Making His Opinions Known

I think I forgot how fun a one year old is. The trade off for the exhausting, constant supervision that's needed is the budding abilities to begin to express one's self. I love getting to know Bode. I love finding out what he likes to eat (fruit..unfortunately in the diaper department), bananas (I use Gwen Stefani to spell that word in my head) and macaroni and cheese. I love finding out what he likes to do (dig outside in the dirt). I love discovering how much he LOOOOOVES Henry (his face lights up every time he hears him meow..from outside of course;). And he adores our lift-the-flap Elmo books. He especially loves my amazing (not really) impression of Cookie Monster. He kept making a funny, guttural sound when we started reading, and I quickly realized that was his Cookie Monster impression. It's adorable. He whips through all of the pages until he finds his big blue friend. I think that I may go buy a Cookie Monster stuffed animal in celebration of finding out this about our boy.

But Elmo isn't to be outshone by Cookie Monster. The other night as we were reading before bed, Bode leaned his head down and planted a smacker, right on Elmo. It was precious. That was his way of saying "I love you man" to the furry red monster. MELT!

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The other night while Ben was gone for the weekend the kids and I took a very ambitious walk to the Baskin Robbins (and Starbucks of course) about a mile/mile and a half from our house. It was 6pm. The sun was scheduled to set at 7:45 (thanks 9news.com) and Bode had taken a late marathon nap. And Ben was gone. For the weekend. Did I mention that? So I needed anything to break up the evening monotony. So we walked. It was great, but it got to be a loooong trek on the way home. The sun started setting and we had yet to cross a few streets. Bode was OVER IT. As I pushed the double stroller faster I looked down and saw Bode doing the sign for "all done." (Just recently mastered). HILARIOUS! And that right there is why baby sign language was invented. For him to know that's what he was feeling and to communicate it is still amazing to me (although I already was reading his "sign" for all done loud and clear...read: screaming.). But still. And always ready to document, it's caught on tape:

Between the climbing adventures and the newfound ability to communicate more, I think I will have lots to write about ;)