These ridiculous words my dad makes up and shares with R: "wallakatoony", "gilly, gilly ossenpheffer" . . . and some strange verses he and I have made up along the way: "bazinga, bazonga, honky honky tonga" . . . where do we come up with this stuff? I really don't know, but I do know that Reed's more than amused -- yell out "gilly gilly ossenpheffer", and he's beside himself, sometimes literally rolling on the floor in hysterics. I wish I found such humor and joy in life. Sadly, this is not the case; a healthy dose of cynicism set in after I turned three.
Trucks -- still trucks. But less so. Because . . .
Puzzles, puzzles, and more puzzles. Some days, we do only a few. Others? Nine, ten. That might not seem like much, but we're not talking about eight-piece peg puzzles. Now that's he conquered 30 and 40 piecers and is thus bored with them, we moved on up to 60, 70, 100 pieces. He still needs help with the 100-piecers, but he also just really likes to sit down with one or both of us and do them. I loved them when I was young (my mom still rolls her eyes when she reminisces about just.how.much.amy.loved.puzzles and just.how.many.she.had.to.do.with.her. Whatevs, mom -- I still love them, and I rarely get bored unless we're doing the same puzzle . . . . for the fourth time . . . .that day. More are on the way from some internet supplier or another as we've exhausted other options (not so many 100-piece kids' puzzles out there). Next week? He's going to move up to our 1,500 piece ocean scene - -the one Ed and I pretty much gave up on because we suck so much. That, and Reed managed to dismantle the entire outside border, which we'd finally finished. Sigh. As you might imagine, the most popular puzzles are animal and truck-themed, the Noah's Ark and "ferrari" (safari, but I can't bear correcting him).
And his animals -- Schleich (sp?) makes these realistic animals -- not sure what they're made of, but they would work equally as well as nicknacks if not used as toys. We started with one rhino and pick up a new one occasionally; his aunt Sue got him some new ones (dinosaurs) for Christmas, and he's thrilled with them. Recently, he's decided they need to be named as soon as we get them. His newest acquisitions? Clara the cow, Gerry the giraffe, and Zeb the baby zebra, who was excited to join Opi the infant elephant and his mom, Elphie. And he still loves his stuffed Elphie, which Auntie Karen gave him for his birthday.
I finally broke down and got some new toys -- Tinkertoys, a Lite Brite (this is classic, and I adored mine). Some building blocks, some new play dough. Play-do? Anyway, the Tinker toys have been a hit, although R's much more invested in playing with the stuff Ed makes than making his own -- planes, cranes, trucks, you name it - -the guy should get a job as a Tinkertoy puppeteer, making children their favorite animals at birthday parties. Oh, and he likes to destroy them after he tires of playing with them. He's a bit young for the Lite Brite, but he did sit there for a good 20 or 25 minutes the first time we brought it out before giving in to his temptation to knock all the little light pegs all over the floor.
Let's see . . . Hates having his hair brushed -- a constant source of ire. Likes brushing his teeth -- doing "scrubby bubbles" (that one's courtesy of Grandma Carol, always and ever coming up with "doozies" like these, as my dad might say. "Dinger ringer" as a nickname? Oh, yes. She goes there. But then, since R has that penchant for made up, nutbag phrases, he likes it well enough. He's also extremely into turning lights off, especially right before bed; it's become part of the requisite bedtime routine, preceded by the reading of as many books as he can coerce us into reading.
"I can do it myself" and "I will do it myself" are common phrases around here. So are occasional ear-piercing screams, emitted to alert us to his distaste for a request we've made. Examples? Getting dressed. Getting into his car seat. Sitting there for seemingly no reason at all. The more we ignore it, the less he does it, but ...still. Good times. Reminding us that "that was good manners" when he uses versions of "please, may I have/do/say/scream/exert/emphasize, most often applied in requests for water and food. Loves bubble baths. Isn't overly anxious to use the big-boy potty yet. Likes the rain, Ike, G, and getting into mama's scrap supplies, and his favorite person is still Grandma.
He's getting slightly more picky about food but still has a huge appetite and will eat a lot of things toddlers supposedly don't like -- beets, for one (ew), quinoa, fish, cabbage. He has a good idea of what cake and cookies are even though he never gets them, but he rarely asks for anything unless he sees it, and applesauce covers all manner of cravings. That and his beloved blueberry goat milk yogurt. And bananas -- we wouldn't survive without these, I'm pretty convinced.
R loves going out on "dates" with Mama and sometimes with Mama and Dada -- if I've been working a lot on a particular day, he's more likely to want to spend some time with me one on one. Last night he was in the mood for a mama/dada date, and occasionally we let him choose the activity (something that will likely become more dangerous than it is now -- who knows what we'll get roped into). What did he dream up last night? "I want to go to a restaurant. Let's go eat at Mimi's and see the roosters." Verbatim. Mimi's is decorated in this French country/kitsch, and the lobby has all manner of roosters displayed -- pictures, rooster lamps, hens in a cage, you name it. He's fascinated, utterly fascinated. We do this only once in awhile as feeding him at restaurants gets expensive. He can't really have the crap on the kids' menu, and I wouldn't want him to eat it if he could, so it's almost always an adult entree. Last time, I ordered him the pistachio-crusted salmon, and I'm fairly sure the server was slightly weirded out when I confirmed that yes, it was indeed for the two-year-old. And he ate all of it. Last night, we had a lovely woman who made a bunch of substitutions to the kids' "turkey dinner" so he could have mashed potatoes and veggies -- 5$ instead of 14.99$? We'll take it. Nothing encrusted on this plate, but he had fun, ate a lot, and "gilly gilly ossenpheffered" his way out of the restaurant and straight to bed when we got home.
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