Wild Thing

Whew!  Ever since we found out about the twins it's been difficult to stay up-to-date here.  And Julius just changes so much.  

At this point it looks like he may be our family gourmand.  He'll eat or drink anything, yes, from fresh cayenne peppers to black espresso, but he also really enjoys trying different flavors.  He saw me dip my sausage into mustard and said, "oooh, a sausage and a mustard!"  "Hey, I wike mussard too!"

Oh, but that's not what I wanted to say.  Last night I read him Where the Wild Things Are for the first time.  He loved it from the moment he saw Max hammering the wall on the second page.  And his eyes got very wide at the Wild Things.  You see, Julius is a wild thing himself.  

Not a baby!

Now that we have a new baby on the way (Dean or Chrysanthemum Oval), it's a little easier to accept the fact that Julius is no longer a baby.  He's past that wonderful stage where he learns a new word every day, yet still knows few enough words that I can count them up.  Now he pretty much knows all he needs to communicate.  Sylvia loves to give him a long list of words to repeat.  

Now, he's not the world's finest enunciator, which gives him the ability to make cute little-kid mispronunciations.  Like when he got Heather's fruity gum out of her purse and said, "a water ellen gwum?  PWEE DAD?"  How can you resist?!

His other big thing now is his absurd strength.  He can pull Sylvia around in the big wagon, or give her rides on his dump truck.  When he does this he looks like the people on the "world's strongest man" challenges pulling tractor-trailers behind them.  

Oh and his other big thing now is his crazy lust for life.  He just has such vigor.  It's exhausting to see how eagerly he faces the day.  I like to tell Heather that it would be fun to go through my day with Julius' eagerness.  He loves doing everything.  "A WAKE UP!  A BOWER!  A DWINK COFFEE? CARRRR!  WIDE!!  OH, COME TOO, COME TOO!  HEFFY BOOK, A HEFFY BOOK!"   

Etch

I love to hear that boy talk.  He's at the sweet-n-cute age when his vocabulary outpaces his ability to enunciate.  He used to simply not say any word containing a sound he couldn't pronounce, even when he could prove in other ways that he knew that word.  He still has trouble with diphthongs, but now he picks one letter of the diphthong to pronounce, hence [t]ruck and [d]rink.  And he can pronounce his Rs just fine, but not Ss.  Stop is bop (usually "BOP!!", more accurately), sip is bip (again, more often "a BIP!! pwee, duh-DEE!").

But he still makes his characteristic sound, which we all love.  It sounds kind of like "etch," but with more of a raspberry-type sound at the end.  Sylvia always incorporates it into her Julius impressions.  Any word that he still doesn't want to pronounce becomes an "etch."  The interesting thing is that you can tell he is thinking real words and trying to communicate them, just "etch"-ing them out.  So when he counts off before taking off like a sprinter, he says, "etch... etch... GO!"  

Picture Post: Easter

Easter 2009


Easter 2010

Favorite Things

Julius' favorite things include Diego, starchy foods, wheeled transportation, and nakedness.  He combined 3 of his 4 loves yesterday when he wheeled his dump truck full of fried potatoes into Sylvia's room to watch Diego.  He was, unfortunately, clothed.

In other news, we have a new Julius.  The old Julius was sweet, shy, calm and compassionate.  The new Julius is sweet, compassionate, and A TOTAL MADMAN.  He can't sit still for an instant, and his speed is really shocking.  He pushes his dump truck, from one end of the house to the other, so quickly that it's not enough to step out of the way.  You have to take notice early and sometimes actually dive to avoid getting your toes broken.  He's super-strong, and can grab a high surface, do a pull-up, and kind of rappel his way up a flat surface (for instance, a counter and cabinets).  

It's marvelous how full of life he is, especially when I think back about his birth.  I'm so blessed that our poor, distressed baby turned into this rambunctious, glowing, vigorous little dynamo.  And you should see his smile!  

language explosion

Julius has been having a language explosion!  I remember the first stretch when Sylvia learned a new word a day, and how amazing that was.  Julius is in a similar state now, and some of his most common phrases are:

• I pie!  (I Spy)
• Outide, my houf (Go outside, to my playhouse)
• Choo, choo!  Beep, beep!  (Playing with cars)
• Poddy! Yeah, I peed!/Yeah, I poop!  

"BYE-BYE!" and "Up!" and "Down!" are also popular.  But my favorite, most characteristic Julius word is "okay."  As in, "I'm okay."  Any time he falls or suffers an emotional injury he'll bury his head in mama's lap and say, "mama, okay, okay."  It was especially sweet when he was sick/upset last week; he'd just hold Heather tight and say, "okay, okay."  

Terrible Twos: Travel Edition

I suppose it's not so much the terrible twos we're dealing with. I think it might be more separation anxiety than anything else. To top it all off, Julius is suffering from a bit of a cold, making his mood all the more sad.
When he feels especially unwell he'll cry and deny how he's feeling. He'll say 'Okay, Mama, okay. Okay.'

Despite all of this he's had quite a fun day at the Zoo. Here's hoping a good night's sleep will make tomorrow's adventure even more enjoyable.