i have a tiny neck ball

Since I never really talk about Baby G on this blog (wink) I thought a post about his most recent doings was in order. He is truly a little delight. I adore my days with him and it is such a pleasure for me to meet his needs and spend my hours swallowed up in my role as his mama. There have even been nights where either J or I can be heard saying, "I just wanna go get him up and play with him" after he has already gone to sleep. Not that we ever would (actually, I think J would-- I won't let him though), and not that we don't adore each other and just being together without our baby (trust me, the hours where the babe is asleep and we have quiet time alone are some of the best of the day), but we really do just love being with our little boy so much, and the joy he brings into our home is thick like I've never known. Here are some of the things we are loving about our soon-to-be two-year-old. (And you better believe I will be getting all the mileage I can out of saying that I still have a one-year-old for the next couple of months. Can you still call two-year-olds "Baby?")

Baby G has been into using pronouns lately. If we say something is all gone he says, "Show me!" as if he doesn't believe us. He usually uses "I" and "me" correctly, but this past week he has been getting a little confused. One morning he was sitting in my bed just after he had woken up. He was rubbing his eyes and I heard his little voice saying, "Oh. Bug him. Bug him." He had something in his eye that was bugging him and he wanted to let me know. He was in the bath a couple of weeks ago when his daddy brought him in some strawberries to munch on. Baby G was so happy and started exclaiming, "For him! Strawberries for him!" Yes little boy, they are for you. The other day we were at a restaurant and I took him in the bathroom to wash his hands. While we were standing there a woman came in and went into the stall. As I was washing my hands, and not paying attention to where my son was, I heard his little voice saying, "Oh, her pee." I turned around to see him crouched down, peeking in the woman's stall, declaring to the world what she was doing. 

He is also really into adjectives, especially "tiny, "huge," and all the colors. He knows pink, green, black, orange, white, yellow, purple, and blue very well, and sporadically gets others correct. Most of the time he calls things "pink" if he isn't sure what color it is. That is very amusing to me and not so amusing to his father. Yesterday afternoon when he woke up from his nap I was holding him on the rocking chair facing me. He spotted a mole on my neck and immediately pointed to it and, in his tiniest little whisper (he is really into doing "tiny" voices quietly and "HUGE" voices loudly), declared it to be a "tiny ball." Then he thought about it for a second longer and said, "a tiny neck ball!" 

Here you can see the tiny neck ball he was speaking of.

I love, LOVE all the new things he is saying and learning every day. He found a number 8 on my sewing pattern a while back and casually announced, "Numba eight!" as if I have been teaching him numbers for weeks. I had NO idea he would have even known what a number was, let alone attach the correct word to the correct symbol. His counting is so funny-- again something we haven't deliberately taught yet. "1 2 3 8 9 10!" Those middle few numbers aren't very important, anyway.
He often requests songs for us to sing to him. About a week ago he started requesting a "Santa song." I didn't know what he was talking about, so we tried a few songs that talk about Santa and finally settled on "Up on the Housetop." He loves that one and can be overheard singing, "Ho ho ho! Who wouldn't go?" which cracks me up. He also requests the "Nursery ball" song which is "Jesus Wants Me for a SunBEAM!" complete with jumping on all the "beams." Others include "Jingle Bells," the "Pirate song" (yo ho yo ho....), and "Zippy do da song."
He is probably the most polite one-year-old ever. I can't take the credit for this because I really haven't ever tried to teach him manners beyond your basic pleases and thank-yous. When we are walking into a store or something and he thinks he is in someone's way he will look up at them and say, "Oh, sorry!" and move aside. At the playground he will politely move out of line so that all the other kids can run up the stairs to the slide past him while saying, "Sorry! Sorry!" for being in the way. I have to go walk him up the stairs and keep the other kids away in order for him to ever get a chance to go down the slide. I love his sweet, polite demeanor, but I also want him to be able to assert himself and not get bullied. He loves playing with other kids, but he totally just lets them steal toys out of his hands or take over whatever he was playing with. His nursery leaders have asked us multiple times if he is always as even-tempered and good as he is in nursery. I assure them that he definitely has his moments with us where he asserts his independence and gives a little attitude, but with kids he really doesn't have a mean bone in his body. Naughty, busy bones, yes. Mean bones, no.
Here is an example of him being a little naughty. Yesterday I put him in his high chair with a bowl of yogurt to eat. When I put his bib on he quickly let me know he didn't want it on by trying to immediately rip it off. I explained to him that he needed to keep it on or let me feed him because I didn't want him to spill all over his shirt. He kept the bib on and started eating. I walked out of the room for a second and when I walked back in I saw that his bib had been thrown to the floor. I went over by him and said, "Uh oh, you took your bib off." He looked at me with stern eyebrows, eyes full of serious and said, "No wear bib, MOM. Just shirt." What killed me about the attitude was the loud, bordering on defiant, "Mom" that came out of his mouth. I was like, wait, you are not allowed to call me Mom yet. I am Mama or Mommy, but not just Mom. Big kids can call their moms "Mom," but little ones should be required to only say "Mama" or  "Mommy" until they are at least six. I put his bib back on and referred to myself as "Mommy" repeatedly :).
I should have known not to leave the kitchen again after that, but he was sitting so nicely eating his yogurt that I ventured back into the bathroom to do my hair. When I got back into the kitchen a lovely surprise of yogurt dumped on the rug was waiting for me. As soon as I saw it I looked at Baby G and overly sadly and softly started saying, "Oh noooo...! Oh, you made such a mess! It makes mommy so sad when you dump your food on the ground...." I sounded sad enough that he just started sobbing. He was like, "No cry Mommy! Clean it up! Nooo Mommy!" He felt really bad and I loved his tender little heart. I got him out of his high chair and explained why I was sad and told him it was okay, but we would have to clean it up. He helped me clean it up but was still pretty heartbroken about how sad I had been. He cried off and on for about 5 or so minutes and kept saying, "Hold you, Mommy. Hug you, Mommy." Naughty little tender-hearted boy.
One more silly little thing he does-- he is obsessed with throwing things into the sink. Today when I walked into the kitchen a loaf of bread and bag of bagels was in the sink. The other day he threw his shoe in the sink while I was washing dishes and got it soaking wet. I have found his blankies in the sink multiple times. When he has a drink he will take a few sips of it and then ask, "Dump it in sink?" I don't know what it is about that sink, but he seems to think it is the perfect place to throw just about everything. 

He's our little treasure, mess-making and all. We are thinking a sibling is in order, and hoping he/she will be a little clone of him. No, I am not pregnant. Yet.