Outside

Anders loves playing outside. I remember Erik loved it as a baby too, but Anders REALLY loves playing outside. When he wakes up, he wants to play outside. He cries when Carl leaves--we thought he just really loved Dad. Of course, he does--but what he really wants is to go OUTSIDE with dad!

I thought I should start keeping track of his words, since I'm not writing it down anywhere else. My problem is that he says a lot, and I just don't tune into them as much as I did with Erik. Mama, Dada, baby, ball, balloon ("boo"), pray, eat, out, book are those I can think of off the top of my head. He also has a lot of signs: more, all done, eat, book, dog, elephant, cow, pray, bath, water, diaper, play. I'll add the words and signs that I remember/that are new, but it's good to have it started.

We met some new friends on Friday. Erik had a wonderful time playing with the little girl, who is a few months younger than him. I've never seen him so quickly in tune socially, and it was great to hear him call out to her, to see him initiate play with her, and to witness him in very appropriate social interaction. I got really excited about it! Of course, today at the park he was pushy and NOT good at socially interacting. So now I'm left wondering--was it the little girl, Charley, who made the difference? Did she just have the exact right way of getting through to Erik? Was she social enough, and willing enough to play with him, that it just worked perfectly? The girl at the park today was five, and she really made no effort to play with Erik. Perhaps faced with that, Erik resorted to earlier tactics. He really did want to interact with this girl, but she just wasn't interested in playing with him.

Erik's new favorite word is "actually", as in "ACTUALLY, mom, I said books then bed," to which my response is "well, ACTUALLY, Erik, we will brush your teeth before we read books." He's so cute. I need to open up the posting window in the day, and just type in the cute things he says as he says them. I forget them by evening, but he's so funny sometimes!