From the Mouths of (Our) Babes

Avery's honing his skills for use in about 10 years by helping Sarah Dry feed little baby Jacob here the other evening. Avery also got to practice with Baby Ella, not in the photo, last night at our lovely & delicious dinner club evening. He exclaimed, "She smells like a flower!" AND tried to give her 'love bites' all evening, explaining that he had to stop "soon" because, he said, "I have save some for my mama."

Avery just came over to tell me there is some 'confusion and delay' and he can't get ready to go to Sashee's yet. Where did he...???????? ANYWAY, he's also been making up awesome words lately. Some are not as easy to figure out, so he offers a definition. Here are there: unbuilding= when we see a building that is being knocked down, Avery will say they are unbuilding it. supressed= when we saw something that both surprised and impressed Avery, he said he was "very surpressed." dedactive=this was a tricky one. He said something about how I was a more dedactive reader than Walker, which meant that I read more books to him before bed time.

Good thing it was not duct tape. I guess that phase is in junior high...

Walker left Avery with a clogged up sink and a tiny plunger this evening, as he had to run downstairs to the basement for some sort of unclogging tool. When he arrived back to the bathroom, Avery had actually unclogged the sink already...really. He just kept working away at the plunger. We hadn't been able to unclog it for two days---and Avery made it work. We have a little plumber in our midst!

Walker just broke a little mug this morning. Avery ran downstairs to check things out, and exclaimed, "Don't worry, daddy. It's ok. Mother Nature made you do that."

Avery's into building "caves" lately---and this one was just perfect for the rainy day at Sashee's.

This morning, Avery said, "Mommy, I like our new tablecloth. I like your new dress, too. I like everything about you." Then, just now, he said, "Mommy, you make a good macaroni. You are practicing. I am giving you points. You got a lot of points for your macaroni." Then, he said, "Daddy, you pick your nose like me. Don't you, daddy? You pick your nose like I pick my nose. Mommy doesn't pick her nose, right?" Walker replied, "You should watch mommy to learn how to behave. It's a bad habit." To which, Avery replied, "Mommy, are you teaching daddy how to behave?" Then, I said I wanted a tinier computer, and Avery said, "Tiny, like me?" Oh, living with a three year old is constant entertainment.

Avery made this with Hopie today. He also created this load in his pick up.

Avery is doing fabulously with drop offs lately. Every day since last Friday, as we go up the steps to his new classroom, he always says to me, "I am going to do ok today, mommy. Don't worry. I won't cry." He brings at least one book to give to the teacher each day, and jumps right into the class, saying bye to me easily. Such an easier start to the morning! He was asking if his friend, Miles, would be in his class today. I told him that Miles would come up in the Fall. He said, "I will help all the little kids learn about the class. That's good for them. I can help the little kids." All of the sudden, he's the big kid!

Avery woke up today, and the first thing he asked me was, "Mommy, what do you like best about daddy's toys?" He had been dreaming about Daddy's toys, which are of course BIGGER and BETTER and VROOM faster than any of his toys.

Avery went to a concert at the Mann today. It was 104 degrees, and maybe 50 kids under age 5. And Walker joined. What a good dad. I just asked Avery to tell me about it, and he said, "Bump Bump. Bump. Bump. Bump. It was drums. That's why I said bump bump bump. There was people and some drums started and some ladies come. Some ladies come with a big costume. Those ladies were big. You have to really practice to get into those costumes. Those are special costumes." General feeling was that it was a nice diversion, a REALLY hot day, and all the kids wilted on the way home. Avery fell asleep on the bus, and didn't even have any lunch first. We are all very, very tired on this HOT August day.

Avery said to me yesterday, "Mama...I wanna take you with me...yum yum." It's funny how context changes things.

We got a DVD from the library called Bear and the Big Blue House (or something like that). One of the story lines is all about potty training. Hey, I mean, we are not going to PUSH, but a DVD is ok... Avery's been obsessed with the DVD, though this hasn't, unfortunately, translated into any actual successful use of the potty (there have been some tries, though, so that's a step). That said, this morning, he was just playing with his trains in the living room and singing a song. I stopped to listen, and here it was, "Ha, put your tushy to it. Ha, put your tushy to it. Yes, you know you can do it. Yes, you know you can do it." I know this is going to be in my head all day. HA, put your tushy to it...

We have this zebra rug that Sally and Tom gave us. They had received it for their wedding, and we wonder if it's even legal today. BUT, it's cool, and that's totally beside the point. SOOOOO, we were reading stories, and Walker told Avery he was standing on the zebra rug. Avery corrected, and said, "That's funny! It's not a zebra RUG. A zebra GAVE us this rug. He gave us his whole body for the rug."

Avery had a fabulous time sleeping at Hopie's last night, and we got to go out on a real date (Mercato! Bottle of wine! Yum!). Apparently, Hopie let him pick the sound on the sound machine he wanted to go to sleep to. He chose water. He slept from 9:30pm to 9am, which I don't think has ever happened. Of course, that means he's napping now, but take the good with the bad. He also had a grand time, and did all sorts of art projects that involved the use of popsicle sticks and tape and toothpicks---only Hopie! AND, I am sure it's a combination of things, but I think we need a new sound machine. I like the one we have now, a white noise maker, but it's very old --- I think that choosing sounds to sleep to could be a fun part of the evening routine. We also visited the Junior League Thrift Shop in Ardmore and got all sorts of new inexpensive treats-clothes, books and a digger truck. Lovely weekend!

Out of curiosity, I just asked Avery if he knew what McDonald's was. He said, "Yes, mommy. Old McDonald's! It's a farm."