02 August 2011

Ga-bee!

We still have no idea why, but he consistently refers to jumping as "Ga-bee". He'll say things like, "Mommy, ga-bee stars?" which of course means he wants me to jump to the stars (which I can do in his eyes). Or often it is, "More ga-bee, peeeease". This is most often heard in the context of the bedtime routine when he likes to tell us the order that things will happen. We'll say to him, "Okay buddy, time for bed" and he'll respond with "Rory ride horse, read book, then night-night" Its very funny. He sort of bargains now only he doesn't always get that some things are not an option. Sometimes its "Rory outside, then night-night".

But, back to his amazing Ga-bee tricks, and in the interest of showing off his coordination, I've thrown in a video of him jumping off 2 feet. He LOVES to jump.




He also LOVES to skip and he LOVES to walk in his "tippy-toes". His new favorite game is to run around his room naked after a bath on his tip-toes and says "tippy, tippy, tippy, tippy" then eventually falls on the ground and says "crash!". And lately he's been skipping every where he goes. He only skips with 1 foot forward instead of alternating, so the overall effect is a nearly perfect imitation of the knights in Monty Python's Holy Grail when they travel around "on horse" by skipping with 1 foot forward and clapping together coconut shells to create the clop sound. All he needs is a coconut and he'd be movie ready.

The Cat in the Hat

Rory's new favorite book is the Cat in the Hat. He loves, loves, loves the part where everything crashes and the Cat makes a big mess. He gets excited for pages before it happens (see video).



Last night, we were reading the book and somewhere in the first few pages he started running his finger over the words and making sounds as if he were doing the reading (and clearly not paying any attention to my voice, who was actually doing the reading). Then he randomly stopped on a word and said "Cat" very emphatically. So, I thought, perhaps he is trying to figure out which word is "cat". I showed him "cat" and then I showed him "hat" on the page and we spelled out each word. Then I flipped the book to the front cover and showed him again with the big letters on the front. Then I continued reading along without thinking much more about it. Several pages and several minutes later, near the end of the book, he looked at the page we were on, looked over all the words (and there were a lot on this particular page) and he pointed right to "Cat" and said "Cat!". I was SO impressed as you might imagine, so I prompted him for more and said "Can you find 'hat'?" He did his typical thinking sound with his finger running over the page "Hmmmmmmmmm". Then, boy genius that he is, he pointed right to "Hat" in a whole different part of the page from the first "Cat in the Hat" that he had pointed out and said "Hat!". I was so excited that we high fived and then he said "Alright Rory!" because he loves to cheer for himself. Its very cute. So, although I won't be so bold as to call it reading just yet, our smart little guy is actually recognizing words and putting together the concept of letters having meaning beyond just a design on the paper. We couldn't be more proud. :) Of course, the crashing part of the book was still way more exciting to him than the finding "cat" and "hat" on the page...as it should be. Who doesn't love a big crash and a big mess when you're almost 2?!

21 June 2011

Surprise!!!!

Rory's new favorite game is to hide around a corner and yell "surprise!!" when someone walks by. He's especially fond of the corner in our kitchen right next to the mudroom, you can get someone as they walk into the house. I've been getting a big kick out of his surprises and how excited he gets after he does a good one that I wanted to catch it on video. So, I set up the video camera (my phone) on the counter and started it while he was waiting for Bev to come back in from the garden. We had seen her walking back through the front windows, so I thought she would only be a few seconds. Well, it turns out she had a few other things to do before she came in the house, so Rory ended up sitting behind that wall for over a minute waiting for her. I'm continually fascinated by the patience this kid has sometimes. He really just stood there, excited for so long. I had run upstairs to get Bayla from her nap and by the time I got back downstairs I assumed she had already come in the house, but she hadn't. The video is hysterical because then we all went to the mudroom window to see where she was just as she was coming up the stairs. Places everyone, places! He just LOVES this game.



He's got so much more vocabulary now than he ever has that you can really have a full conversation with him if you can translate what he means. For some reason "water" is "Wa-ry" which sounds exactly like the way he says "Rory", so for that one you really need to have the context to know what he's talking about. He calls his monkey his "Ah-ah" because that's what they say "Ooh-ooh, ah-ah". What's awesome is when he wakes up in the morning he usually throws the monkey out of his bed and then starts yelling "Uh-oh my Ah-ah". Its cracks me up every time. He calls money "Nummie" and he scrunches his face up funny when he says it.

