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March 8.
At the duck pond.
At the duck pond near our house is a grassy slope, which Alex saw kids rolling down. “RolyPoly”. It looked like fun, but he wasn't willing to give up control and tumble down the hill. But he walked up and down it quite a bit.
Oh, and his cheeks still jiggle when he runs. |
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March 8.
The main attraction of the duck pond is... the dirt on the paths. Sometimes I'm not sure why we even go anywhere, with such satisfaction to be found at his feet. At the duck pond (the paths around it), there is a steep hill leading to the tallest point in the city of Vista. The second tallest point is a hill next to it, on the way to it. And Travis likes going up this secondary hill. So does Alex, but on this occasion, we went on a walk first, then tackled the hill. So Alex was carried by Travis, and Alex gave direction. |
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March 8.
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March 10.
More Duck Pond.. On this trip to the duck pond, I brought snacks for Alex – in this case, ColdBerries. Coldberries, by the way, are frozen blueberries. The name comes from Grandpa Jack – from where he first had them. Whether Jack initiated the word, I don't know, but we all know what coldberries are now. Alex seems to have inherited the paternally linked affinity for blueberries. |
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March 10.
Alex climbing the tree. Sort of. “Climb Tree” “Climb Tree!” He says as he bellies up to them. A couple days prior, he had been with Grandma Barbara, and she had shown him how to climb trees. |
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On the 14th, we had the great LEGO Discovery Day. I don't have pictures, but here is the story as I recounted it on the Goodstock forum. This afternoon, Alex was woken from his nap by the phone ringing. I was upstairs in my room and answered (right away, but not soon enough). It was my friend Joanie with news of the day. So I heard Alex wake up, watched him come upstairs and into the bed with me. I gabbed away as he played with his cars next to me, on his bed, and what I suspected to be in his room (down the hall from our bedroom - this half of our upstairs is 'babysafe' and I can see any attempt to get to the other half of the upstairs or downstairs). I heard sounds of happy Alex, playing with his train lamp in his room, making other happy sounds. So I continued chatting away. Finally, the phone conversation was ended, and I decided to check on the happy sounding darling. (The phone in our bedroom is corded, so if there's a power outage...) I walk down the hall - and see that the door to Travis's LEGO room is open. Oh my. I suppose he does open doors now. My bad. The baby was quite happy, thrilled as a bug, and had taken every transportation related item off the bottom three shelves of his five bookcases. There were cars, trucks, more cars and trucks, more trucks, and a few helicopters, motorcycles, and... Alex had the fuselage of the Sopwith Camel (a biplane), and was happily chirping "plane fly plane fly plane fly". Alex darling, I advised him, without wings, planes don't fly. To make it even more interesting, Travis had been in the middle of assembling some huge monstrosity of the Millenium Falcon, and there had been 5,195 gray pieces (actual number, not made up) all sorted into orderly piles on the floor. Now it was just a sea of gray pieces, interspersed with detritus from the vehicles that had been played with. There was some resistance to my efforts at putting models back on the shelves, and then more resistance when I removed him from the room and closed the door. "Go in there!" He protested, pointing to the door, getting frustrated and angry with me as I continually foiled his efforts. This was all reasonable 2 year old behavior, right? Then he looks at me, says "Pull Mom" (which means I'm to follow him), and he leads me to my bed, pats it, and says "Mum go bed". So I humored him, sitting on the bed. He went to the door, watching me carefully. "Mum go bed" he repeated, grabbing the door handle and leaving, closing the door behind him. I saw his shadow on the other side of the door, then after being sure I was staying put, he went down the hall. I gave him about 30 seconds before following, and sure enough, he was at the door, working at getting it open. I managed to avoid laughing, and picked him up and brought him downstairs. But I did think it was pretty funny, him being so sneaky. And I had to call Grandma while I was picking up stuff in the room, so she heard the absolutely delighted little boy as well. His joy at being in a room of such fun was contagious. (Maybe more so because they weren't MY toys that had been disrupted.) Travis, by the way, took the visitation to his room with stoicism, and we put the lock from the bathroom door onto the door to his Lego room. So it should be safe now. And LEGOs are modular, so it's not as if the baby broke anything.
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March 18.
What do a six year old and a two year old have in common? Well, if you ask the two year old, everything. The six year old? Not so much. Alex simply adores his cousin JT, and JT puts up with it like a saint. Even when it comes to sharing JT's birthday presents. (Such as the green bouncy ball.) |
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March 18.
“JT” was a word Alex picked up on real quick, and was often said with much enthusiasm. An unintentional consequence of JT's visit was the “Train Truck” game, whereby Alex pushes one of his dump trucks around, JT follows (or leads) in the big wheel, and any adults sucked into the game proceed with whatever undersized vehicle Alex provides. And Alex is very particular about what vehicle any adult can use. And if you're tired of going around the downstairs loop? He'll pull your hand until it's on the proper toy, and insist that you play. I saw the danger in this game, and managed to avoid ever getting recognized as a serious player. |
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March 19.
The desert flowers were in bloom in Borrego Springs, and we thought it'd be fun to take JT and Alex there. So JT ran along ahead of us on the path, Alex scurrying after. “JT SIT DOWN” Grandma would shout. Alex would come to a halt next to his cousin and sit (crouch) down next to him. Days later, even after JT returned home, Alex would say “JT SIT DOWN!” in the same tone of voice. The baby here was pretty hot, and declined all invitations to drink water. Even after seeing JT drink. We went to my favorite restaurant in Borrego, “Pablito's of the Desert”, where to my thinking, they have the best Sangria ever. (It's good, and after trekking around the desert, goes down real nice.) JT introduced Alex to raisins dipped in salsa. Yumm! |
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March 21.
The whole Gang (including Travis) went down to the zoo, and Alex liked following his cousin around as much as seeing any of the animals. My favorite part of the trip was when we saw the Meerkats. “Look, Alex, Meercats!” and Alex looked, then said “Meercat” and then started meowing to them. (He has a very good cat meow – he converses with Caira sometimes.) |
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March 29.
This evening, Alex wanted to go for a walk, and it was cool enough out that I made him put on a jacket. His Firecoat, as it were. He likes starting out his walks with his firehat on as well, although usually within a few minutes, he's given it to me to carry for the duration. He has the pants that go with the outfit as well, but they're still way too big for him. |
