Just Some Stuff

A few little stories...

Lots of mommies are very... cheesy(?)... overly sentimental (?)... I'm not sure what the right word is, but I'm not it. I always read on blogs or Facebook posts or hear in person things like, "Your messy house can wait; spend time with your kids now." "They grow up so fast; treasure every moment." Blah, blah, blah. Well the other day, Evan was playing in his room while I was folding and hanging his laundry. And by "playing", I mean opening his drawers and slamming them with all his might with his fingers just millimeters away from being broken off. In an effort to save his precious little fingers, I grabbed a bottle of bubbles I saw in the closet and blew a few to distract him. And then I put them away. And then he whined and whined and whined. It occurred to me that this was precisely the moment the mommies were talking about. I was supposed to forget about those unmatched socks and blow some bubbles with my kid. So, I did. And, those socks sat there for nearly a week. And no one died because of it. So now... maybe I'm cheesy mommy too? No, probably not because I didn't post on Facebook about it.

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I cannot even express how psyched I am that Evan has begun to understand and follow directions. So far, we have:

"Put ____ away." (Your books, blocks, pajamas...)
"Leave it here." (Pacifier in his bed, which is the only place he's allowed to have it.)
"Close it." (Drawers, doors, cabinets...)
"Give this to Dad or Laika."
"Get me your ____." (Shoes is the one he knows best.)
"Can I have that?" (This works surprisingly well for things that aren't his... like when he gets hold of the remote or my cell phone.) 

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He's starting to understand hugs and kisses. If you ask him for a hug, you better watch out. Apparently that means run full force at me and crash into me. It's fun and sweet if you know it's coming but maybe not so much if you don't. And a kiss? Wide open mouth directly at your mouth. *Ahem*... I'm a little curious who taught him to kiss that way!

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He loves music. We have a sing-along DVD that he listens to every night. If he's throwing a fit, I sing a little song and he mellows out. If he's in the car or in a store and he hears a good tune, he bops his head... or should I say a good ditty... 'bout Jack and Diane. Yeah, he was bopping like crazy to some John Cougar Mellencamp the other day in the craft store. I was laughing so hard people were looking at me like I was crazy-town. Of course, as soon as I got my phone out to get a video, he stopped.
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Maybe the most random of all-- he dips! It's such a strange thing for us to be so excited about but it's so cool. For some reason it makes me see him as a real person...because real people dip. I'm referring to his food. We put a little BBQ sauce on his plate with his chicken nuggets (David's homemade chicken nuggets-- he's such a Martha Stewart) to see if he'd dip it himself. Oh, yeah. He was all over the dipping. First his nuggets, then his sweet potato fries, then his fingers. The kid loves to dip!

Oh, these two...

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I found a fantastic idea online... Scan or take pictures of kids' art or other projects and make a photo book out of them yearly or as necessary. That's so much better than my mom's box upon box upon box method that she had when we were growing up. So, here are the first items for the book...

The end.

Or, as Evan says at the end of a story, bye bye!