Gametes In Love

A few weeks ago I camera stalked G as he was playing in the living room. I’m trying to understand how to work my Speedlight better (I still prefer natural light photography by, say a factor of 1000, but I want to be comfortable with the flash for the times when I need it: crappy indoor light, mid-day high-sun, etc.). Anyway, camera geek-ness aside, I got to observe G in one of his favorite past-times: making the biggest mess he possibly can by evacuating every put-away toy onto our living room floor. He enjoys it with immense pleasure (as witnessed here).

And takes his job very seriously (as witnessed here)

Of course, he pays strict attention to detail, by not only relieving the small toy bins out of the toy chest, but also opening each small bin and dumping it’s contents out.

Mid-way through, my floor resembles something like this:

And once the toys were fully freed of their containment, he celebrated a job well done.

Now, here is where things got interesting…

G proceeded to line up his blocks against the wall of the toy chest

lining them up two by two. He would get irritated when only one would be left, and exit to get more blocks

Now, we have two sets of wooden blocks: a Melissa & Doug set he got for his first birthday, and a couple of blocks from when S was a kid. The S cubes are a little bigger and darker. Whenever an old block was in the mix, G insisted it had to be matched with another old block. New blocks could only be paired with another new block. If he found a new block after he had started using the old blocks, he would shift the old blocks out of the way, so that all the new ones were stacked together. It was really bizzare to watch. And scary. He would also get agitated if there wasn’t another block around so that his rows would both have an equal count of blocks.

So yeah, between S and my weirdness, I’d say we’ve managed to successfully pass our OCD onto him. Sigh.

01.20.2011: G’s airplane. It’s flashy!

01.25.2011: S. Is for Snake

G has a new TV show obsession: Dinosaur Train. Long gone are the days he’s asked for George (Curious George) or Cat (Cat in the Hat). Now the only thing he ever wants to watch is Dinosaur Train. (As a side note, his favorite episode is the shark episode and he watches it every day. It’s kind of cute to hear him pronounce “Cretoxyrhina”)

PBS online has a kid’s portion of the site. It’s a “supplemental” to a lot of their shows, so occasionally G asks to watch DT on my computer, which really means he wants to play the DT games. His favorite is “All Aboard”. You play the conductor by seating various dinosaurs on benches, feeding them from the food cart and giving them the boot at their respective era stop.

The food part gives you the option of feeding them either a leaf or a fish based on the dinosaur’s diet being a herbivore, carnivore or either. So yesterday at the Velociraptor, we have the following exchange:

Me: Alright, Bud. What should we give him? The leaf or the fish?

G: That one (poking with his finger on the leaf). [Yeah, kid, this ain’t yo’ daddy’s iPad. You actually have to use a mouse to do something here. Old school, I know!]

Game: Velociraptor is a carnivore. He only eats meat.

Me: This dinosaur eats meat, Buddy [I call him Buddy, a lot. Don’t know why.] The leaf is a plant, and the fish is meat. What should we give him?

G: That one (poking with his finger, again, on the leaf).

Me: No, kiddo. This is a plant. The dinosaur only eats meat. Should we give him the fish?

G: No! PASTA!

Huh. Clearly the Velociraptor would prefer Durham flour byproducts over flesh. Ok, I’ll take that. It does change the Jurassic Park book/movie storyline one heck of a lot though.

G curled up in my lap while I was nursing S2. It was the sweetest moment.

Brotherly love

S2 cuteness. I love that his eyes just sparkle. No matter where he is, what light he’s in, they just sparkle.

Yummy pizza

Tall tower

G got this CD player for his first birthday. He loves it to this day and I caught him singing with the songs too.

G has picked up some new phrases that make me marvel and both their crisp delivery and associated ‘tude. They are:

1. “No way!”

2. “Whaaaat?”

3. “I see Mamma’s butt!”

For this last one, I was bending over cleaning up his toys in the living room. G and S, meanwhile were in the dining room having breakfast. G had a clear view of me. S didn’t, so I guess G decided to describe the scenery.

Where does he get this stuff?

I love it when G “reads” with us. Since he saw the camera come out, he all of a sudden forgot how, but warmed up halfway through the video.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdaoCKy29Kk]

The highlights from December

This is how G draws a spider (look at the green doodle). Given that there’s a circle for the thorax and some sticks coming out of it for the legs, I’m pretty impressed. Granted this spider only has 5 legs, but still: it could be a spider.

12.2010

12.11.2010: Raindeer

12.12.2010

12.13.2010

12.15.2010

12.28.2010

12.29.2010

We were in the car the other day and G was trying to get S’ attention. I chimed in asking “Ok, buddy. What do you want to say?”, only to be told:

“No mama, me talka to daddy!”

Uhmn… OK. Mama’s been shut down… by a 2yr old.