday was typical, it all added up to a great weekend.
saturday was just an ordinary day…we did some stuff, and had a good day, though nothing particularly new. once we were all up, dressed and fed, we headed out to the “park” (otherwise known as the centerpoint mall playground area. there were a lot of other kids there and i spent the first five minutes pointing them all out to dad and saying “another boy!” “another girl!” after pointing out each one, i proceeded to do a couple running laps around the play area. there were kids going down the slide, climbing on things and going through the tunnels, but i was content running in big circles. later i did climb in the boat with luke and go down the slide. i also enjoyed climbing the rabbit and spinning around on the tree stump that he leans against.
we then we over to the kiddie mechanical rides and momma found some quarters so i could ride in the two truck. that was a blast! it moved up and down and forward and backward. after a nap which i had to be woke up from, i helped momma bake. we made cookies and another pizza. i love baking with momma. i also like eating my creations. i ate two pieces of pizza (let me say that again – 2 whole pieces of pizza) and an m&m cookie. after playing around some with luke, he went up to take his bottle and i ended the day with a bit of wall-e the robot. so, nothing special, but a great day overall.
“today is the happiest day of my life” dad said on thursday night. what prompted him to make such a bold statement? i ate pizza.
not only did i eat pizza (at least a couple bites), i helped make the pizza. momma picked up a pre=made crust and some “fixin’s” and then i served as the lead chef while momma supervised. (i tried to add a cheese slide from my play food toy, but that was frowned upon). i spread the sauce, sprinkled the cheese and laid out pepperoni on half the pizza, and then slid it in the oven (not really…who would let a 2 1/2 year old near a hot oven!). dad then cam home and momma told me to tell him what i made. he was expecting a drawing or something, but i told him i made pizza and all that i added.
later, after the pizza was out of the oven and sufficiently cooled so i could eat it, momma cut me up a small slice and told me that this was the pizza that i had made. i was much more interested in eating this, since i had a crucial part in the preparation of it. without hesitation, i sunk my teeth in the triangle or deliciousness, chewed, looked at the pizza and went back for more. dad was delighted.
last night jack kept putting bits of canned fruit down his shirt during dinner. after taking off his soaking shirt and wiping him down, he proceeded to go to the living room, strip down the rest of the way, and transfer his socks from his feet to his hands. he then said “look at me!” and was very eager for his picture to be snapped before he had to go to the tubby. i don’t have one, but can you think of a funny caption?
being a mother has to be one of the most difficult jobs in the world (i’d say the most difficult, but i hear book marketing is pretty tough – just kidding!). and being the mother of two high-energy, always-on-the-move, loud-mouthed, listening-hasn’t-been-developed-yet boys doesn’t make it any easier. kate (i learned that is momma’s name recently) is a fantastic momma and even when i am exasperating, i still know that i am loved. and i don’t mean to be exasperating – it’s just my age (and you better believe i’ll be using that excuse in my teenage years as well) – but regardless i can be frustrating and momma always offers me love.
while i do love momma just because she is my momma, and i love her for all the things that she does for me (plays with me, sacrifices sleep and other things for me), and gives to me (her time, her patience, her sanity)…i love her more than that. i love momma for who she is. momma is fun, respectful, beautiful (inside and out), caring and kind, generous, and thoughtful. dad tells me that he is glad that she has sacrificed to stay home so that luke and i can learn how to live life from her. so, i am sorry, momma, that i don’t listen well, and that i like to take your last nerve and use it as a dance floor, but just know that i appreciate you and all you do for me, and that i love you and am forever grateful for you. oh, and luke says he echoes everything i said here.
the past few days i have developed a new obsession: names. no longer do i want to know what the person, place or thing is – i want to know its name. sure it’s a kangaroo, but what’s its name? i know that it is a car, but what is its name? yes, that is my brother luke, but what is his name? [yes, i did actually ask that]. momma and dad can barely get through my nap and bedtime stories because with every page comes a new set of people, animals or vegetables that i NEED to know names of. so you can imagine how much fun i have when we read stories about noah, his ark and all his animal friends.
