Poopdoh

These days, Eddie does not like to have his diaper changed. So when we ask him if he has a dirty diaper, he always says "No." Sometimes, though, there is olfactory evidence which can't be denied. Now he's hit on the strategem of blaming others for this.

The other day, I asked him if he had a dirty diaper, and he said no. So I asked "What is so stinky?" and he said "Mamma farts."

The little villain might have been more credible if Mamma had been in the room!

Another time, I had gotten him to the changing table, but he still denied that he needed a new diaper. He acknowledged that there was poop, but when I asked "Did Eddie poop?" he said "No." "So who pooped?" I asked. He thought for a second and said "Poopdoh!"

Yes, our son made up a character named "Poopdoh" to blame for his stinks.

Baby o and mommy O

Nonno is visiting (and posting this) and has been reading Tomie DePaola's MOTHER GOOSE with Eddie.  Yesterday we were looking at the cover, where the author's name arches over the top in lower case letters and 'MOTHER GOOSE' under it all in upper case in such a way that the o of 'Tomie' is directly over the O of 'MOTHER' and the o of 'DePaola's' is over the OO of 'GOOSE.'   Eddie points to the first and says, "Baby o and mommy O" and then when his attention is drawn to the second, he says, 'baby o and mommy and papa O."  It turns out that he knows the letters of the alphabet already.

Spring

On Thursday, we took a walk up to the Monument to celebrate the first day of spring. Eddie was excited by the nice weather. When he got to the top, he said "Eddie play on grass!" He climbed onto the lawn and plonked down, saying "Eddie sit on grass!" Then he sensed something amiss and looked at his hand. It had gotten a little dirt on it as he sat down! "Hand dirty," he said. He reached the offending hand plaintively toward us to be fixed. "Hand dirty!" he wailed.

Rough and tumble, that's Eddie.

Children's museum

Mamma's got some energy back! Yesterday I walked more than 8 miles. And this morning Eddie and I bused and walked across the city to the children's museum. He was thrilled the entire time. Bus, walk, museum, lunch at a restaurant, another bus, an adventure out with Mommy! It was wonderful to see him so happy. Then we went home and both took a two hour nap.

Playing the pan

Doing his shopping

Helping the older boys check out

Doggie poop

So Eddie was eating a cheese stick, when he suddenly started insisting that it was doggie poop. "Doggie poop," he said, pointing at it emphatically. "Doggie poop!"

"What?" I said, grossed out. "That's not doggie poop!"

He laughed. "Doggie poop."

"No, that's cheese!"

"Doggie poop."

I had to get across to this kid that this was not good table conversation. "No, doggie poop is gross. We don't touch it, and we don't put it in our mouths!"

Eddie considered this. "Mommy doggie poop," he said.

"Mommy does NOT touch doggie poop!" I exclaimed, scandalized.

He thought for a second, then said "Grandma Subie touch doggie poop!"

"No she doesn't!" I said, practically apoplectic.

Eddie just laughed.

Adoring Eddie

At some point every day, Kolya and I will comment on what a good kid Eddie is. He's gentle and inquisitive, attuned to his family and world, even patient and grounded--for a two year old. He loves snuggling and reading more than just about anything else. (He also loves Lego, food, and 'going to the city'. And he's been talking a lot lately about swings and going to the beach.) He's been acutely aware of my general malaise and exhaustion lately and has become absolutely adoring. He'll reach for my face, coo, "Mammaaaaaa, Maaammaaa." He'll rub my cheek, puckering his lips, and say, "Nice Mamma!" He clings and crawls all over me a lot, but he often knows when to give me space. He seems a little concerned for me, but patient. Some days I simply cannot sit upright or keep my eyes open. Eddie dotes and brings my water bottle. It's just that, he's such a good kid!

Words

Somehow, Eddie has determined that certain classes of words aren't useful, and he doesn't deign to recognize their existence. These include prepositions, articles, and auxiliary verbs. He's memorized the titles of most of his books—but only the important words. "A Kiss for Little Bear," for instance, he calls "Kiss Little Bear." "Ghosts in the House" is "Ghosts House," "The Cat in the Hat" is "Cat in Hat," and so on. He clearly doesn't have trouble remembering lots of words, since we have a lot of books, but he's not going to bother with fluff!

He also economizes if he's repeating what we tell him to say. If we ask him to say "May I have some apple, please?" he pares it down: "Apple please!"

He picked up a new word a couple of weeks ago and started using it all the time, but we couldn't understand what it meant. It sounded like "okoonk" or "ahdoon." We wondered if it meant skunk, or what? He seemed to use it in response to questions, but about such widely varied topics (types of food, or types of clothes, or what he'd done earlier...) that we couldn't imagine what he might be trying to get at. For a while, I thought that he'd come up with a good word, and was just trying it out on everything until he came up with what it meant. Then, the other day, I finally realized that he was saying "I dunno!"

Now it's clear why "ahdoon" is the answer to questions about every topic under the sun. Now that we understand, we've given him a little guidance about how to say it, and it's getting slightly more understandable, but it's still pretty strange (I doubt anyone but us would recognize it as "I dunno.")

I see you

We were walking down the street, returning from Whole Foods, with Eddie lagging behind me a bit. The buildings on the street have small windows for the basement level just at Eddie's height. He often likes to touch the bars or mess with latches on these windows (which I discourage.)

Today he stopped at a window, put his face between the bars and crooned "I see you!"

Pretty creepy, kid!