Cry of

While Duncan was taking his afternoon nap we finally got the safety gates up on the stairs. Duncan  woke up from his nap, I gave him a snack and then left him with Aunt Vaakku to go pick up Kai from school to take him to his play group. After we said good-bye, Vaakku said that she was in the kitchen when she heard him shaking the gate and then a bloodcurdling scream.  She raced into the foyer expecting to find him terrible hurt, but found him perfectly fine-- except that he was furious to be thwarted in his desire to go upstairs. 

firsts

Well, Duncan survived his first weekend home alone with his Dad and big brother. I think he missed me because when I was talking to them on the phone, I heard him say, "Mama Mama"-- which usually he doesn't. He's really into climbing and subsequently into falling down from the things he's climbed up on... it's kind of scary. 

Duncan got his first haircut today. You can see his "certificate of achievement" at Click here to view the certificate, but I don't know how long that will be up for. 

climbing monkey

Duncan has been testing out his climbing muscles-- he walked up the stairs (with his dad hovering behind) holding the banisters. Then later he climbed up into Kai's top bunk bed on the ladder! (I was behind him this time.) Twice. We are in so much trouble. 

He means what he says...

So today we had some guys come over to give us a bid on getting our basement finished. When it was time for them to go, Duncan walked them to the front door (like he does with everybody) and insisted that we stand out on the front porch to see them off.  Duncan shouted "Bah!" at them as they walked down the sidewalk and then did his little bendy-wrist hand wave to them.  Then he waited for them to start their cars.  But they didn't. They looked under the hood of one car and started just chatting. Duncan, unfazed, continued to shout, "Bah! BAH!" to them and wave at them to no avail. They never even noticed. So Duncan started getting antsy and kept wanting me to put him down (by leaning over really far and going, "UHHHH!" until I got the picture) and he walked down the sidewalk, down the driveway totally lasered in on them, "BAH!" Then he took my hand and we crossed the street. One of the guys squatted down to see what Duncan had to say and Duncan went to him for a hug, backed off and said, "BAH!"  

I'm sure he was wondering what he had to do to get these guys to turn on their cars and drive off...

road trip

So, Granddaddy, Grandmama, Kai, Duncan, and I are all crammed into our car, driving to Park City for a little road trip (and to pick up some snow boots for Kai from the outlets there.) Kai looks out of the window and says, "What's that? What's happened to that mountain?"

"It's a mine, Kai. You know, like a mine the Seven Dwarfs worked in..."

And then from Duncan we start hearing: "MAH-EEEEE! MAH-EEEEE!" Yes, he's heard 'mine' and thinks he's got to establish that whatever we're talking about is his.

Duncan's favorite word...

Duncan's favorite word is, quite reasonably, "mine".  If he's being quiet and you want him to talk to you, all you have to do is start saying, "Mine!" and he'll zero in on you, get right in your face to say "Mine!" back.  And you don't have to be saying "mine!" about anything in particular!  I think he just likes to say it.  Hmm... or maybe he thinks that's "his" word and he should be the only one saying it....

He obviously knows what it meant. When we were at Gardner village on Saturday, we followed Kai and Peter-Pike into the candy store.  It was so crowded and smelled delicious! I carried Duncan through there and he took one whiff of all the candy smells and started glaring down people and saying, "MINE! MINE!" Yes, Toddler Rule #1 is strongly in effect: Everything that I see is mine!

Little Entertainer

Duncan was quite the entertainer this morning during the Panther game. So much so that it was a little difficult to watch the game.  What was he doing? Well, picture him walking around shaking his head  (his version of running around in circles to get dizzy, I think) and falling down. Over and over and over again. He would fall down hard at times so hard that you would think it would make him re-think this "fun".  In truth, some of the times I had to watch him instead of the game because I was so worried that he would end up hurting himself really badly.  (And he didn't!)