i was watching wall-e the movie the other day [love that movie, by the way, wall-e cracks me up!] and wall-e is a robot that is roaming around. whenever he was not on-screen, i would ask “where’s wall-e?” then a new robot was introduced and it took a while to discover her name (its eve). every couple seconds i would ask dad, but he couldn’t tell me. finally they swapped names with one another and i could go ahead in asking where eve was as well as where wall-e was when either of them were off-screen.
i have also learned the names of momma and dad (those aren’t their real names…did you know that?) every now and again i will bust them out. dad came home from work on monday night and i ran into the kitchen to greet him with a “hi chris!”. it was pretty great. so do not be surprised if the next time we talk, i ask for your name.
i’ve been sick the better part of the last week and have even passed on my cold to dad. i’ll spare you the details of the sickness, but suffice it to say that it is only a cold, but still is pretty miserable. it’s hard to drink a bottle when you can’t breathe through your nose! we did have fun over the weekend riding the toy zebra that dad brought back home. he had taken it to a conference in november for some weird promotion he did there, and finally brought it home for us to play with. jack used to ride this when he was littler and still does like riding it…and is wary of sharing it.
i liked pulling myself up on it and holding onto its head while listening to the music and “dancing”. my dancing consists of bending my knees and bouncing up and down (still with more rhythm than dad could dream of). the best part of the zebra are the two bugs that come off his head like antenna. they are the perfect size to chew on and are hard plastic so they feel quite good on my gums. i also did take the zebra for a spin. dad hoisted me on top of it and held me (because i couldn’t reach the ground yet with my feet) and let me spin and bounce on it. that was a lot of fun. jack kept trying to ride it with his feet in the saddle while standing up, but dad was quick to nip that so he didn’t kill himself. we are both learning to share but it may be awhile before that lesson gets learned.
the english language is not the easiest thing to learn. i pick up words quickly, but sometimes a little too quickly. sometimes i get the word and can say it but mis-associate it and have a hard time reversing. let me give you an example. sometimes when dad picks me up, i want for him to lift me high up so i touch the wall, er, i mean ceiling. for one reason or another i have switched the meaning of wall and ceiling so the smooth surface that is vertical i sometimes call ceiling and sometimes call wall, but always i call the horizontal (ceiling) a wall. i also tell dad definitively that i am right and he is wrong when he tries to correct me.
other times i know the word, i know the meaning of the word and use it properly, i just have mis-pronounced it. momma and dad know what i mean when i say these and i see no need to change anytime soon. besides, one of these words my auntie jamie mispronounced the same way until last year (not really, just until she was around 9). so…any guesses as to what words i am actually saying below, and any guesses as to which one auntie jamie mispronounced the same way (sorry grandma holly, you are disqualified for the second question 
)?
tig helper?
helpiker
squyeral
hangaber
as a side note, i also have a phrase that i use when i need to blow my nose. i say i have a “crunchy nose”
jack and i have a grand time together. he makes me laugh so hard sometimes that i get the hiccups. the other day dad walked in the living room and i was laying on my back in the middle of the floor and jack was on hands and knees above me. he was making funny faces and i was busting a gut laughing. sure in the future that scenario might involve less laughter and more wrestling, but for now we are best buddies. if jack is a part of it, i want to join in. 
most times he is not as keen on sharing as i am (i love sharing as long as i can chew on whatever we are sharing), but there are times when we will just do stuff together. these times usually happen when i am confined, i’ve noticed. when i am in my jumper, or my highchair or my carseat. no matter, he always cracks me up and i hope that is always the case…which shouldn’t be too difficult as i can be made to laugh fairly easily.
for my 2nd birthday, one of the gifts that aunt tana and uncle matt gave me was a toy microwave with some play food. momma and dad thought this would be ideal to squirrel away for the depths of winter when i was bored and not able to play outside and give me something new and fun to play with. well last week was such a time. momma pulled it up out of the basement and it has instantly become one of my favorite toys.
the microwave, while not really a heating mechanism, does beep and count down and lets me know when my food (or other toys i stuff in there) is done. there is also it also came with some fun play food in disproportionate sizes, i mean, there is a croissant larger than a whole roasted chicken. the hot dog only lasted about an hour as it was chewed beyond recognition (you would think luke did it, but no, it was me). luke does really like the slice of pizza because it has hard plastic corners and feels good against his gums (and because one of us had to like pizza).
