Art's into longer distance walking lately. He borrowed a quite heavy
push toy from a neighbor and he likes to push that all the way around
the block at full speed. He's so fast that I can go at regular adult
speed. Tonight we took a walk sans-toy, but he wanted to wear his
rain boots, and stopped to sing with some snap-dragons, "Hello! How
are yoouuuuu!!!!", meet a pregnant nieghbor and identify some trees.
Then I had to redirect him home before he went for another round so we
could get him to bed. Tomorrow I'll let him go as far as he wants
just to see.

we’re visiting arkansas (my ma’s home and where I’m from) soon, and she’s throwing a party:

I’m tooting my own progenal horn.

(Ben’s picture.)

There are two girls on the block that are Art’s age, Alma and Maura. They are all getting old enough that they sort of play together now, not just near each other. They interact! But they are still young enough to take a bath together (that’s Maura) and play in a shipping box (Alma).

Art’s language explosion continues. “Hep-bee” (help please) is still his favorite thing to say… all day long… usually in groups of eight at a time… oh my god does it get annoying… but he also has lots of other new words and uses of words. He now asks for the fan to be “on” (big improvement over hep-bee), he asks for mih (milk) or wa-oo (water), he asks to go to his neighbor Alma’s house (Amma!) and the other day he showed some serious asking skilz. We were in the car in the early morning checking out some free dirt and out of nowhere he said, “Bubbe!! Bubbe!” (that’s what we call my mom). Then he put his finger to his mouth, the sign for eat, and said, “New-nnh” (fig newton). He wanted to go to his grandma’s house and have a newton. So we did, at 7am.

I thought that was pretty cool! My mom and I also thought it was funny because I don’t ever have newtons at home so he probably think Bubbe’s house is the only place to get a newton. We decided to keep it that way for a while just for fun.

This is a minute and a half video of art being thrown around, sneakily hiding under a dish towel, and dancing.
http://www.bengarvin.com/dancerdancer.wmv

First of all, check out how LONG Art is! He’s 34 inches tall, 27 lbs. 11 oz. and 95th percentile for height!!!

Nanna was in town for five days and boy did she show Art a good time!

We went to the zoo and Art was a good sport, putting his head through the eggs for a photo op.

Later we went to Linden Hills and the store Creative Kids Stuff. There Art demonstrated his major fathering skilz and pushed TWO doll strollers at once!!!

All in all a great weekend. Lots of fun for Art and his parents who slept in day after day and changed very few diapers. Thanks Nan! See you soon!

I was thinking about how many words Art has these days and wanted to make a comprehensive list. It is organized into two categories, “Words that Sound Exactly or Almost Exactly Like the Real, Grown-Up Word” and “Words that Sound Close Enough for His Parents to Understand”. I’d say he uses about 60% on his own, without being prompted, but some of them he only uses as response to a question like “Do you want milk or juice?” and he says, “Djoo”, or “Where’s your elbow?” and he points to it and says, “Elbow.” But nose, cracker, bubble, down, Help Please, apple – he says those and quite a few more on his own. Cool!

Words that Sound Exactly or Almost
Exactly Like the Real, Grown-Up Word:
no
elbow
cracker
bubble
down
up
water
potty
pee
hat
apple
egg
ball
gackoo (does it count if it’s a word he made up for his pacifier?)
cat
Mommy
Papa
Bubbie (it’s Yiddish for Grandma)
Nanna (It’s Nan for Grandma)
Alma (neighbor friend)
hello
hi
bye
eye
yucky

Words that Sound Close Enough
for His Parents to Understand:
rain
ride
waffle
car
truck
tracter
bath
toothbrush
help please
bear
ant
street
feet up
pile
Emily
Josh
Riley (babysitter’s son)
book
hair
nose
ear
foot
drive
juice
airplane
noodles
cheese

I will update as more words become available. Have a great weekend!

www.bengarvin.com/hideandseek.wmv