Ah-ee

Well, Dean has learned another new word. Sorry (pronounced ah-ee). He says it was a pitifully remorseful tone of voice.

He has been one busy boy this week, and I have prompted him to say that word often! The destroyer phase has commenced.

This week he had a lot of time indoors to be destructive because it rained every day. It seems like every time I turned around he was doing one of the following:

• dumping something out (try cleaning up an entire Tupperware full of yeast! Even sweeping, vacuuming, and mopping didn't quite get it all.)
• pulling down daddy's paints off his desk
• climbing up chairs to get to the candy, water, pens, etc. on Matt's computer desk
  
• climbing up on the kitchen table and removing CD's from the player (or eating fruit out of the bowl)
• pulling out the plug stoppers in order to plug in the waffle iron and a curling iron
• opening our tv stand and pulling out the DVDs and opening all the cases he could before I stopped him
  
• sitting in our wet floored shower pulling out the drain thing
• "cleaning" his ears with Q-tips he's taken out of the drawer
• ripping toilet paper into little pieces and putting them in the toilet one by one
• applying/eating chap stick
• pulling things out of the trashcan while saying uh-oh (I will say "No Dean. That is not an uh-oh. That is a no-no because you KNOW you're not supposed to do it!")
  
• ripping the dogs or bears out of his pop-up books (he felt very "ah-ee" for this one and still laments over the missing dog)
  
• ripping open any box he finds (cereal, mac n' cheese, pasta, Indian food mixes)
• opening doors and drawers and cupboards at my doctor's apt. and pulling out chemicals, tampons, air fresheners, etc.
• avoiding and fighting any attempt I made to change or put on his clothes, diapers, or shoes
  

He has been doing some very fun things too:

• kissing everything--me, stuffed animals, a picture of his great-great grandma (he really likes that particular picture on my mantle), animals in books, and daddy on the lips (though Matt won't let him), etc.
  
• saying "hi" to everyone he passes in a store, even if they're not paying him a bit of attention
  
• ripping off my glasses (not good) while squinting his eyes (funny)
• saying "sorry" very remorsefully
• "tricking" me by offering me something and running off when I reach out for it
• pulling his little wooden pull-along-dog all over the house
• fake laughing. I guess I do this a lot.
• not that this is good, but Matt has really bad mucous problems so he often hauks up thick junk and spits it into the trash. Every time he does this Dean follows him to the trash and makes a spitting sound over the trash can. It's really funny, but I probably shouldn't laugh!
• says "cookie" so well and clearly (almost like the cookie monster with the audible hyphen) that I just can't resist making some with him! He likes the dough much better than the actual cookies though.

(These oatmeal-almond-chocolate chip cookies were REALLY good. They were thin and chewy, just like Matt likes cookies. Find the recipe here. Mine didn't quite look like those pictured on the site, but they still tasted delicious!)

He's really a good kid and fun to be with, but he's just so incredibly curious and busy, busy, busy! Constant vigilance! (As Mad-eye Moody would say.) Boy what I wouldn't give for a magical eye that can see every which way.

He went to nursery for the first time today and it was disastrous even though Matt was there. He did ok at first while he was right by Matt, but at one point they split the kids into two groups. While one group ate lunch, the other group played. Then they switched kids. Well, Matt was with the lunch kids and Dean was absolutely terrified of one of the nursery leaders in the play area. (He's a man, tall/big and loud...triple whammy in Dean's book of terrifying things.) He cried so hard he started convulsing and shaking all over. Matt said he's never seen him cry that hard. Someone opened the partition for something and Dean made a mad dash for Matt. I can't imagine what it would have been like if Matt hadn't been in there at all! He didn't really stop crying after that until he saw me after church. He clung to me, laid his head on my shoulder, and patted my back (like he was comforting me. haha) when he saw me. A serious mama's boy.