August 1: I’ve realized to my chagrin that this summer I haven’t done a very thorough job of documenting some of the wonderfully sweet and enduring things that my sweet son says and does. So here’s a stream-of-consciousness set of Andrewisms.
Last month, I started asking Andrew to tell me stories. To my great surprise, he really likes telling stories. Mostly just one, but he really gets into it. It goes like this.
Andrew: “Onceupontime there was…MONSTER.”
Adult: “A monster? Wow! What did the monster do?”
Andrew: “White monster. Big. Ate a table.”
That’s pretty much the story:)
We have two big cherry tomato pants in our back yard. All early summer, Andrew desperately wanted to pick the green tomatoes. It was a compulsion. It was as if he couldn’t help himself. Now that it’s the height of summer, he can pick as many ripe tomatoes as he wants. But sometimes he still grabs the green ones. He calls them “tomataoes.” “Go see tomataoes, Mommy!”
Another of Andrew’s favorite games is to hide under the covers in our bed while a ferocious bear (his dad) sniffs around him and roars. Then Dad shouts, “Shoo bear!” The bear runs away, and Andrew pops out of the covers. Sometimes Andrew considers the fact that a bear is now loose in the house, and he yells, “Mommy, bear coming!” I then yell, “Shoo bear, get out!” and let Andrew know that it ran far away and we’re all safe. He just loves this game. Daddy is a wonderful sport and plays it overandoverandover.
Favoritisms: Off and on for the last six months, Bryan has been the favored parent. When I’m alone with Andrew, we have a great time together, but if Daddy is home, there’s a constant struggle for Andrew to let me do things like play with him or change his diaper or pick him up. Bryan is a super-amazing dad, and he fulfills his requested duties well, but I’m sure he wouldn’t mind a change in the young master’s heart so he was a little less in the constant limelight!
Playing in the sprinkler: Andrew loves having me squirt him with the garden hose. For a little boy who so very much detests getting his face wet while having his hair washed, he loves getting sprinkled with the hose. He calls it “rainbow,” I think because I would try to show him the rainbow in the water and that was when he first realized how fun it was to run through the water. He’s such a cutie playing in the front yard as I try to water our dry, dry garden.
Speaking in sentences: Suddenly it seems, Andrew is moving from two-word phrases to much more complex sentences. The other morning, I brought his toy elephant into his room. He looked at the elephant and said, “Good morning, elephant. I am getting my diaper changed.” Bryan and I exchanged shocked glances. When did he learn how to talk like that!
He’s also started reciting books more. He’ll often repeat a couple lines, but last night while he was taking his bath, he pretty much recited Freight Train to himself. “Moving. Going through tunnels. Going by cities. Crossing tressles. Moving in darkness, moving in daylight. Going, going (whispered) gone.” It’s amazing to watch him learn and do new things.
We were reading a book this morning about 10 little fish, and he pointed and counted the 10 fish (sometimes counting to 11) several times. He’s been really into counting for a few months, but it’s not until more recently that he’s started pointing and counting the actual number instead of pointing at a group of objects and just saying numbers for a while. It’s so weird to think that someday he’ll be reading too!