2/11/09 Tidbit

Alex loves dogs. And he calls them "dobbies". I think he used to say "dog" but Dan was getting him to say Dobby, like in Harry Potter, and I guess Bug just liked how that sounded better. So, all pups are now dobbies.

Story for the day 2/10

So did you know that the main character in Madagascar is a lion named Alex? Yes it's great! Now when I say "Alex do you want to watch a movie?" he roars. I say, Alex let's play with this puzzle! ROAR!!! (sometimes we even get the claw shaped hand motion). Yet when we see pictures of him (which of course are everywhere) he says in his sweet little man voice "Aleth!".

So... ROAR!!! Have a great day =)

We're back!

So it's been a while, 6 months to be exact, but we're BACK! I've been working on uploading some photos, which is really taking a long time, so I'll slowly post them as I get them on here.

Before we get to the pics, here are a couple of recent tidbits about our little Bug. He's turning into a real chatterbox and will just go on and on and on about things. Occasionally you can pick out a word or two, but it's just so fun to hear him jabber away and we love it!

We're working on colors, his name and counting to 5. Here is how some of those conversations go:

M: What color is this?
B: Gween!
M: That's right! What about this one?
B: Gween!
M: Almost! It's BLUE.
B: Bwu.
M: Yes! Blue. And this one?
B: Bwu.
M: Yes! What about this one?
B: Gween!
M: Close, it is RED.
B: Wed.
M: Yes! Red. How about this one?
B: GWEEN!
(I think we really like Gween.)

M: What is your name? It's ALEX! A -L - E - X Alex!
B: Aleth!
M: A...
B: l - e - exth! Aleh!
(I don't know that he really knows what he's saying, but it's a start!)

M: Let's count! One
B: tooooo, treee, fiiiiieeee! Yay!!! (now when he says Yay! he pumps both fists in the air champion style) (he also holds one finger up while counting and loves to hold one finger up and say TOOOOOOO!!!!)

Last story, we've been watching a little Indiana Jones, Bug has sophisticated taste in movies. So now we sing the song. I start, Doo Doo Doot DOO, and he follows, doot doot doot. =)

Next post... pictures!

Pictures at last

October 08 at May Farms visiting the pumpkin patch. Here we have conquered the straw bale maze and found all of the animals. My little explorer!!



Daddy and Bug during a rite of passage - the dunking of Oreos.

September 08 at Cherry Creek Res. Bug LOVES the water and could hardly believe that he could actually go into this giant puddle to play. Woo!!!

At cousin Kyle's soccer game in September. Bug is all decked out in his authentic England soccer garb. The "knee socks" went all the way up to his diaper! Thanks for the outfit Gillian and Bryan!

Bug loving on his Poppa John in August. Those two are peas in a pod.

September at GG and Poppa John's. Bug sure loves his GG - and the camera!

September 08 at the aquarium. Bug loves "pisses" as he calls fish.

Three of Mama's favorites. Bug, Daddy and Fisher's Peak!

Our Halloween costume. Puff the Magic Dragon!

Doing yard work with Daddy this last summer.

But wait - there's more!!

Yes, yes it's TRUE! Two new blogs in TWO DAYS!!! Count them... One, two! Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha! (Yes, we've been watching a little Sesame Street in our house lately... LOVE the Sprout channel!)

So Bug has learned some new skills recently that I just have to share with everyone. First is he's learning to point to parts of his body or pictures of things when you ask him. He's awesome about point to his "nose" and picking up his feet when you say "foot" (which is really cute because sometimes he loses his balance and topples over!). He also knows that the hat goes on his "head" and we're working on "eye" and "ear" and "belly". He also pats his side for "diaper" or "stinky poopie". I'm so proud. :-) He will point to dogs, kitties and balls when he sees their pictures, and is learning to point to "Dada", "Mama", "Tucker" and "Alex" when asked. SO CLEVER!!

Another very recent skill is that he will put his clothes into his hamper when we are changing! So jam-jams go into the hamper in the morning, and socks (one at a time of course) and clothes go in before bath. I never really showed him, just one morning I handed him his jammies and said, "Alex, can you put your jam-jams in the hamper?" and pointed and away he went!!! I was so thrilled I clapped and cheered and hugged and kissed him. Now every time he does it he'll put something in and then turn and look at you and if you don't clap for him he gets a stern look on his face and claps to encourage you. Well of course then I clap like mad for dear Bug and he just beams! He will also put something in and if there is more than one piece he sometimes rushes to get it and doesn't quite get the first one all the way in. So he'll start to walk away, then turn and look and he has to go back to put the first piece ALL the way into the hamper. I honestly don't know where this child would have learned perfectionist anal tendencies... do you?

So here we go, some more pictures. A bit random in their subject, but well worth it!

First, a few from the zoo... we didn't take very many, but we sure had fun! Grandma Mary bought us all ice cream treats and WOW was that pink flamingo thingy awesome! Vanilla soft serve swirled with cherry icee... YUM. Alex was quite taken with it... until he got brain freeze from eating too quickly! Luckily a sip of water cured that and he dove right back in. Also do you see the peacock. Do you SEE IT? How CLOSE it is? Yes, pretty bird but dang those things are aggressive. We watched this particular jeweled terror snatch a cracker right out of a little girl's hand. Yeah, I wasn't too keen to linger around there much longer. I mean it's just a short hop from cracker to BUG TOES right?

