A cape, flowers, jello, and a few other things

Life keeps flying by at our house. So does Andrew. Super Andrew, actually.

This fun cape was actually Aubrey's, but it is Andrew's good fortune to have the same initial as his older sister, and also the claiming rights of a two year old (ie, if I touch it, it's mine, if I look at it, it's mine, and most importantly, if it's yours, it's mine). Andrew likes this cape, as you can see. I used to have a She-ra cape back in the day that I would run around the house in, and now, I have a kid who runs around the house in a super hero cape. Weird how time flies like that.

It's a good thing he's so endearing. The marker on the arms and pooping in the tub (which you can read about down below) notwithstanding. But there are a few cute things that Andrew is currently doing and saying that I wanted to record. His language is really coming along and I think that makes him cuter.

• He always says, "thank you, mama" when I do something for him "tank you mama, tank you"
• Last week when we were at the park, he searched all the grassy area for dandelions, and brought me as many as he could find. "here go, mama" "wowers"
• I have several scratches on my hands, and Andrew daily finds them and kisses them all better.
• The way he says I Love You is, "I Yaub You"
• I was leaving for a meeting the other night and Andrew burst into tears because he didn't want me to go. "Mom! Home!" he kept repeating through his tears. He really wanted me to stay home with him.
• A lot of the time he hears when the shower turn off, and he comes in and hands me my towel, "All done, here go" he says to me. Or else he says, "finished" which sounds like "pinish"
• He is adamant about throwing away his own diapers. If I don't let him, he throws a fit. "Ro-Way" is throw away. And Hep-ing is helping. He loves helping, whatever it is. And if I let him help, he says, "tank you mama"
• He says, "I'n coming, I'n coming" or " 'Mon" if he wants me to come or he wants to come
• Whenever we are leaving, he says, "shoes! shoes!" and finds mine and brings them to me, and doesn't like to go without his on.
• He recently said, "cool!" after Aubrey said it, when they saw the carnival outside our subdivision. First time ever to say that.
• The way he answers yes is really funny, with a lot of intonation. Unfortunately, he says, "mine" and "mine's" and "don't" and "no" with a lot of inflection also.
• He loves The Very Hungry Caterpillar and can fill in the blanks for me when I'm reading. My favorite is when I say, "... but he was still..." and Andrew shouts out, "hungry!" And at the end, he always say, "Ee-end" and immediately, "more!"

So that's Super Andrew for you.

In other news, we got this bird feeder for our front planter. "Bird" is a word Andrew knows and can say quite clearly. We got this so we can see birds a lot out of our window. Unfortunately, birds are scared of loud noises and thus don't stay very long at the bird feeder, since when either one of my children see a bird, in their excitement, they are loud. But we have seen the birds, so that is fun. We are going to check out a book at the library about birds so we can identify which ones we see.


Next, Andrew isn't the only one giving me flowers. Chad is awesome like that too. He gave me these pretty Spring flowers for no reason other than he just loves me. It's not uncommon for him to do that. Way to stay in my good graces, Chad.

April Fool's Day was fun. I actually was sick and so I made only feeble attempts at trickery. The only hijinks I prepared was Kool-Aid. Which acually wasn't kool aid at all, but jello, so that when they tried to drink it, it wouldn't come out. Kind of lame. It was met with, "I was wondering why there was jello in cups in the fridge" from Chad, and "That's not juice, that's jello!" from Aubrey. She did try to suck it up through the straw though. Oh well, I was sick and I'll do better next year.

Next, I can't say cleaning my house is a strong point for me. I try really hard to keep it clean despite the fact that, 1., I don't love a lot of cleaning tasks... I like some, but not all of them and 2., between playing with my kids and cleaning the house, I usually pick playing with my kids. But Tuesday this week I got a lot done. Because I had to. I cleaned the microwave because I cooked something in there that exploded all over the place, I cleaned the kitchen floor because I dumped half my lunch all over it, and I cleaned the tub that night because Super Andrew pooped in it. (Just as a sidenote, I hate it when they poop in the tub!!! You have to get them out, clean the tub, disinfect the bath toys, then fill it back up and clean the kid. Definitely not the way to go). So hey, those areas of my house are sparkling clean, at least for a minute or two before something else happens. Whatever works, right?

This is a sight I always love to see. It is a very very common sight at our house too. The sight of an upturned book. At any given time we might have even three or four or these scattered around various places in our house... the couch, Aubs' room, the kitchen counter, wherever. When I took this picture, I scouted out another upturned book in Aubrey's hallway. Normally, I mind clutter, but most of the time, with books, I don't. To me, that is the sign of reading, a happy sight indeed. (And maybe also the sign that we need a few bookmarks).

This related topic is, that Aubrey's never afraid to try something new with language. She reads a lot, has a grasp on a lot of different words and sayings, but she is famous for botching figures of speech, as evidenced here:

To me, about Andrew: "I didn't do anything to petrify him" (I don't know what she was going for here... pester instead of petrify?)

To Andrew: "You're annoying my nerves!" or "you're annoying my nerds"

So that's what we're up to. Thanks for reading. I hope I didn't do or say anything to petrify you, or annoy your nerves.