Two years old

Eric had a busy birthday. He ate Cheerios for breakfast while he waited for everyone else to get up. Then there were left-over pretzels from his birthday party for the group breakfast. He opened some of his gifts, mostly from party-goers, then paused to play with them, then had his picture taken quite a lot while waiting for his siblings to get ready for tae kwon do.

While the others were at Martial Sports, I took Eric for a walk along the shipping canal trail. We threw some hawthorn berries in the water, saw a crow eating a dead rat, and looked at some passing boats and ships. Among other things. We met the others just as they were coming out of class, and drove back home in hopes of finishing gift-opening, but Eric fell asleep in the car. So, we waited for the others to change clothes, then drove to the Green Lake area for lunch at a Thai restaurant. Eric woke up for that.

After lunch, we went a bit further northeast to a toy and game store called Math 'n' Stuff for our neighbor Dane's fifth birthday Lego party. Eric played with first Duplo then Lego, ate some pizza, had some cake, and scored himself a balloon to take home. Back home, we finally proceeded with opening gifts from family. Then, in the evening, Dane's family came over to share left-overs for dinner.

Eric has several new toys of interest to him, and he's been enjoying playing catch with his new football from the Taylors. Another thing he's learned recently is to point at the speakers in the living room and say, "dance," approximately. He has some interesting moves. Perhaps his favorite thing of all is ice cream. His siblings have taken to teasing him with the words, because they love how excited he gets. His loud, shrill response is much more "I scream!"

He still draws lots of comments about how happy he seems, though he has his grumpy moments, too, usually at home. And he's unusually helpful. He likes to unload the dishwasher or put away his shoes. One day recently, Nicole discovered that he had put all the clothes on the floor in the basement into the washing machine.

His vocabulary expands apace and this evening I think he counted to three before throwing me the football. The fun is just beginning!