a lordling’s life

Look at this little lordling getting ready for a trip to the park. He gets sunscreen. He gets a hat (he usually refuses to wear it, as is his lordly prerogative, but it’s there if he wants it). He gets his water bottle and a small towel to wipe his nose. Then he gets in his red wagon and gets a full ride to his destination.

We didn’t get as much park time as we wanted this weekend because of a historic heat wave. It was only (“only”) 90 degrees out, but intensely humid and cloudless. At least we took two park trips on Friday before the heat wave hit its peak.

We also went to Costco twice. Turns out we LOVE Costco. BB even recognizes the Costco logo. (I pull it up on my phone. “What’s this?” “Cocco.”) Mainly he likes sitting in the cart and stuffing his face with samples. He can have a full lunch off Costco samples. He’s a surprisingly adventurous eater. Things he ate and asked for more: Chicken salad (with mayo, pickles, celery, etc.), a different chicken salad with pecans and cranberries, thin sliced steak, chicken melts, cinnamon crumble cake. Everything is good when it’s a Costco sample. Buy it and bring it home and he might or might not eat any.

It's still wild to me how every small thing is a milestone at this age. His language skills improved literally over the weekend. On Sunday, for the first time, I heard him independently applying multiple words to the same object. At breakfast it was the light over the dining room table. “On. Up. On. Up.” Later that day, it was an apple. “Apple.” “Okay. We’ll need to ask Mommy and Daddy if you can have an apple so close to dinner time.” “Cut. Cut, cut, cut.” (New word for him. He wanted the apple sliced.)

Then on Monday, also for the first time, he started repeating two-or-three-word phrases. He saw a bird (“du-du!!”) that no one else saw. “Where’s the bird?” we asked him. Then Dad spotted it. “It’s on a tree,” he said. BB repeated: “On a tree.” Later that day, he repeated “bye-bye car” and “Gamma coming.” In the evening, I think I heard him say “Cocco car” all on his own. (I showed his mom how he could recognize the Costco logo. Then we headed out to the car to pack and leave, but maybe he thought we were going to Costco.)

The latest killer app for entertaining toddlers: Microsoft Word. BB can recognize around 10 letters and half his numbers. Mom was trying to do work on her laptop, but he came to see what she was doing, so she sat him on her lap, opened a new document with 72 pt font, and showed him: when you press the B key, B appears on screen. BBBBBBBBBBBBB. Loads of fun. Top tier edutainment software.

Other fun things:

• Book of the weekend: Corduroy (quality storybook, good stuff)
• Character of the weekend: Pluto. BB’s got a solar system book. All the other planets are mid, but Pluto looks SO sad because it’s been demoted. BB will turn to Pluto’s page to point at Pluto and say “oh no!!” (skills: art interpretation (he understands it’s a sad expression), verbalizing emotions, sympathy)
• Fish of the weekend: On Sunday, we went to a Japanese restaurant for Father’s Day lunch. There was a koi pond. BB let out a squeal of delight when one of the koi blew a bubble at him.