the mouths of my babes

My boys (yes, both of them) have been saying all kinds of cool stuff lately. Over the months, Marty has slowly started with single words or basic phrases. The first thing he said that made sense was "D'er go", as in "There you go", which Paul often says to him. He also does "uh, oh" very well. He says "Ma!" for "Max" and of course is often heard saying over and over again "Mumumumumum". That would be me. Yesterday when we heard Paul come in the house, I made a big deal saying "Daddy, Daddy, go see Daddy." He got on his cute "oh!" face and said "Daddy!". Pretty cool!

Then there's Max. What he said yesterday is a toss-up between child genius and consumerism-driven brand recognition, but I think he's pretty smart. As we were leaving Costco, he said "C-O-S-T-C-O, Costco". I made a big show of congratulating him on his spelling. Then we were driving past waiting in the Tim Horton's Drive-Thru (one that is combined with a Wendy's). He looked up at the store and said "W-3-N-D-Y-S, Wendy's"! Yes, he said 3, not E, but I thought it was a great effort. He often walks around the house saying "M-A-X, Max".

We also went to the park yesterday where Max met a new little friend. They had a great time playing together and just stuck together the whole time we were there. They did all kinds of imaginary play and somehow found some tree branches on the playground. I let them play with them for a while but then another Mom said something to them, I think she was asking them not to play with the branches anymore. When I arrived on the scene (with Marty half asleep in the baby swing), Max said to his little friend, somewhat resignedly, "Let's not be grumpy old trolls anymore, okay?". Isn't that great? On the way home he told me that he told THE LADY not be be a grumpy old troll, but I'm not really sure if he did. This morning as we were watching Dora, I saw where he learned about grumpy old trolls. He asked me why the troll was grumpy and old. I told it it's because some trolls are grumpy and old.

Max is the "Star of the Week" at Preschool this week. He gets to do special stuff like sit in a special chair, help the teacher, and be the first in line for everything. He also got to do a Show & Tell. I thought about what he loves most and knows lots about, and decided he could show & tell his class about Grandma & Grandpa's house building in Clearwater. The emphasis being the Bobcat. So I put together a multi-media presentation posterboard with pictures from the house. I put notes on the back for the teacher to prompt him. Apparently his first public speech went well. :)