a few stories

A few more stories about the G-man. Now that he's talking so much, it seems like we have a never ending supply of funny bits.

I have a wooden box on my dresser than I keep the buttons that fall off of sweaters and shirts, or the extra ones stapled to the inside. It also contains other random things, like old keys and a few coins. Gavin discovered this box recently and promptly dumped the contents onto the floor. He squealed in delight, and within nanoseconds was on the floor going through the treasures. Soon he declared he was playing a game. Ever since, he sees the box on the dresser and wants to play his game.

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The other night on our walk, we passed a few kids playing hide and go seek. Gavin watched with rapt attention. He was out of the stroller, pushing it (as is his wont - nay, his demand - these days), and he stopped cold, watching. He saw them count, hide, seek, all the while sidling himself ever so closer to their game. The "It" girl once sat on the curb near him and put her head on her knees to hide her eyes and counted. Gavin marched right over and sat down beside her on the curb and put his head on his knees too, peeking over at her to make sure he was doing it right.

Then, a couple mornings later, as he was nursing away in his pre-dawn nurse-a-thon, he suddenly rolled away from me, then sat up and said, "One, two, five... Here I come!" Then he went back to nursing.

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In the car on the way to Meijer over the weekend, Gavin was chanting "Going at Meijer!" (he talks about going AT places, not TO them). Jason said, "Yep, we're going TO Meijer." Silence for a few seconds, then Gavin says, "No, going at ONE Meijer."

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The other night we were outside playing and had some potato chips. One got stepped on. I was sitting by it and noticed an ant carrying off a piece and pointed it out to him. He squatted and watched for a moment, then his face slowly started to crumple. "Back!" he screamed, crying. "Get it back!" I explained the ant was going to eat it because he was hungry. Still he cried and demanded I get the chip back, so upset - angry? heartbroken? afraid? I have no idea, it seemed like a bit of all three. I rescued the chip. Poor ant. Poor kid.

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For several months, Gavin and I have periodically played a scowling game. He scowls at me while simultaneously stifling a grin. I scowl back with a bit of a smile. He laughs. He likes it, for some reason. Then he points to my wrinkled up forehead and asks about it. I tell him it's my brow and I'm furrowing it at him.

Yesterday I was quite unhappy with him over something and was standing there with a serious furrow to my brow. Gavin was shifting uncomfortably, clearly knowing he had messed up badly. He looked up at me, then away, then up at me, then away. The third time he looked up, he kind of stomped his foot half-heartedly and said, "Stop browing at me!"

Which instantly erased said furrow from my brow. It was all I could do not to laugh at his newly discovered neologistic talents.

Sleeping

He's so calm and peaceful looking. I love watching him sleep.

He has two bears he keeps in our bed. One is Little Bear, the other Big Bear, both named completely by him. The one he's holding is Big Bear. He likes it because the hands are magnetic and click together.

And in other news, here are a few funny things the boy has said recently. These are things I ought to write down somewhere so I don't forget them. Here's as good as any place I figure.

"All done back forth. All done hear that noise." -- He'd been watching a suncatcher swing back and forth in th window, then said this as it slowed to a stop.

"No Gavin's Mommy touch Gavin's Daddy hand!" -- While on a walk this evening he caught Jason and I holding hands, which is evidently a big no-no in Gavin's Book of Etiquette and Deportment.

"Gavin swim in that pool over there at swim class." -- Said to Jason last night as he was falling asleep. We have had swim lessons for the last two weeks. Gavin loves it. His favorite thing? Jumping off the wall into the water.

"*sniff* Boo-hoo... candle sad!" --- he's into identifying emotions. A big thing right now is making things be sad. He often wants me to be sad, so I pretend to cry and he comforts me. Recently he's branched out and now makes random objects sad. The other day it was a candle, another time a toy car. I've even comforted a floating duck at the swimming pool.

head monitor

For Mother's Day, Jason bought me a pedometer, something I've wanted for a long while, but never have gotten around to buying for myself. Gavin calls the pedometer my "head monitor," at least that is how he pronounces the word.

