What I'm Loving Right Now

I should first point out that a mere couple of weeks or so after I soiled his good reputation, Julian has returned to normal. Well, as normal as a three-year-old can be. But he is doing so much better and I'm no longer wondering who replaced my child with an emotional, tantrum-throwing maniac. Whew.

Our Super Bowl party -- he was really into the big game...the Puppy Bowl, that is.

Our boy is very loving these days and says "I love you Mommy" about ten times a day out of the blue. (I might like that a little.) He loves to cuddle with me and be "all cozy" under blankies together. His new favorite family activity is popcorn and a movie all cuddled up.

Doofy Daddy

Julian is spelling and reading for real. He looks at signs and spells words and then asks what the word is. "F-o-o-d. What's that spell, Momma?" I say: "What's an F sound like? What do two O's together sound like? What's a D say?" Then he puts it all together and reads the word. Some things he just reads by himself without spelling or sounding out. It floors us every time. Some of the words he knows are: jets (on the hot tub), exit, enter, cancel, automatic (possibly his favorite word), start, stop, no, go, mom, and dad. He is a reading fool and I love it. Cereal boxes, juice cartons, signs, books...everywhere he goes, he's trying to read.

Evie says all kinds of new words these days! When you ask how she's doing she'll say "good!" If she hurts herself she says "ow!" (over and over until she gets a kiss on the injured spot.) Her "hi" and "bye" are adorable and she's repeating new words every day. (The list includes: excuse you, Goose, boots, shoes, uh-oh, binky, Julian, book, bite, and brother.) But her favorite is still "bath." Or anything in a monster voice. Her new one is to walk around the house all day saying "Ew! Dada tinky!" The other day in the car she blew us away when I asked her what was wrong and she said "I want my Dada." Full-on sentence. Her manners are impeccable and she says please and thank you every time (and several times over and over) without us asking.

The Valentine treats she helped make. If by helped, I mean taste-tested.

She loves to sing and does a sweet rendition of "Happy Birthday" as well as her own abridged version of ABC's. ("Ahh, bahh, ellooopeee!" ::lots of applause for herself::)

Valentine Breakfast

She knows when she's being funny so she and Daddy get along well. He likes to teach her silly things and she loves to be a ham. Anytime she puts something funny on her head or thinks she's hilarious, she'll say "Daddy!" so we can go show him. And all he has to say is "Larry King" and she busts out this hilarious stance and yammers out the side of her face. The elusive Larry King dance is positively the best.

I know I have her father to thank for her outgoing personality. She loves to say hello to strangers and makes friends wherever we go. Any time she can be the center of attention, she eats it up. (This also includes screaming tantrums in public places when she doesn't get to do exactly as she pleases. She has no qualms about piercing the eardrums of everyone around us and getting an entire store to stare.)

And speaking of screaming, my poor girl had to go to the ER.

*tear*

I thought nothing could be sadder than holding her down for her IV. Then we had to get x-rays...even worse. The whole thing was frustrating and heartbreaking. (She is all better now.)

To end on a lighter note: Girlfriend is getting this potty thing down. Almost every poop is on the potty these days, and sometimes we get lucky with pee pee on there. It's amazing to see how much the second child learns from watching the first!

Bathtub Watercolors: Fun until Julian said, "Mom, I want to get out now. Evie peed in here."