Bug was also really interested in the elephants. We have some in his room with the safari theme, but seeing them in real life like that really captured his interest. So I've been doing the sign for elephant (using your arm to show how the trunk would go from your nose) and now he sorta does that sign and says "mmrrruuuu" whenever he sees an elephant. It's great!

Here are a couple pictures of our little eater. I believe one is bbq chicken, veggies and noodles with a side of Grandma Mary's famous frog eye salad for dessert. And then of course the first introduction to chocolate pudding. I think a picture is worth a thousand words on this one. I will take a second to point out that Alex is very good with a spoon and a fork. In fact he feeds himself a bowl of Cheerios and milk every morning with very minimal mess. However, the spoon was just not efficient enough for the pudding...

And lastly, the ever popular naked bath photos. I love bath time with Alex. He just loves to play and blow bubbles and "swim" and splash. He does try quite frequently to drink the bath water, so I had to take away all of the container toys for a bit, but I recently gave them back to him and now he just fills them up and dumps them all over his head. Yes, some still gets into his mouth when he gasps from the rush of water over his face, but not nearly as much as when he drank the shaving cap full. I'll take what I can get.

Alex has curly hair. Who would have guessed? Really curly hair. Especially when it's wet. But even dry it's beautiful and wavy the longer it gets. He is also really good about letting me brush his teeth, and really likes to "brush" his own. Here is is blowing bubbles for you, too.

Here is Bug after his most recent haircut. We love Julie!!!

Update from May and June 08

SURPRISE!!

Yes, yes... I know there are many of you that are rubbing your eyes right now... is it true? Is this really a blog update? Am I dreaming? Should I buy a lottery ticket? (The answer to this last one is YES and if you win you must share the karma....) But yes - Here it is!!! Mostly just a lot of pictures of dear Bug, with stories here and there.

We've had a great spring/summer so far, taking trips to the zoo, the Children's Museum, Trinidad, the park and the swimming pool so far. We hope to be able to do all of that again and explore even more places.

Alex has been doing so great - he's really trying to talk and gibbers a LOT. He's getting very good about repeating "words" and we can get him to say a lot of things at least once. Duck is a pretty new word, and the usuals... dog, ball, book, Dada, Mama, hat, bubbles.... But he is doing the signs for a ton of words. He points to the sky when he hears an airplane, he makes a "beak" when we say bird, taps his head for hat, does bath and sleep every night for bed, shows us he wants to eat or drink, shows us milk, is starting to do the "I love you" hug sign... gosh there are so many! He's still a fantastic eater. New favorites are plums, chicken nuggets, bananas and cottage cheese with yogurt just like Mama and Dada eat.

One funny story and then on to the photos. I've always sung to Alex a lot... made up songs, silly songs, lullabies, "The Ants Go Marching" often enough to populate the entire Amazon rain forest with ants, "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" en espanol, you name it, I can sing it! Now, luckily Alex is my biggest fan and thinks I have the most amazing voice in the world. Or so I thought. One recent morning on the way to daycare I was showering him with my rendition of Old McDonald when I turned to see how he was doing. He had his head turned and buried in the corner of the car seat with his face smooshed against the side and his finger in his ear. WELL! I'm sure it wasn't my singing... right? =)

Without further ado... I present - BUG.

Memorial Day in Trinidad:

Alex helped water Grandma Mary's flowers, and helped Papa John hang some cool lights for the bbq party! He also got to sample the piano at Nan's that will soon be living in our house. Hooray!

Children's Museum

Oh my gosh, we ALL had so much fun at the museum. Alex cracked up when Dan used the frog hand puppet. He had a blast with the Lincoln logs and exploring the little forest area. He was in and out of every little house they had, and of course loved the kitchen area, just like at home. He always has a bowl and a spoon nearby and loves to "cook" things with Mama.

Helping out in the Yard:

We've been doing a lot of work in the back yard this summer and Bug has loved helping. He knows though that if we're going to be outside he needs a hat, and will tap his head or yours and say "hat" when you start to head out the door if you've forgotten to put one on him or yourself!

A "Sign" of things to come!

Well it's official - we have words! We've thought that Bug has been trying to tell us things for a while now, but we just couldn't quite understand his particular take on English. He's been very good about using the signs he knows and he's really starting to pick up more and use them correctly!

So last Saturday (the day before Mother's Day) little Bug was kind of wandering around looking like he needed a distraction. So I said, "Alex, go get a book and I'll read it to you!". He looks up at me, does the sign for book (hands together and then opening them like a book) and says "Buhk?" "YES! That's right! Book!" "Buhk? Buhk? Buhk?" saying it and doing the sign. He got so excited! He then picked one of his favorite books, handed it to me in that adorable way toddlers do - standing as far as possible while still leaning towards you - then he turned around and backed up across the 2 feet separating us until he felt my lap bump his legs and sat gingerly and expectantly on my lap for me to begin reading. Hooray Bug! Since then we've had "ball" (bah) and "bubbles" (bububs). All of these he's said a number of times so we're sure that they're the real deal! Notice the "B" theme? He doesn't say "dog" so much as we thought he would, but he uses the sign for it all the time (patting your leg).

Other fun sounds are him giggling which we adore, and anytime he sees a cat or a picture of a cat he says "maaaoowww". SO CUTE! He also puts his hands to his mouth when he does this, which is almost how the sign for cat is (using your fingers to draw whiskers from your mouth). So I'm 99% sure that's what he's doing!