My new favorite is that he's gotten really good at knowing the difference between Mommy (me) and Mama B (Bev), but sometimes he gets so caught up in his thought that he forgets the "B" until the end. He'll say things like "That Mama coffee (pause)...B". Or the other way that cracks me up is when he leaves out the Mama and just calls her "B". Several times a day he will look at me and say "Where B?" with his hands in the air to ask the question. And occasionally when he's feeling a little selfish with me, if Bayla tries to come over to climb in my lap, he'll run over to us and say "Go baby, Mama B", meaning that he wants her to go sit with Bev instead of me. Luckily she LOVES Bev and usually complies happily. The new words and phrases are keeping us laughing every day. I can't believe how well he communicates these days. Good times. At least he's given up on the swearing for the time being.

03 June 2011

"Happy Mine!!"



What an amazing Memorial day weekend we had...Bev's family was in town. Auntie Lesley, Uncle Nic, cousin Cadam, Granny and Bev's good friend Amber all made the trip to Gorham, Maine for a little vacation. On Saturday several family and friends stopped by to visit. It was loads of fun and non-stop laughter all day and the kids had an absolute blast. That morning, when Rory woke up I said to him "Are you excited to have a party today?" and he immediately looked up at me with a huge smile and said "Happy?" (translated as...do you mean a happy birthday party, because that means cake and I love cake...). Then he started dancing around his room saying "Happy, happy". At some point in the day he decided that what would be better than it being a happy birthday party was if it was HIS happy birthday party, so he walked around the house the rest of the day yelling "Happy Mine, Happy Mine!!!" Every once in a while we got a "Happy Mama!!" but mostly it was "Happy Mine". Then, when it came time for dessert, he was not disappointed at all to find out that there was no cake once he realized that there was a banana pudding truffle dessert. He turned his "happy" into a noun and the dessert itself was dubbed "happy". He paraded around the party asking various people (whether he knew them or not) for "more happy?". How could anyone deny that kid a bite of their dessert when he asked so sweetly?! So, he had a bite of everyone's "happy" and was indeed a happy kid.

Now, he will randomly ask for either "happy" or "co-co" which is his other name for chocolate treats. The funniest part is that he knows that likely we're going to just laugh at him and say "no" but that occasionally he gets lucky and there really is some yummy dessert that he'll get a bite of, so he starts off asking very quietly, like a little whisper, with a very mischeivous look on his face..."I want co-co", almost as if he's trying to put subliminal thoughts into my head. Then when I say "no co-co!", he gets a little louder and says "co-co?" with a big smile and I say "no co-co...we're going to have breakfast", finally he flat out yells "CO-CO!!" and starts laughing because he knows its a joke at that point. Too funny. I can't imagine where he gets his love of chocolate. (ha, ha)

On Sunday of the weekend we got a nice visit from Mike, Lisa and Jack, so he had 2 of his cousins around to play with. And, he was very excited to watch his uncles Mike and Nic hoist a very heavy and very solid wooden big-boy bed up to his new room through a window. (Thanks guys!!) Not that he's quite ready to transition out of his crib, but at least now when he does, his room will be all set up for him. We even found an organic Curious George bedspread to complete his new room and some stars to put on the ceiling.

Other highlights from the weekend, we got to go to a town fair and ride the kiddie train, pet a giant turtle and slide down the biggest bouncy slide. We went to the beach for the first time this season and played with rocks and snails. The adults had a super fun bonfire on sunday night at Imani and Kate's house (while Granny stayed home with the sleeping babies). The whole weekend was full of some much needed relaxation, good food, drink and "HAPPY".











And you know, after a house full of guests all week, you'd think that we'd be a little relieved to have the place back to ourselves, but the reality is that we are just really sad to see everyone go. We are so lucky and thankful that we both have families who we truly enjoy spending time with. I wish everyone lived a little closer, but at least when we do get together, we manage to fit in months worth of love and fun into a weekend of family entertainment.

Below is a link to some photos from the weekend. Enjoy!
http://www1.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=4315691015/a=5398340_13507267/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/



27 May 2011

Some pre-haircut randoms

Here's a few photos I've been meaning to post and keep forgetting. Oops. :)

Testing out the new chairs that Granny got for the boys



Hmmm...do I like this one best?







Just a dude and his jeep (he made me ride in the back)



Wee (when he's done sliding he gets up and says "more Wee?" Its impossible to say no to that)



Hiiii Mommy!!



A guy on a bike rode by...that's what is so exciting.