Pre-holiday fun

I'm really enjoying the lead-up to Grant's second Christmas. It's already a lot of fun, and I can't wait to see how Christmas morning turns out.

He loves walking on our street to look at the "Chrissmee Lights" on the houses. He didn't seem too surprised when we put a tree in the living room, and was even happier when we put chrissmee lights on that, too. He loves the "ormanints" and likes to point to one from time to time and ask to hold it. None of them are very breakable, so it's nice to let him examine them closely.

"Santa" is still a concept he doesn't get (I think he's still a little too young). I have a little wooden sleigh that I put under the tree just for looks while there aren't any presents under there. I tried to tell him it was Santa's sleigh, but he disagreed and said it was his "lawnmower" instead. He likes to dump out the decorative stuff I put in it and push it around the living room like a lawn mower.

He often talks in sentences now, and it amazes me constantly. Earlier this week he told me that "water is dropping down" in the sink, and that "it's too cold outside!" He can tell you all about what he did earlier in the day, and what he's doing next. He is starting to ask questions a lot too, which I'm sure is going to accelerate alarmingly in the near future.

After keeping him almost completely TV-free for his first 20 months or so, we have recently let him watch Toy Story. He absolutely loves it. This year many of his Christmas toys will be Toy-Story-related, and I'm ridiculously excited about seeing his reaction.

As always, he is so much fun to be around, and it just keeps getting better every day.

Daddy is sharing some jelly beans

Those curls just get me!

He looks so grown up, sitting in his car seat just "reading" his book.

My favorite guys in the world.

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Fall snapshots

Spending every possible moment outside in the lovely weather.

Lawnmower...and finally wearing warm clothes.

New technology is awesome. I now have my own iPad. Well, except when Grant takes it from me.

Becky came to Dallas for a visit, and we had a wonderful party!

Then Trisha and Cole came for a visit, and we had such a good time, just hanging out.

The Dallas Arboretum and all it's fall loveliness.

Tiny tiny punkins

Grant LOVES being outdoors. All the time.

Silly!

At the Science Place with Jecka (Jessica) playing with the best water-play-table ever!

Chillin with R2 at the Halloween festival

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Talking

Oh my goodness, what a chatterbox we have. He talks A LOT. He sings songs now too, but only the words he really likes, and skips the rest. This is a short post, so I can just make note of some of the most adorable things before they leak out of my brain.

Notice his words are in all caps, because that's how much enthusiasm he has for talking.

My garden flip-flops = "MOMMY PLIP OPS"
Outside = "EYE-TIDE!"
The little nail-hole in the wall = "TINY TINY HO"
Anytime he sees the iPad = "IPADIPADIPADIPADIPAD!!!!!" (he LOVES it)
Daddy's playstation controller = "CAH-LODO"
Shampoo = "HAM-POO"
Vacuum = "NACK-NOOM" (which is also inexplicably loves)

Of course he's saying a ton more words then these, but his pronunciation is astoundingly good for almost everything, so I'm trying to cherish the adorable baby-talk while I can.

When he sings happy birthday = "HAPPY TO YOU!"
Itsy Bitsy Spider = "EEE BEE PIE-DOH"
ABCs = "A B C C C ... H!... Q R S ...Y Z!"

Best of all, he says "I love you" and its the sweetest thing I've ever heard.

And when you ask him to smile for the camera, you get this:

Ha!
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September Swing

Just when we thought the unbearable heat and endless drought would never end, September arrived to save us!

The older kids started 6th grade (!!!) and are loving it. Sarah is in band this year, playing trumpet. So far she seems to like it, though she hasn't been eager to play for us yet.

Grant enjoyed the Open House night at the school, especially the lockers.



Much to our dismay, Sunny (who has been Grant's nanny since he was 2 months old) decided to go back to school, and Grant misses her a lot.

We have had a couple of "cool" weather breaks, finally! It's so nice to be able to get outside and play more. Also, I am happy to put long pants on Grant since he seems to scrape his knees EVERY TIME we go outside.

We've been spending more time at our favorite park, and Grant really likes all the leaves that are falling.