Stick with me for a minute, as I tell you about the thermometer in our backyard. It recently stopped working and we've been talking about buying a new one. A week or so ago, Jason took Gavin to the store to pick up a couple of things for dinner. Jason called and said Gavin had something he wanted to ask, then put him on the phone. I heard a garbled bunch of words that I couldn't make sense of. Jason explained that they had found a thermometer that Gavin REALLY wanted to buy. He was really excited by it then, and continues to be excited by it now.

When they got home, they went outside and hung it up in place of the old one. Do you want to know the story I've been hearing since then?

Gavin: Head monitor in Gavin's backyard!
Me: Really?
G: Daddy Gavin put head monitor in Gavin's backyard.
Me: Yes, you and Daddy hung the thermometer up the other day.
G: Head monitor! In Gavin backyard!

What an ape he is. Gavin, I mean. This has nothing to do with head monitors at all, but as I finish typinf this up, I looked down into the family room to see Jason squatting in front of the TV, watching the tense last minutes of the Korea v France World Cup game, and there is Gavin, squatting beside him, his squat exactly mimicking his daddy's. Everything we do these days, Gavin copies to a T. I lay down on the floor to play, he lays down exactly like me. Jason has his hands on the table a certain way during dinner, and so does Gavin. So funny, and so hard not to laugh at in its darlingness.

sad

We've been working with Gavin on sharing. We tell him that taking things from people makes them sad. It appears the message is sinking in, based on this conversation between Jason and Gavin at the restaurant where we ate dinner tonight(Steak n Shake, nothing fancy). The server came by and picked up Jason's empty plate and took his glass back for a soda refill. Gavin saw this and was really concerned. He said

G: Oh no! plate!
J: Yep, she took my plate and cup.
G: Sad.
J: I'm not sad. The plate was empty so she took it to the kitchen... but she'll bring back my cup
G: Happy!
J: Yeah, then I'll be happy.
Which appeared to satisfy Gavin for a few minutes. He reiterated the story to us a few times throughout the evening, as if unable to comprehend still why the server had taken the plate.

picture taking and other stories

As it's been nearly forever since I posted anything here I thought I'd collect some Gavin stories for a couple days and bombard you all with a bunch of Mommy Bragging.

Gavin's imagination is in full swing. His latest thing is taking "pictures" with "cameras." Anything can be a camera - a piece of paper, his apple, a pumice stone, a fork. He holds it up to his eyes and says "picture," which is what he says when he plays with a real camera. During his bath last night he held up the pumice stone and said "picture" then moved the "camera" aside and said "No! Smile!"

And he's talking -- oh, how he talks. We are continuously amazed at the words he knows and uses, sometimes correctly other times not so much. The sentences he puts together all on his own are awe-inspiring too. "Nancy garage door open little bit," he said the other afternoon upon observing that our neighbor's garage door was half open. Today while changing his diaper, he saw the wind blowing the curtain around and said, "Wind curtain closed. Little bit." And he also pointed at me and said, "Mommy.... Al-sthon," which for those who can't recognize the pronounciation, is 'Allison'. Neither Jason nor I have told Gavin our other names in ages, that just came out of the blue.

One morning recently Gavin was playing with the landline phone and I noticed it had a low battery, so I told him I needed to put it on the charger. He let me take it and I took it over to the charger in the next room. I heard him saying "Here go, Mommy!" over and over. When I got back to the living room, I saw that he was crouched over by the bookcase and was holding the cell phone charger, which he had fished out from behind the bookcase where we keep it. It melted my heart. What a halpful little bug.

This morning, we were building ramps out of blocks and rolling the round pole blocks down the ramps. He picked up one pole block and said "Mommy use this block." Then he picked up the other one, held it out to me, and said, "No, no, Mommy use Gavin's block. This one."