My Shameless Brag-list About Theo

Okay, I seriously have the CUTEST kid ever, and if I don't write down just how awesome he is then before I know it he'll be ten and making bombs in our garage and I'll have completely forgotten how rad he was as a baby.

So here's the awesome things I can remember at the moment.

He's an angel in church. He's almost always quiet and he will generally let someone hold him for the whole service. And if he wants to run around, he runs circles around me. You might not think that's very good church behaviour, but for a two year-old kid that spends an average of 2 1/2 hours in a service that you're supposed to stand through and listen to (unless you sing) every week, it's pretty darn good.

He goes to bed with hardly any fuss. Really. I don't have to stick to a SUPER strict schedule at all. Any time between 7 and 9 pm and he more or less goes down without a fuss. He might not go to sleep right away and we can often hear little protests coming from the direction of his room because he feels left out, but they don't last long and eventually he cuddles down on his own.

He has so many hilarious words and ways of viewing the world. My favourite so far: we take him up to Manning Park for a romp in the snow (which turned out to be higher than him, so not the best idea), and he spots a wee patch of yellow snow where someone's dog had been. What does he say ?? "Egg!!!"

He's usually very gentle and cautious, which I think is pretty rare for a two year old. He actually knows what I mean when I say "gently" which means I don't need to worry too much about him getting over excited and smashing something in his enthusiasm. He prefers to carefully inspect things. Like my mother in-law gave him a sort of racket with a plastic center that said "Sonic Smash!" on it and a spoon to whack it with while we were visiting. He enjoyed banging it for a little while and then he stopped and began to very gently touch the spoon on the racket to see why it made that drum-like noise. As though if he did it really slow he could figure out the secret of how it worked. His cautious approach to exploration is pretty convenient too for when we visit people with animals. He loves them and makes this hilarious high-pitched noise of delight when he sees animals, but he's very careful about getting too close or grabbing. Same with other babies.

He hasn't got many words, but he LOVES to talk and since his favourite words are all sound effects (choo-choo, mmmmmooo, bok-bok! etc) his sentences, which can go on and on, are punctuated with all kinds of hilarious sound effects.

He loves to read with us. Seriously, he can quite happily sit on our laps for hours reading and re-reading every book on his shelf. And he has the attention span for books well beyond his age which is nice because one gets really sick of "There's a Wocket in my Pocket!" after a few renditions. The great thing is that it isn't just the pictures he loves either. He really does understand simple story lines. He brought me a copy of "I Have to GO!!" by Robert Munsch and said "Pssss"--which is his word for potty or peeing.

He regularly uses his signs for "please" and "thank-you" without fuss, which is not only great for showing off in front of other parents, but it means that if he's fussing and whining about wanting something that isn't unreasonable I can actually give it to him and make him happy if he stops whining long enough to ask nicely. This is rad because he won't get the idea that whining is what got his needs met, but using the right words instead. It doesn't mean that he doesn't whine and scream plenty. He IS two-ish. But it does mean I can start laying the ground work for better behaviour now instead of when he's old enough to actually say the right words and understnad why they're important.

Oh there's lots of other stuff. Like the fact that he likes olives, and bawls his eyes out when Daddy leaves for work (which is really cute actually), and he knows all his body parts, and barnyard animal noises and I think he knows some of his colours too. Too many cool things that probably aren't out of the ordinary for your average two year-old, but they're impressive to me because I'm his Mama. :)