generalizations

four-legged animals: "woof woof."
stuff in a bowl in the kitchen: "dough."
women: "amy."

bye!

latest thing: linus consistently says "bye" to the bath, his kitchen doorway swing, people, places, et cetera. especially to his kitchen doorway swing, which he loves but only in small doses.

bock bock

i picked linus up from t&t's house this evening and he clucked at me (they have chickens). he associates chickens ("bock bock") and eggs ("eggies"). he said "moon" all the way from the porch door to the car.

late night living room scene

circa 3:45am, having just had a diaper change, nursing in the living room, linus is quiet for a long time. from the bedroom it looks as though he's asleep. then:

"dark."

several beats. "snow."

several beats. "moon."

early morning scene

circa 4:45am.

having just been danced back to sleep after a diaper change, linus is sawing logs with his cheek on the sheepskin.

evidently dreaming about dogs. hauls self up on hands, says "woof woof woof!" crawls over to mama to resume sleep.

evening scene

sitting at the table, naked from the waist down while a diaper rash heals, grownup-sized oven mitts on both hands, trying to drink from a small water bottle.

yes we can!

climbing and talking

many advances in speech. yesterday he started saying "okeh" in response to "OK." he also likes to roar at the eric carle brown bear postcard that hangs above his changing pad — quiet roars that sound more like throat-clearing but will doubtless get louder and more acute. speaking of loudness, he screams just to hear himself do it, so we try not to react, but it's cute. i'm convinced that he says "it's dark" when we point out the window at night. no progress yet on "ball"/"balloon" disambiguation. he calls for me when he doesn't know where i am and wants to find me. he also (nonverbally) asks for help with matryoshka dolls when he's having trouble separating tops from bottoms — just hands them to me and expects them to be handed back in two pieces.

he likes to draw on paper! who knew. all kinds of doodles.

all of our work on descending/dismounting backwards has paid off because he climbs and unclimbs stairs with enthusiasm and an appropriate amount of caution. it's a sight to see him peer down a flight of stairs and then determinedly turn himself around to descend feet first. the same extends to playground equipment, although he may be developing some hubris that will unavoidably lead to some tumbles from too-high platforms.

finally, photos. we had a lovely thanksgiving in great barrington, massachusetts with joey and alana and many friends. alana took several family photos that are (1) fantastic and (2) embarrassingly some of the first we have. they're on my flickr feed.

advances

1. stands freely (if only in jest)
2. says "obama" -- not sure why.

no no nonono no no

Repeatable experiment:

Us: Hey Linus, do three singing pigs say "La La La"?

Him: Nononononono.