I guess I need to get used to the tidal wave of "activities" that comes with every September, because it is bound to get even busier as the years progress. Our part of Dallas has a large and very active local early-childhood PTA group that I've joined. They had a kick-off party a couple of weekends ago, and it was packed with families and kids close to Grant's age. He loved the fire truck, of course. I'm hoping we will get know some of the kids he will go to school with in a couple of years.



Our new nanny is Jessica. She and Grant have a lot of fun. He's old enough now to enjoy things like "Story Time" at the library so Jessica took him to one yesterday. He loved the story and singing, but then discovered that there was: A COMPUTER. THAT HE COULD PLAY WITH. OMG. So he was beyond thrilled with that visit. My sweet little nerd.

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My Precious Little Nerd

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Food and Words

The two most-loved activities at our house right now are eating and talking. Sometimes at the same time.

His fierce pursuit of independence has made meals messier and more time-consuming, but overall great fun. Behold: he eats yogurt without any help whatsoever, thankyouverymuch:

He is randomly and inexplicably either eating or rejecting certain foods, only to change his mind the next day, or later in the same day, or even later in the same meal.

He has become determined to do things by himself whenever possible, or at least help. We got him a "learning tower" which is this awesome platform with rails that lets him stand at the counter or sink and participate in everything from preparing meals to washing dishes. He LOVES it. In fact, several mornings now he won't even consider eating banana slices that he didn't slice himself. If he gets to slice it, he'll eat it. Otherwise, no way.

He is starting to string words together, like "hot toast" and "music on" and once he even had a little conversation with himself in which he asked himself if he could have more goldfish crackers ("bish") and then agreed to it: "Oh no! Ah-gon Bish! More Bish? Oh-KAY, more bish!"

We have once or twice glimpsed the beginning of the tantrum era, when he goes all limp and flops down on the floor saying NOOOONONONOOOOO, but at the moment he seems to get over it pretty quickly. In general, he is a bundle of energy and humor and fun.

(Ignore that horrid stain on the carpet, we're planning to buy a steam cleaner in the near future.)
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The comedian

Grant's sense of humor has been growing along with the rest of him. He loves making us laugh, and he likes verbal jokes as well as slapstick ones.

While eating toast at breakfast recently, he was holding a magnetic letter "F" from the refrigerator. We practiced making the F sound, and I said "F is for..." and he said "fffffffftoast!" and started giggling.
Sometimes when I ask him if he wants more of something (strawberries or whatever) he will lean forward in his chair and whisper very quietly "yes!...no!...yes!...no!" and laugh at his little joke. He thinks burps are hilarious (what is it with boys?) and lately he learned how to say "FUNNY!"

He also has a sense of the dramatic. A couple of days ago he flipped a wooden puzzle over to drop all the pieces, several of which landed on his feet. Apparently it didn't hurt enough to make him cry, but he put on his very best sad face, lifted his foot up towards me and said "OH NO! TOES BONK!"

Just in the last few days, he has decided that he is done with letting anyone help him with meals. At first he just didn't want us to break things into pieces, like crackers. He wanted them WHOLE. For quite a long time now he has enjoyed using a fork sometimes, but he didn't really care a whole lot. Now he loves using a fork, even for toast. Then one day I was giving him pasta for lunch and when I tried to feed him a bit he would say "NOOOO!" So I said, ok, you don't want pasta? When I put the pasta aside he frowned and said "PAAAASTAAAAA!" Finally I realized he just didn't want me to hold the spoon. Or even touch the spoon, or help him make the scooping motion with his hand. That lunch took a long time. :) Two days ago the same thing happened with yogurt. This means considerably more laundry, since he refuses to wear a bib anymore.

His interest in music is undiminished. In fact, he often requests "GAGA" (yes, Lady Gaga) to be played on the ipod. He starts dancing anytime he hears music. When he wakes up in the morning, most of the time he stands up in his crib when I come in to get him, points at his music player and says "MYOOO-ICK!"

I feel so lucky to have this joyful little person to say hello to every morning.
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