i will even try some of the fake food, though momma and dad wish i would be so adventurous at the dinner table (although i have found that i really like the crust of pot pies lately). i did make a cheeseburger and took a big “bite” out of that (fake food). so even though i can’t go outside and play and get my energy out, i do still have lots of fun with momma and luke during the day. we run around in circles while listening to “big music” (what i’ve dubbed momma’s music because there are lots of guitars and drums), play at the table with colors or play-doh, and all play together with my fun toys.
this weekend most of our snow melted away or was washed away by the rain (only to be replaced by new snow early this week, evidently). but before it left us, we all took a walk around the neighborhood on saturday morning when it wasn’t so cold. luke and i both put on our snowsuits, hats and mittens and got into our respective vehicles (the stroller for luke and the wagon for me) and set off. it wasn’t too long until i wanted to walk and was glad that much of the ice had melted from the sidewalks – i like the idea of walking on ice, but i do not like falling down.
when we came to the big field in the neighborhood i saw something magnificent – it was a huge frosty. someone had built a giant snowman (okay, it was about 7 feet tall, so not necessarily a giant, but when you are only three feet tall, it does seem pretty huge). he had big sticks for arms and large snowballs for his eyes, nose and mouth. dad and i walked up to him, and i even patted his belly – i wasn’t scared at all. then dad made a couple of snowballs for me and momma and i had a mini snowball fight!
after that we headed up the hill to go back towards home. i wanted the wagon, but not to ride in it. no sir. i wanted to pull it myself. at first i tried pulling it while walking backwards. that worked, but was slow-going. i then tried it like dad does – walk normal and pull it with one hand. i brought that wagon up the hill, then down the street and up in our driveway. it was fun to pull the wagon. maybe this summer i can pull it while luke takes a ride – that would be lots of fun.
on thursday i went to the doctor for my nine-month check-up. it was an extremely good visit, because i received no shots! (though next time i’ll need to get 4…ugh). i learned that i am 291/2 inches long (grown 2 inches in the last 3 months) and that i weigh 19.6 pounds (added about 21/2 lbs in 3 months – even though i eat everything in sight). i am a bit above average in regards to height, and a bit below average in terms of weight. i’m not the weed that jack was (and still kinda is), but i’m also not one of those “michelin man” babies, as momma calls them, that sits around all day.
i am progressing quite normally and evidently i may start indiscriminately saying words by the end of the month. these will be momma or dada or some variety of same syllable words that i will put no meaning to. i’m not going to hold my breath for that, though. i also should be getting a tooth, but again, i’m not going to hold my breath on that either. overall it was a good check-up and i am nice and healthy.
a few days ago i saw my cousin nate and learned something new and fun: knock-knock jokes. i don’t totally get them, yet but here are a couple of my favorites. knock-knock…who’s there? jack…jack who? it’s me! then another one that momma taught me is, knock-knock…who’s there? boo…boo who? why you crying? ha ha ha. i’ve also perfected the “fake” laugh. my ha ha ha i say at the end of each joke is one of those laughs that you use after “dad” jokes. you know the kind i mean…the really corny jokes that dads like to tell. well, my dad is no different, and i picked up the fake laugh at a corny joke from momma who has to endure all the corny jokes from dad.
what is your favorite knock-knock joke?
in honor of my nine month birthday earlier this week, i wanted to take a look back at myself each of the last nine months. here is a picture from each month:
as has been well documented here, i will eat anything. i now am very much liking all the solids that i get to eat – from whole blueberry muffins, to quesadillas, to grilled cheese, to steak tartar (okay, maybe not that last one). well, momma had pity on me always pulling myself up on the end table and trying to reach jack’s untouched snacks, so she gave me a bowl of my own on tuesday (which was my nine month birthday, by the way) and filled it with goldfish crackers. as mater says in the movie cars, “i was as happy as a tornado in a trailer park”. i grabbed a handful and shoved them right into my mouth and chewed happily away.
cubfann
jack fann
luke fann
