Wow

This morning I sat John in front of the laptop at the kitchen table and did a search for images of cars. John would pick one that he liked and then I clicked on a larger image of it. Here is a verbatim transcript of John's response:

"Ooooo"

"Ahhhhh"

etc.

Then I did the same thing with trucks and here is John's response:

"Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, etc."

"Car, car, car, car, car, car, etc."

He also said something like "dah-ter" over and over again, but I have no idea what that means.

He liked those images so much that I couldn't keep him in his seat: he kept on leaping toward the screen. (I think a poster of trucks that we saw might be in his future.)

ma MA

Just so that we don't forget: a couple of months ago John started to call out to Kristi (we think) from his crib, saying "ma MA," like a little French or Italian boy. He hasn't done this in a while, which is kind of too bad, because we enjoyed it.

(This morning he said "mommy" in a sweet little voice--at 5:45 a.m.)

Uh-uh

Kristi and I have to tell John no sometimes, like when he wants to write on the couch with a pen or pull all the cds down from the shelf. Kristi started out trying to say "no thank you" at first, just so that John would be more polite when he says no to us. But I think in the heat of the moment our no's are more straightforward than that.

The other day John was sitting on the couch in the living room while I was at the computer in the kitchen. I began to realize that John was saying "uh uh" over and over again and so I decided to go in and see what he was doing. He had taken down a dvd case from the shelf and opened it and was spinning the dvd in the case--something that Kristi has asked him not to do. I think the "uh uh" was him letting me know that he was doing something that he knew he was not supposed to do.

Chopstick

John likes to play with chopsticks. Whenever Kristi and I use them, he insists on having a pair.

Tonight, as we ate some Gyoza, John took a single chopstick and pierced a piece of flat bread with it. He held it up triumpantly in the air and then moved it to the left and to the right, following it with his eyes. Then he swung the chopstick forward and the bread flew across the room.

Fly Swatter

One of John's favorite toys is an old red plastic fly swatter, with a few of its little plastic parts broken off in the swatter part. Right now John is running back and forth in the living room, dragging the swatter part along the floor.

'side

John and I played in the backyard after dinner. Mostly the game consisted of John throwing his little Rangers ball into the potato patch and me fishing it out. Then it consisted of me trying to stop John from throwing the ball into the potato patch. He would get the ball and run toward the patch and start to throw it and I would block it. Or I would keep moving in front of him as he tried to find a way to get to the patch and throw the ball in. We both laughed a lot.

When John was through playing, he said 'side and walked to the steps and I followed him in.

My Beautiful Mama

John was very sad when his mother left for small group this evening. He looked out the window and cried as she drove away. He cried a little more and then walked into the kitchen and pulled a picture of Kristi and me off the shelf. Then he sat down on the floor with his blanket in his hand and the fingers of his other hand in his mouth and gazed at the picture of Kristi.

The Return of Blanky

It was time for John to go to bed, but we looked around and his favorite blanket wasn't in his room. Kristi asked me to get it, because her knee is bothering her. John was busy throwing his orange ball all over the room.

I found the blanket in the living room and when I got to the door of John's room, I opened it a crack and stuck through just the little head of the dog. (John's blanket has a little dog's head in the middle of it, with flappy ears that John finds it soothing to run his fingers over.) I couldn't see John's face and Kristi couldn't see what John was looking at, but Kristi saw John break out into a big smile and suddenly someone ran to the door and snatched Blanky right out of my hands.

Of Polar Bears and Ibuprofen

John used a little plastic polar bear as a hockey stick and slapped a container of Advil across the floor. I think you get the idea by now: John likes to play hockey and anything will do for a puck and a stick.

Lazy Boy

I had a hard day at school today and came home with a headache. After dinner, I crashed on the couch in the living room. John saw me there and climbed up onto the opposite couch and laid down on his back as well, with his head on a pillow (I think). He turned over on his stomach, crawled to the edge of the sofa, but kept on returning to that position on his back, just like his daddy. He looked relaxed and like he was enjoying it.

Hand, Plastic Food Container, and Wooden Spoon Hockey

There was a big inflated ball and John hit it across the room with his hand. Then, a day later, he took one of his rectangular plastic toddler-food containers, with the food still in it, and hit a ball across the floor with it.

This evening John took a wooden spoon and made hard, accurate slap shots, hitting a plastic car into the sofa or against the wall.

I called Kristi in to see him and we talked about whether or not we could see him as a hockey player when he gets older. There's an ice rink behind the Sonic drive-through a few blocks away. We watched him as he threw himself onto the floor and got right up and kept going, so we figured that we could.

Pistachio Nutshell and Key Ring Hockey

This morning, John found an empty half of a pistachio nut on the kitchen floor and used it like a hockey stick to slap a tennis ball across the floor.

This evening at the park, John borrowed a tennis ball from an Asian family that was playing tennis and that other racket sport (bad-mitten?). I was tired out and sitting against the fence while John kicked the ball around. When Kristi came, John wanted her key chain. He took it and used it like a hockey stick to slap the tennis ball across the court.

Toothbrush Hockey

I brushed John's teeth tonight, which he doesn't ever seem to enjoy. It's getting more important, though, becase he suddenly has a mouthful of teeth. After I was done, he took the brush himself and stuck it in his mouth. He seems to like doing things for himself.

Then suddenly he did something I had never seen before. He picked up his little cushy Rangers ball, threw it on the ground, and then starting running after it with his toothbrush in hand. When he caught up to it, he reached down and smacked it across the room with his toothbrush. He ran it down and--whap--hit the ball again. Every once in a while, he would pick it up and throw it down and hit it again with the brush. Sometimes he hit it into the closet or under his crib. A couple of times he even cried out "goal"! (Just before this happened, I called out to Kristi to come in and see what he was doing. She assured me that he was really saying "ball" and it only sounded like "goal." It sure sounded like "goal" to me, though.)

Up Here

John and I were in the backyard this afternoon and John stood next to a chair and said "up here." That means that he wants to get up on the chair. After that he was playing on the grass and kept on saying "appear, appear, appear." It only occured to me later that John was simply continuing to enjoy the pleasure of saying "up here."

Then, when we were back in the house, I noticed him doing the same thing again. First he said "up here" when he wanted to get up, but then he kept on saying it, and now with variations:

A beer
A pea
A-bee-o

and so on. I think he likes playing with words.