Eepo, Lego & Mickey Mouse

What do those three words have in common?

They're all new additions to Noah's vocabulary.

The first is probably my favorite. He's got a book, Hippos Go Berserk!, that he really likes. It starts off with one hippo, who decides to invite a couple other hippos over...then a couple more show up, then more until there is a room full of hippos and what we do when we get to the middle (showing all 44 hippos going berserk) is to tickle Noah and say in a high-pitched, excited voice, "ALL THE HIPPOS GO BERSERK!" Noah quickly picked up on this, and sometimes will make a tickle motion with his hands either on his belly or on yours, and will say, in a high-pitched, excited tone, "EEPO EEPO EEPO!" Which, as you've figured out, is "hippo." When Dan, Janet & Rachel were here last weekend, Noah was the proud recipient of a t-shirt with a hippo on it, and he was very excited, and pointed to it and said, "EEPO!"

The other words came about the same day. Noah and I were in the dollhouse, looking for something (well, I was more looking, and Noah was just there, opening and shutting the door which is just his size...) and we found one of the three toy baskets that we have (we keep one toy basket in the house, and rotate the toys) and it had the large back of those big Lego-type blocks, and so I thought Noah would enjoy those, and grabbed those to bring in. In the meantime, Noah found a plastic Mickey Mouse figure, and picked it up, pointed at it, and said "Meek Mowfs." I'm sure I could be hearing what I wanted to hear, because honestly, I can't remember when Noah would have heard "Mickey Mouse"--unless it's at school. The mouse is fairly pervasive, so I'm sure there are references out there, but still...we thought it was very impressive!

When we got inside (toting the famous rodent with us), I unzipped the Lego block bag (actually, I think they're Duplo blocks, but whatever--we call them Lego blocks), and Noah quickly began playing with them. He was putting them together, and I went over to play with him, and he held up a yellow block and said something that we thought sounded like "yellow." Upon further investigation, we think that he may have been saying "Lego."

It's just amazing how much he's picking up on a daily basis. He's really becoming a little mimic... There was a day when I was surprised by something, and said, "Holy cow!" Yup. Behind me there was a little voice that quickly repeated "Holy cow." Only when Noah says "cow" he sounds like he's from Wisconsin. Not sure why.

He LOVES being outside, and on the flip side, HATES to come inside. Since it's been nice these past few days, we've tried to spend as much time outside as possible. He's usually a very fun little guy to be around, but every day he gets closer and closer to being two--which means the tantrums are beginning to become bigger and bigger, and today he started pulling my hair. HARD. Not sure what we're going to do.... I had to put him in a mini time-out last night at dinner. It's so hard, because I know that he's just frustrated that he doesn't have the words to express himself, and frustration that he can't have what he wants. This is the hard part of parenting, not giving in. I'm sure this stage will pass.

Right?

Right?!?

And, apropos of nothing, here are some photos... Some show him with green paint on his head, cheek, chin, nose.... This is what happens when you're doing a tote for Grandma of your handprints & have WAY too much fun with the green paint! Enjoy!

Fun with green paint!

Fun with bubbles!

I know that he wasn't actually holding this bubble on his thumb, but I just love that it looks that way!

I just love how intently he's looking at the bubble.

Patrick filming the bubble show...Noah's a bit older now, and can really enjoy bubbles. Perhaps over Spring Break he can get the film to a watchable few minutes & we can post it!

Patrick and Noah waving at each other. I'm getting crazy "Lawrence Welk" flashbacks....