Milestone Minutiae

Emmett has been reading one of his board books to the dogs. He'll carry the board over to the dog bed where Jake or Jenny is sleeping, then read it to them. From memory, of course. This evening, we wrote a thank you letter to Greg and Amy for a birthday present. I asked Emmett what he wanted me to write, and here is his thank you letter: "Thank you for books and the pounder. Thank you for the hammer."

Emmett has started asking David and I to sit in the back seat of the car with him. Earlier today, David took Emmett out to give me a break. Emmett asked David to sit in the back. David replied that he had to go drive the car. Emmett's response: "Sit in car forever."

While sorting pinto beans prior to soaking them, Emmett asked for one to hold. What harm could that cause, right? Well, turns out, he's quite attached to his little pinto bean. He's pushing it down the marble run, dropping it into a little plastic bottle, and dropping it onto the floor. Whenever it goes out of his sight, he starts shrieking, "Need the bean! I need the bean!" You can probably imagine how long it takes for a two year old to lose a pinto bean, and that's the frequency with which I've been returning to the pantry to get him a new one. UPDATE: I figured I'd be safe the day after all the bean-nonsense started. But this morning, upon seeing the plastic bottle, Emmett demanded another bean...

Emmett and I have been sick for three days now. He gets fevers in the middle of the night and has been sleeping in our bed. Everyone is tired. What do you do when you are exhausted, have a sore throat, and just can't read any more books? Noggin is an entire cable channel devoted to Toddler TV (kids under 3), and they know their stuff. Turn it on, and your toddler is immediately transfixed, moving slowly to the couch, using their arms to navigate so they don't have to take their eyes off the TV. There, they will lay down and stare at the TV, silent and unmoving, and watch the cartoons. The self-ads that they run claim "It's like pre-school on TV!" That's just what I was thinking.

Emmett has a talking robot toy that stopped working a few days ago. He asked me to "fix Smarty with some tape." Yesterday, Emmett and David were playing drums together in Emmett's room. David looked over at Emmett who was making a scrunched-up face and then said "I hit me in the nose!" He'd smacked himself on the up-swing of some vigorous drumming.

After just two Spanish immersion classes, Emmett came up with his first Spanish sentence. Yesterday while I was making dinner, he said "Donde esta Daddy?" I was so surprised I had to think for a minute to figure out what he said. "Donde esta" is a phrase I've used with him in the past while reading Spanish books, so it's not a big surprise that it would be one of the first things he picked up. We're having a great time in Spanish class, and it is really neat to see Emmett interact with the other kids so easily. I guess he's used to participating becasue of music class. He willingly gets up and dances with everyone during the songs, and he even responds to the teacher (in a Spanish whisper).