He's growing up so quickly

Or at least it seems so. Tonight, I was reading one of his favorite books to him before bed. The book is "Biscuit goes to the farm." Biscuit is a puppy, and is the main character of a series of these books. He loves Biscuit books, even though we only have like 3 of them so far. So I was reading it to him, and on one page, it showed a piglet along with Biscuit. So after I read the words on the page, I pointed to the pig first and said "here's the piglet, and there's the puppy." He pulled the bottle of pediasure out of his mouth (I've found recently that he's drinking better if I read to him while he drinks), pointed to the puppy and said "that's Biscuit." Like he was just making sure I knew that was the puppys name. I just thought it was cute, but also realized at that time how much he seems to have grown up recently.

2 months ago he was barely saying any words, now he interrupts his bottle to make sure I'm reading the book correctly. He also takes the bottle out of his mouth just to read a specific page in the book (well, he doesn't READ it, he remembers what it says after we've read it to him so many times.) It's "Woof woof, Oink oink, Honk" since it's the puppy speaking, then the piglet, the the geese. Pretty easy for him to remember those words since he knows what sounds the animals make. Anyway, he does it EVERY time I get to that page. He loves "reading" the book to me. It's like he's so impressed with himself that he can do it too!

Let's see. What else. Oh, he can count to 11 on his own now. He could only count to 8, then to 10, now it's 11. We keep telling him 11, 12, but so far he's just gotten the 11 part. Not a problem. He doesn't even turn 2 1/2 for a few more days, and he says those on his own while running around or whatever. He can say most of the alphabet on his own, but tends to forget a few letters. What he DOES say, though, is in order. It's cute. He used to love pointing out the letter "E", but when he says the alphabet, it's A,B,C,D,F,G, etc. And "F" is pronounced "Epp", unless it's in a word, like "flag." Kind of like, he can pronounce the letter "M" in the alphabet, but when he refers to me, I'm "Bobby", like what it might sound like if he had a cold, except that he doesn't. I don't mind, except I do wonder how I went from "Momma" to "Bobby." Not a big problem at this time though.

Terry's company had a picnic yesterday at the Veterans Rest Home right outside of Forest Lake. Gavin had a pretty good time. Not so much in the beginning, but he liked it better as time went by. He tried to play soccer with the bigger boys, and had a great time dancing to the music playing on the car stereo. Then he laid down on our blanket and played with his cars a lot. There was a little girl there that kept trying to play with him, that he didn't care anything about, but when we brought him over to the beach (his first time!), he played a lot with the little girl over there. She had a ball that they threw back and forth (kind of anyway!) in the water. He seemed to like her, and I think she wasn't much different age than the other girl, but whatever. Maybe it was because the first girl didn't speak at all, and the 2nd one did. I don't know, but everyone is like that. We like some people, and don't care as much for others.
He liked walking in the sand, both dry and wet (I figured he'd object to it because of his sensory issues), and loved watching the waves come up and splash over his legs. It was kind of chilly, so he didn't get the upper part of his body wet, but we are definitely going to have to take him to the beach more often, now that we know where one is. Of course, I'm hoping there's one closer than that to us!

Do books need food?

Gavin has started (occasionally, while sitting on our laps), trying to feed his bottles to the characters in his books. Today, it was Lightning McQueen from the "Cars" book. A lot of times we start reading to him before he drinks his bottle, to calm him down so he doesn't get stressed over it. But I'm not sure what is the deal with feeding the cars his bottle. It's cute though. So what if he doesn't pretend to feed stuffed animals? He pretends to feed his book characters. Isn't that pretty much the same?

Princeton parade

I brought Gavin to the parade in Princeton (MN) the other night. Daddy was going to be driving the H3 (Hummer), and I didn't want Gavin to miss it. We sat on the ground next to a couple who lived right in back of where they were sitting. They had 2 kids, one of them a 3-4ish year old boy, the other was a baby, maybe 8 months old. We watched the floats, Gavin liked the honking of the fire trucks and such (he loves saying "Beep" right now). His favorite thing though was the music. He loved the bands. Even when the other musicians weren't playing, he loved listening to the drums, and danced freely on the sidewalk and on the side of the road by where we were sitting. He was (as my father would say) "A big hit!" He danced and made sure to clap when the music was done. People watched him dance and I could tell they were smiling while watching him.l A kid he was sitting next to, started whispering to him something about "time to dance", so I guess that kid got a kick out of watching Gavin also. The kid was maybe 7 years old, or so.

Every time one of the parade entrants would go by and throw candy, Gavin TRIED to run out and get some. He wasn't really fast enough though, so I tried to help him as best as I could by jumping out and grabbing a few pieces of candy, like lollipops. He likes those, and we'll let him have them, whereas we don't let him have the hard pieces of candy. Anyway, one of the kids right near us jumped in front of everyone else to get to all of the candy when it was thrown. Because Gavin wasn't able to get to the candy before the other kids got it, the little boy we were next to walked over to Gavin and handed him a lollipop. I thanked him wholeheartedly (because it was such a nice thing for him to do, NOT because Gavin needed any more candy!), and his mother praised him for doing so well. He came over later on and gave Gavin another piece of candy. I thanked him again.
An hour or so went by, and we continued watching the parade, and I tried to show Gavin how to run out and get the candy with me, but it was usually gone by the time we got there. No problem. He didn't seem upset, and I didn't think he needed more candy since he already had a lollipop in his mouth. A little girl (from the other side of us) came over and handed Gavin a piece of candy, asking me "would he like a piece of candy?" I replied that "I'm sure he would love it. Thank you so much." I was just so impressed that in a situation when most kids are all about running for the candy and eating it before they get home, 2 kids came over to give Gavin some of the candy they had collected. Their moms should be proud that they have raised good empathetic kids.
One of Terry's coworkers was walking beside their vehicle handing out flags. Gavin loves flags so he was pretty excited to receive it. So excited, that even though Terry was only about 10 feet away and yelled to Gavin, Gavin didn't even seem to notice him. So, I picked Gavin up and carried him over to the H3 to show him his Daddy. (His face lit up then when his saw his Daddy then!)
Anyway, Gavin had a good time at the parade. I can't wait to take him to another one!