Da Pe Daddy, Da Queue Mommy

Dorian is talking. If you speak his language you can even communicate with him. He calls water "Wah", he also calls any other drink "Wah". He calls Thomas the Tank Engine "Cain-key". He calls Percy, "Per" and James, "Yaim", Henry, "Henyee". He calls Tristan "Tin". To say good-night he says, "Nigh-nigh".  He calls vitamins, "Mih", cookies are "Coo", rice cakes are "Kay". To say That, he says "Da".

He says Mommy, Daddy, Hot, Happy, Hi and Bye-bye correctly. He knows his numbers 1-10 and all of the letters in the Alphabet. The other night he was in Eric's office pointing at the letters on the keyboard, and he said, "Da Queue, Mommy. Da Eee, Daddy. Da Ah, Daddy. Da Tee, Da Why..." etc. After each one, we'd say, "You're right, that is Q, that is E, that is R, that is T, yes that is Y..." etc. After he went through the letters and numbers a few times, we were getting bored, so we stopped responding. Then, he got adamant. "Daddy. Daddy! Daddy!" And when Eric looked up, Dorian went on, "Da Peee Daddy!"

He can't say the S sound yet. So it is very cute when he tells us what he sees. "I hsee two. I hsee one." And it's very cute when you ask him who he loves. He says, "I wuv Daddy". And yesterday he kept saying Bumblebee over and over. A friend of ours has a dog named Bogie, and Dorian gets excited and says Bogie, Bogie when he sees him. And he loves to hide and then come out and say "Boo!"

Dorian is getting quite tall too. Strangers are often surprised that he recently turned two, especially the Burmese and Mexican people we've been meeting lately.

Tristan's school pictures came back. We were quite surprised at the funny face Tristan made, but Tristan loves his school pictures, so we're not doing retakes. We also got his progress report and found out that he's excelling far beyond expectations. For example, at this point in Kindergarten, they're expected to recognize 16 letters in a minute (upper and lower in random order). Tristan recognized 48 in a minute. They were also tested in other areas, and he did just as well there.

That last paragraph reminds me of a funny story. I was talking with a nurse who asked if I was still nursing Dorian. I said that I was and she asked if I'd nursed Tristan as long. I told her that I'd nursed Tristan until he was 2 years, 7 months. She looked at Tristan and said, "Wow, you're going to be smart". Tristan looked at her squarely and said, "I'm already smart". (It cracked me up, but I could tell the nurse was caught off guard).

Sorry no pictures. We've been taking them with our phones instead of our cameras lately. It's harder (for me) to get the phone pictures onto my laptop, so another time, another time.

Face Plant

On September 19th, Dorian was happily playing outside when he had an unfortunate trip and fall incident. It left him looking like he'd tried to scrape his nose clean off. It has been almost a month, and it's all healed up finally,  but you can still see where it was. Here are two pictures. One from the day it happened and the other more recently. It was all scabbed up for 2 weeks. Dorian has inherited inability to stop picking at face spots from his father and grandmother, so it took a while for it to heal up. He kept picking his scabs and they'd bleed all over again. Really yucky.

The day the nose was almost removed.

Two cute boys in baseball suits.

In other news, Dorian is talking now. He can count 1-10 and says his ABC's, but has trouble with a couple. His favorite letters are O, P, Q and Y. He says those a lot. He calls Thomas the Tank Engine "Cankey" it sounds like Cranky without the "r". We're not sure if he's trying to say tank engine or what, but every time he sees Thomas he cries out Cankey! Cankey! He calls Shows "Woahs". He'll point at the TV and say Woah! Woah! He calls Tristan "Tin-tin". In the morning when he wakes up he says, "Hi Mom, Hi Tin-tin" and anytime we come home from being gone, he says "Daddy Boo!" when we pull in the driveway. Then when we get inside he looks for Daddy and when he finds him, he says Boo! and Daddy acts surprised. It's fun for the baby.

A Day at the Park

I've been trying to take Tristan and Dorian to the park before Tristan goes to school at least once or twice a week. Here are some cute pictures from this week.

First Tristan pushed Dorian on the swing.

Then Dorian pushed Tristan on the swing.

Cutie smile.

"Mom, take a picture of me too!" (actual quote)

He had just run to me across the entire green field.

Belly swinging.

We call this the Lion of Sodor. I was too late to catch them both on the lion.

They were following me back to the van like ducklings in a line, so I tried to take a picture.