A whole bunch of little somethings.

I’ve been collecting little moments in my head that I should blog but they’re such small moments I can’t figure out how to make a whole post out of any one of them.  So, here’s a little collection of moments…list style.

• One recent morning, I asked Monkey if he was hungry and he said, “Hungy, capiller.”  “Are you a hungry caterpillar?”  “Yes!”  Hee.  He then informed me that hungry caterpillars eat “Crunch (Cinnamon Toast Crunch), milk, and ‘gurt (yogurt.)”  Who knew?  It certainly wasn’t in the book I read.
• One recent evening, he was reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar to me and said…”Booful, buffly!”  Which, is not new, what was new was when followed up that statement with “Mommy, two bufflies.”  There weren’t but that’s the first time he’s ever used a plural and he nailed it!
• One distant evening, we took Monkey out for dinner at our favorite restaurant.  As we walked up to the door, he saw an elderly gentleman standing by the door.  Instead of hiding he looked the man square in the face and said, “Hi, Grampy!”
• After he greeted this complete stranger so nicely, he then knocked on the door to the restaurant rather than walking right in.  Now we just need to convince him that he doesn’t have to knock at a restaurant but that he should knock on the bathroom door at home…
• After we opened the door for him, he walked in and greeted each of the servers and the hostess at the hostess stand.  He also greeted every person we walked past on our way to our booth.  He greeted the cute high school girls sitting in the booth behind Duhdee several times…naturally.
• When we were in a toy store recently, Monkey picked a toy off the shelf.  It was a craft activity and, under normal circumstance, I would have bought it for him  just because he asked but I thought it was going to be a little too difficult for him to do and would frustrate him/go to waste so I said no.  Once I convinced him that we were not going to buy that craft, he pouted and refused all other suggested replacements.  He’s never done that before!  Most people wouldn’t cheer that but it is more developmentally advanced that we’ve seen in the past.  So, yay!
• Monkey has picked up a new saying.  Actually, he’s picked a few  new sayings but  most are not appropriate so…we’ll skip those. Though one of the really, highly inappropriate ones (that he saves for traffic jams) secretly cracks me up.  The one that he says all the time, that openly cracks me up, is “Oh, dear!”  He says it whenever anything goes wrong, unless it’s traffic related.  It’s such an old man thing to say, I find it endlessly amusing.
• Another saying that we heard recently that struck my funny bone is “Hi, fella!”  No idea where he picked that one up but he used it when talking to Copper which seems appropriate.  He said it in such a sweet voice too.
• I’ve been asking Monkey if he will let me cut his hair for a while now.  His hair, when it’s wet, comes down below his shoulders!  Good thing it’s so curly!  I’ve asked him so many times that he has a very emphatic “No” that he uses each time I ask now.  When I ask him if he likes his hair short or long, he tells me “wong.”  So, I guess he now has an opinion on his hairstyle.
• He’s started dressing himself more frequently and he has style opinions in that department as well.  The rule is, if it is seasonally appropriate, he can wear whatever he picks.  It makes my eyes cross some days to let him out of the house but we wanted him to be more independent…
• Speaking of more independent, he’s started refusing to hold our hands when we’re out and about.  Remembering the days when he was so uncertain about everything that he kept a death grip on my index finger whenever we left the house, it’s hard to believe that he actually refuses to hold hands at times.  If it’s safe, his preference is to walk a few feet in front of us now too.  I thought we had another 7 or 8 years before we had that particular issue pop up.  No matter how desperately I want him to gain that independence, my heart is not quite ready for this sight…

Phew.  OK, now I can clear out my “Draft Post” folder!  Go me!