Put up Christmas, Mommy!

Over the weekend, Christopher noticed the lights, wreaths, and large inflatable lawn ornaments going up around town.  On Sunday morning, when he came downstairs to find a room filled with large boxes, he excitedly said, “Put up Christmas, Mommy!”  Later, when we did get around to “putting up Christmas”, he asked “why?” about every item I pulled out of the boxes and wore a Santa hat for the rest of the day.  (The best part was, he had no idea what it was, he just knew it had to do with Christmas.)  Please, no one tell this child that Christmas involves presents and cookies, or I might not make it through the next few weeks with my sanity! 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Will’s first Thanksgiving was lots of fun, although he didn’t eat anything different other than a few bites of mashed potatoes that I tried to get him to swallow. Mommy’s aunt Marilyn, Uncle Mike, cousin Katie, and Katie’s college roommate, Rachel, drove down from Michigan to join us for Thanksgiving. We had a great time playing, reading books, and going to the park on an unseasonably warm day. Here’s Will in his Thanksgiving bib and Christopher wearing his turkey hat he made at mother’s day out:

Christopher has picked up the skill of carrying on a one-sided conversation with his non-verbal baby brother, and it is so fun to watch. Here’s the exchange from one recent morning when we went in to get Will out of his crib:

Christopher: Well, good morning, Will! How are you doing today?

Will pushes up, sees his brother, and grins.

C: What are you doing? Are you playing with that? (referring to the toy piano that hangs in his crib)

W: giggles

C: You are? It has notes on it. Can you say, “notes”?

W: giggles

C: Good job, Will!

On Sunday, we figured out that Will doesn’t like anyone else feeding him if Mommy is in the house. I said that Will was a stinker, and Christopher said, “He’s a stinker?? Does he have poop in his pants?”

As reported by Miss Katie, Christopher’s teacher at mother’s day out: Christopher was the last kid eating lunch, and one of the other boys was trying to get him to come play. Christopher said, “Could you please leave me alone for a minute? I’m trying to finish my lunch.”

The theme in our house lately has been sharing. We talk about it and read about it all the time, since it is getting more difficult as Will gets older. The other day, Christopher was looking at a cartoon character on a cereal box and asking me what his name was. I told him, and he thought about it for a minute, and then asked, “Does he share?”

Will has recently started actually playing with toys, not just putting them in his mouth. His favorite toys are any two things that he can bang together to make noise. He especially loves playing the xylophone and the drum!

On being letters, numbers and beloved relatives

The boys and Mommy got back this week from another trip to Arkansas. The drive seems to get a little easier each time, and we had a great time while we were there. Aunt Amanda and Uncle Brian were visiting, in addition to all our regular Arkansas loved ones. I realized while we were there that Christopher uses “Arkansas” to refer to Grandma and Grandpa’s house. He doesn’t get that Nana and Granddad’s house, as well as a lot of other land, is Arkansas, too. All the way home, Christopher kept saying, “I don’t want to go home! I want to go to Arkansas! I want to go to Nana and Granddad’s house!” I would feel so sad and guilty if I didn’t know we’d be living there in just 9 months! (Oh, more like 8 1/2!!!)

Since we’ve been home, Christopher has been pretending that we are various relatives, even those we didn’t see on this trip. Today, Christopher spent the morning as Uncle Brian, while I was Aunt Amanda and Will was Uncle Jamie. But you three better not feel too special–we also spent some time being the numbers 1, 2 and 4 (pronounced “foh-ah”). There is no limit to that 2-year-old imagination!

This evening, Will was especially verbal. Listening to his babbling and screeching, Christopher said, “Is he being the ‘I’? The ‘I’ says ‘ih’!”

One grown-up-like comment that I’ve heard out of Christopher a few times lately, when he’s looking at something unusual: “Well, I have never seen that before!” It is just hilarous coming out of his mouth. And while he is learning to respond to compliments with a “thank you,” sometimes he doesn’t quite get it right. In Arkansas, when he did something that impressed Grandma, she said, “That’s amazing.” Christopher replied, “Yes, it is amazing!” Such humility.

And we’ve had our first declaration of what Christopher wants to be when he grows up. We went to the bank the other day, so we were talking about how Daddy goes to work to make money. Christopher wanted to go to work, too, so I told him that he will go to work when he’s a daddy. (Mommy and Daddy hope so, anyway!) I asked him what he wants to do at work when he’s a daddy, and he thought about it for just a moment: “I am going to work on the roof! Can I say ‘bam, bam, bam’?” He loves to imitate the roofers that recently worked on our house–the idea of extremely loud hammering is a little boy’s dream come true!

Happy Halloween!

Christopher is officially Halloween’s biggest fan.  He’s been thrilled for weeks about being a pumpkin, and the excitement has been mounting as everywhere we go, people ask him what he is going to be for Halloween.  His response:  “I’m going to be a pumpkin!  And Will’s going to be a pumpkin, too!”  All this enthusiasm, and he didn’t even know about trick-or-treating until this morning!  I made the mistake of explaining it to him first thing this morning, so all day long I heard, “Is it time to go ticker-teeting now?”

We went to the Children’s Museum this morning, because it had been awhile since we’d been, and because it was a place where Christopher could wear the costume he is so infatuated with.  At one point, he saw an older kid with one of those black and white masks from the Scream movies.  The mask was pushed up on top of his head while he played, and Christopher went over to see what it was.  He screamed, “I’m scared!” and ran right for me, hiding his face in my shoulder and crying.  The kid’s mother grabbed the mask, and we finally got Christopher to look again and see that it was just a kid who had been wearing a costume.  Christopher talked about it all day, saying, “It’s not scary.  It’s just a kid.  He was wearing a costume.  But he took it off.”

Finally, after an early dinner, the time had arrived–time to “ticker-teet”!  Christopher and Will excitedly put on their pumpkin costumes, and I loaded them in the stroller.  (Poor Daddy is on call tonight, so he missed it.)  Christopher had a blast saying ticker-teet, getting his candy, and politely saying thank you.  As we walked away from some of the houses, he would say, “That was nice.  They gave me ticker-teets.”

Will looked so adorable in his pumpkin outfit, too!  He had a great 9-month check-up yesterday.  He is almost 22 pounds and 29 inches long, at just the right spot on the growth curve.  It is hard to imagine that next year, he’ll be running down the sidewalk with Christopher to go trick-or-treating.  We’re looking forward at trick-or-treating at Grandma and Grandpa’s, Nana and Granddad’s, and Aunt Laura and Uncle Garland’s houses next year!!