Boo has figured out how to verablize NO!

He’s been shaking his head for a while, mostly in that mystifying way where he’ll just walk up to you and shake his head, leaving you to ponder exactly what he has done that he knew he shouldn’t have done, but either can’t or won’t tell you.

Now? NO! Although it sounds more like MOE! He even says it when he doesn’t mean it. Want a cookie? NO! Are you sure? NO! Er…. I’ll just leave it here in case you want it later. Umm.

So that’s been fun! And in other news, he has also gained conscienceness (is that a word?) of the concept of MINE! Many people have commented to us on our son’s delightful willingness to share. I fully believed this was just because he hadn’t cottoned on the fact that not sharing was an option. Now he has. And he doesn’t like to share. I’m hoping it’s a phase.

We got the Fisher Price Little People Zoo when we were living in the temporary accomodations in Seattle and had very few toys. We needed something new to play with!

Ages 1-3 seem to be a very odd age toy-wise. He’s too big for his old favorite lamaze toys, but according to manufacturers he’s too young for anything else he’s interested in. We are quickly accumulating “supervision only” toys.

Little People do fill this void a bit. They are huge chunks of plastic, but they are cute. The Zoo in particular is rather brilliant — the animals have the appropriate letter on them, there’s an “alphabet trail” on the mat with the corresponding letter and animal’s picture on it. You press the letter and it makes the animal noise, says the letter, and/or says the animal name.

I hadn’t given any particular thought to it beyond a passing notice, but the other day, Boo had the dolphin, pointed to the letter ‘D’ and said ‘D’ and waved his dolphin in the air! Blimey.

I *had* been pointing out that the pictures matched the animals and I do say the letter and name of the animal and press the picture to make the animal noise rather often. I didn’t realize how much he had absorbed though! So I think that’s kind of cool!

He’s also pretty familiar with the letters in his name, I think, since we have a puzzle that spell them out. Moving right along!

A few months ago, H and I introduced warm milk in a bottle for the Boo at bedtime. He liked it, but as with most foods, he didn’t want much, just 1 or 2 ounces.

My, how times have changed. Nowadays, the milk transition has been so successful he also wants a bottle at naptime. And when I say “a” bottle, I mean usually two. Two bottles. The boy is a milk FIEND.

He LOVES it. We had to go out and buy the biggest bottles we could find because I’m tired of making two bottles a night! And we’re going through the milk at an astonishing rate.

He definitely takes after his father

Incidentally, it has lead to more stories being read as opposed to “action” books which Nathan also loves. He will drink his bottle, holding it with both hands, and let us read to him. I always wondered when this day would come, and here it is!

Today Boo took his first gardening class! There’s this wonderful place called Seattle Tilth that has classes for kids in their children’s garden. I wasn’t exactly sure what this would entail, but it was loads of fun!

We sung songs (well, everyone else did, Boo was off rummaging in the plants), picked some herbs to make “sun tea”, sorted through compost looking for worms, picked plums ripe off a tree for a snack, a few stories were told whilst we drank the tea (which was REALLY good!), then we searched for bugs under rocks and watered the plants.

Boo had a really good time. I know this because he had a cow when we needed to leave. He loves water in general and the folks were really laid back about the fact that some of the kids just weren’t going to sit in a circle with all this interesting stuff around! And I definitely want to plant some of these plants to make “tea” next summer! Mint, fennel, poppies (who knew you could eat the flowers?), stevia, lemon balm, and more!

A friend took these pics since I was a dork and didn’t bring a camera. The first is us picking some plants…

This one is Nathan smelling the poppies…

And this one is Nathan stirring the tea!