The Men in My Life

This is one reason I love Chad...



Holding an entire lamp in his hands, minus the lampshade, and using the light to figure out the difference between the black socks and the blue ones. He's concentrating really hard, judging by the look on his face. His color blindness is sort of endearing, I have to admit. Here's a few other reasons he's so endearing:

At home, he will sometimes bust out dancing, no music required, giving new meaning to the phrase, dance like nobody's watching. Also, to help our children brush their teeth, he will sing a "Brush Your Teeth" song a la Pavarotti. Sometimes, he'll throw in a little dancing too. Stop by sometime at bedtime and you too can witness this. It's very inspirational to our children and their dental hygiene. Oh man, he makes me laugh so hard sometimes. I love that crazy guy.

Now, THIS crazy guy... whole other story.



This is a crazy guy that is driving ME crazy. At any given time, you might come to our house and see him missing all or part of his clothing, such as in the picture above. He is way into dressing himself these days, and often wants to wear the same shirt day after day after day. And at bedtime. And I confess, sometimes I let him. As long as they're clean. It's mostly the fire engine ones that he has. He is absolutely obsessed with fire engines. As far as his language has come, he still calls fire engines "bi-Indins" or my favorite, "wee-oo, wee-oos." And everytime we pass an emergency vehicle, be it a fire engine, police car, or actually any car with lights on top, he will say, "wee-oo wee-oo!" so excited. Ambulances, he calls, "owie ones".

He has developed a fun tendency to say to me or Chad, "mommy's cute!" I don't know where he learned it, but I love it! However, it's not so fun when he uses the other phrases he has learned, like, "It's mine!" and "it's me's!" and "I do it!" and then launches himself backward on his head in a tantrum when I don't let him do whatever it is he wants to do himself.

At bedtime, he is catching on to stall tactics quickly. The routine is, prayers, songs, and then we put him in his bed. He gets to pick the songs I sing to him, and mostly, he chooses, "God" (I am a child of God) and then "Ra-roo songs" which are Andrew songs... songs we know that use names (like the Mother's day songs in the children's songbook) that we substitute his name in. He also likes I am Like a Star and Popcorn Popping. I think he thinks I know a ton of songs, because sometimes, he'll just say a random word, like, "carpet" and expect me to sing a song about it. I do my best. But after songs, he has several requests as we lay him in bed and start to walk away... "need book." So we get a book. "need car." so we get him a car, most of the time, Lightning McQueen. "need 'nother one." so we get him another one, usually Mater. Most of the time, if we don't get him these two cars, he'll ask for them anyway, until we bring them. Then, it's, "need elmo." After a few nights of this, we decided we'd just put everything all at once into the crib and save ourselves the bazillion trips to track down what he needs.

So, as you can see, he is still obsessed with the Cars movie. He loves cars, especially Lightning and Mater. And it has caused him to love anything the color red. If he has a choice, he will choose to eat, wear or play with a red thing first. I guess it's because not only is Lightning red, but fire engines and Elmo are too. He has also gotten very interested in Toy Story and Toy Story 2, and now has added Woody and Buzz to his favorites list. As soon as he wakes up in the morning, he will ask to watch it, ("watch Doy Dory Doo!") I'm personally tired of the movie, but I remember Aubrey at this age loved Monsters, Inc. So hopefully this is just a phase.

One thing I think is so funny about him is, he calls elbows, Elmos. And we love to listen to Raffi in the car, and the song, Aiken Drum, where they sing, "he played upon a ladle" everytime, Andrew hears it, he says, "ladle!" like, "that's so silly" and then laughs and laughs. I'm pretty sure he doesn't know what a ladle is, but if it's anything like elmo for elbow, it's probably something really funny. I just don't know what yet. Also, climbing in the car, before he asks for Raffi, he asks to climb in through the back hatch. We let them do this once, long ago, and now, he wants to climb into his seat from the back everytime. So if you see me opening the trunk and shoving Andrew in, you'll know why. He asked.

Remember this post, the one about the budding garbageman? Well, Andrew's still been adamant about that being his job, and as a result, has gotten really good at making baskets. He can now toss his diaper overhand from a couple feet away and make it into the trash can. And if he doesn't he goes in for the rebound until he gets it. He's got pretty good aim most of the time. So, if the garbageman thing doesn't work out, he can maybe try for the Little People's league of the NBA. (Because I'm convinced he's not going to ever grow taller ever.) But he did make it into one of the Language Intervention preschools in the school district. He'll start when he turns three, and I'm so excited because I know it will help him so much. I really didn't think he'd make it in, or at the very most, had only a slim chance, but we prayed really hard that he could make it into one, I'm happy to report our prayers were answered. So I know it's the right thing for him right now. It goes through the whole school year, two days a week for two hours, and they really push the language hard so it's perfect. And he's so excited. He feels like a big boy that he gets to go to school like Aubrey.

So. This boy. Drives me crazy and I love him. He loves the family. He is a physical touch kind of boy, he loves tickling, piggy back rides, and especially hugging. Every night after family prayer, he will say, "Group hug!" (sounds like "hoo hug") with his arms open wide. He loves it! And he'll ask for it again and again till we're all smiling and laughing and happy. He's a good influence.

So therefore, in conclusion, I love the men in my life. Most of the time.