Birthday addendum

Happy 4th BD Leo! This year has gone so fast, but so have all of the others. You are still a sweet and happy boy. You mostly use your manners, likely thanking us for making dinner, complimenting us on our clothes/my jewelry, asking how our days were...all things that make me smile. You ask for hugs a lot (although sometimes you are _too busy_ for hugs). You are very excited about your new sibling and frequently have things to say to him/her (Bertie Bott is our nickname).

Lately you've been using a lot of nonsense words--I think just to see if we'll laugh. You'll also append "booty" to anything, and I'm pretty sure you have no idea what it means. You think "Pants" and "Underwear" are funny and gross words and the same time. Not what I expected from your potty humor stage, but I'll take it. You are developing your sense of humor, and like to laugh when everyone else is laughing, even if you're not sure what the joke was. Sometimes you'll just repeat the last thing we said and laugh uproariously.

You have developed a bit of an obstinate side. Yesterday you _did not_ want to go to school and ran away from us when it was time to get dressed and clamped your mouth shut when we tried to brush your teeth. We weren't pleased. When we recounted the story to Aunt Cynthia she said that that wouldn't fly in her house. I said, "good luck with that"! What are we going to do, shove the toothbrush in your mouth? We usually take away something you want (like birthday cake after dinner) to get you to cooperate. You have a chore chart, which sometimes entices you to be good so you can get a smiley face. You get a smiley for each "chore" (brushing teeth, setting the table, etc) and when you get to 20 you get $2. We're going to have to start your own savings account at the bank soon.

You're still having fun at school and have been reading for a few months. You don't know all of the words, but you are getting good at sounding out the ones you don't know. I think you are really proud of yourself and we are proud of you! You've also been taking swimming lessons since this summer and enjoy it a lot. You aren't real comfortable with this thing called floating yet, but you love to kick and splash.

You are a confident, fun-loving, funny, and loving little boy and we love you lots!

Happy birthday Leo,

Mama and Papa

happy birthday!

Although Leo's birthday is today, the party was yesterday because it's a lot easier to coordinate parties around weekends. In off-loading pictures from the camera, I've also discovered that it's been a really long time since that happened, and thus a long time since the Flickr stream was updated. By the time you read this, that should have been remedied.

Planning for the party started nearly a month ago, with a desire for a robot theming (started probably by the request from the paci fairy a month or two ago). Kirstin found some inexpensive invitations, buttons, and stickers from a site new to us called Zazzle, and we put together a "pin the antenna on the robot" game. I have a colleague who does cakes as a side business, and she quoted us an extremely reasonable price for the number that we thought we might need to serve. (We ended up with half as many as we thought we'd have, so we've got leftovers.) We invited Mason, Josh (whose dad works with me), and four friends from school, three of whom came.

Rather than wait until after dinner tonight, we let him open presents yesterday morning. He got a couple sets of winter PJs, a couple of books, and a set of Cars cars. Most of his grandparents contributed toward the purchase of a two-wheeled bike, which we're going to wait until spring to get because the weather is about to get too icky to ride bikes in much. We know where we'll get it (it's the same place as we got his helmet).




This week is conferences for me, and my parents are arriving on Friday and leaving Saturday morning to go visit my niece for her birthday on Saturday. We've otherwise been really, really busy, and I'm really, really tired, so I'll let the picture speak for the rest of yesterday.

pumpkin leprosy

So last week while I was in the hospital Leo and Granny Marge carved a pumpkin. We put it out on the stoop on Tuesday and by Thursday it looked like this. We got a new pumpkin last weekend and will carve it and put it out just before Halloween.







More Leoisms from this week:

Mama: Leo, I'm going to take you to get a haircut on Saturday (something Jeff usually does).
Leo: (looking worried) Can you take me to the mans? Because I'm not supposed to go to the girls.
________

Mama: Leo, you and Papa are handsome.
Leo: I'm not handsome, because I'm a rock star and rock stars aren't handsome because they play guitar.
_____
Mama: Owww, my foot's asleep!
Leo: (coming over to investigate) Mama, is your foot asleep? (to the foot, loudly) Wake up Mr. Foot!
_____
Leo: I'm just a little bit freezing, I need my bathrobe.
______
Leo: Daddy, when can I get married?
Daddy: Who do you want to marry?
Leo: I'm not sure yet.
Daddy: Then don't worry about it just yet.

...and another one

Leo: Mama, is Bertie Bott awake? I have to tell her [no we don't know the gender yet] something. (Leans in close to my belly) Bertie Bott, wake up!
Mama: I think she's awake now.
Leo: (Leans in close again) Bertie Bott, guess what? It's K's (a friend from school) birthday!

Even more Leoisms

Leo watching Grandma put on her makeup one morning when she was visiting..."We're not supposed to draw on ourselves." Specifically she was enhancing her eyebrows (i.e., drawing them on) and Leo also pointed to his and said "Mine stay on all the time."

...
(before my surgery)

Leo: Mama, why do you have to go to the doctor?
Me: So she can fix something that's broken.
Leo: Can I see? Open wide!
Me: Not like that Leo, it's not something you can see.
Leo: Broken, like cracks?

...

The grownups were talking about someone who had died of cancer and out of the blue Leo says, "I want to be a doctor when I grow up. And a construction guy." I reply that these are great things to be. He responds, " I want to be something when I grow up like you guys are something and grown up."

random boy sillies

Part I:

The other night (Wednesday), Leo and I started watching Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. The character of Lady Tottington appears for the first time. Go follow that last link and look at the picture. We'll wait; come back when you're done.

OK, ready?

Leo asks me, "Daddy, why does she have Cheet-o hair?"


Part II:
Marge & Erv are here for a few days, visiting. Some time earlier today, Marge said something to Leo about king-sized pillows. Tonight at bedtime:

L: "Mom, we forgot 1 thing."

K: "What?"

L: "The princess pillow"

K: "The princess pillow? What's that?"

L: "The. Prin. Cess. Pillow."

K: "I heard you, but I don't understand what you meant."

L: "The princess pillow. You know, for Grandma."

K: "Oh! The king-sized pillow."

Funnies

Me: Leo, did you put your acorn in my flour sifter?
Leo: It's not your sifter mom, it's everyone's sifter.

Later at bathtime...

Leo: (crying) Soap got in my eyes.
Me: No it didn't, and anyway it's tear-free. Which part of tear-free don't you understand? (said nicely)
Leo: I don't understand any of it.