The park, and other tidbits

I love the fall! The Lord is so kind to refresh us with pleasant weather, especially after enduring such a difficult summer. I guess the awful heat makes us appreciate a cool breeze that much more! And it certainly lifts the boys' spirits to get outdoors more often and do fun things like checking out a playground that we spotted recently!

We spent the better part of a morning at this playground, and they boys had so much fun swinging, sliding, and climbing on equipment that they thought was an exciting adventure - it made my heart race, too, but more out of fear for how high up they were!

Isaac really did enjoy the swings and had lots of big smiles to share, but I absolutely couldn't get a picture of him with his eyes open!

There were several different slides, and every time the guys went down, their hair would be full of static and stand on end. I gave Caedmon a pretty good shock, too, when I reached out to help him down - he was not impressed!

We also made a trip to the zoo one morning a couple of weeks ago. The boys were so enthusiastic about going...but when I asked Caedmon what he wanted to do or see, he said, "The ramp!" (The zoo is built on a hilly area and there are ramps everywhere to make the exhibits wheelchair accessible.) He loves to run up and down the ramps - I think he feels like he's going super-fast when he runs down. And of course, we love seeing all the animals too - I just thought it was funny that "the ramps" were the first thing that came to his mind! And do these guys look like tourists or what?!?

We're in a really fun season for listening to what our guys have to say. Isaac is really picking up a lot of words. In his vocabulary currently: Mama, Dada, A-mon (Caedmon), Pa Pa (Papa), Mammy (Grammy), Na (cat, or snack, depending on how loudly he says it!), Noooooo (must be said with a very sad face and very drawn out. He learned that from his brother), da (that), apple, buh (book), hi, bye-bye, nigh-nigh (night-night), dih (digger. Yep, we have another digger-spotter!), yeah, more, babeeee (baby), moo (moon), babuhl (bubble), bah (ball), aye-duh (all done), noh (nose - his is usually wrinkled when he says this!), maow (mouth), aye (eye), bur (bird), and "I do!" This is in addition to animal sounds: cow, sheep, cat, dog, pig, bird, lion, bear, dinosaur, and even rooster. My favorite is his dog sound, which he practices anytime we see a dog, especially when we're outside or on walks. I don't know if the dogs can translate, but they get an earful of barks and panting sounds!

Why does he say, "I do"? Daniel started asking the guys questions with "I do/did" being the appropriate response. Such as, "Who likes cookies? Who wants to go outside? Who saw the cat today?" Then he raises his hand and says, "I do!" It's amazing what that little 15 month old brain understands and processes...now, if I ask such a question, Isaac immediately pipes up, "I do!" and raises his little hand, even if no one else does!

And Caedmon - oh, that child has such fascinating and often amusing things to share! I was explaining to him this week that at the end of this month, the kids in his school will dress up in costumes and pretend to be other people/animals. I don't care for Halloween at all but think its fun for little kids to get to pretend - so was curious who or what he would like to pretend to be. I gave some suggestions, like a doctor, or a lion, or Bob the Builder. He immediately piped up: "I want to be like Bob the Builder! And Isaac can be Wendy!" How kind of him to include his brother! (Wendy is Bob's assistant.) Our next conversation was about Wendy being a girl...

We were riding in the car one afternoon and I heard Caedmon tell Doug, "When you were really little, you were in my tummy!" We have told the boys on occasion that when they were tiny and growing, they were in my tummy, but he took a leap and applied that same idea to his little duck companion.

Although he's very close to actually running rather than just walking, our Isaac is definitely a toddler and takes some spills from time to time. On one occasion last week he hit his mouth and it started to bleed. I explained to Caedmon what happened as he took it all in and later told me, very seriously, but with his cute little lisp, "Isaac had blub on his teefe. I don't have blub on my teefe!"

And new words are just tricky sometimes. We recently received a Bambi storybook and Caedmon was checking out the picture on the cover. He later asked me to read the story about the deer and the "skump." He was close - "skunk" really is kind of a strange sounding word!