Happy Halloween.... Dat's Funny!

This month, Micah's favorite expression is "Dat's Funny!", often used after being turned upside down, seeing a funny picture in a book, or doing something that we think isn't quite so funny, like spilling an entire bowl of soup on our glass table or running around the house naked to avoid having his nose wiped. We love seeing Micah's emerging sense of humor and fun, although it has gotten a lot more physically demanding to keep up with him! Sometimes it takes two of us -- and all of our patience plus some we didn't know we had -- to get him dressed in the morning. And there have been some...... moments, let's say. A few days ago, Adam and I were catching up at the end of the day while Micah occupied himself, and we soon discovered that his occupation had been drawing on the walls, with permanent marker! His "Dat's funny" quickly turned into repeating to himself "Daddy mad. Only wite paper" while we struggled between mad and the desire to laugh. We've left the walls marked up for a little while, so we can reiterate "only wite paper."
His newfound independence has also happened at bedtime, too.... our formerly easy bedtime turned into a supernanny-style showdown for a few days, with a few dozen trips out of bed, being carried back each time with the words "Its bedtime, goodnight." Finally, Adam discovered an easier option: if we just hold the door shut for a minute or two, Micah will give up trying to get out and go to sleep. Unfortunately, we can't do this trick in the middle of the night, when we've had a barefoot little boy show up in our bedroom at 2 or 3 am. Because no one gets much sleep if he stays in our bed, one of us will have to carry him back to his room each time, but he pops back in by 5:30 or 6. What a good little alarm clock!
We had plenty of halloween fun this weekend, and a little bit more planned for tonight. I asked Micah what he wanted to be for Halloween thinking he had absolutely no clue what Halloween is or entailed, but I got him the giraffe (his favorite animal) he requested. Then I was surprised each time some well-meaning adult asked him what he was going to be, and he confidently replied "elmo." Oh well, too late to send back the giraffe costume, and it did get a lot of compliments!

Gears and Guitars

Lucky for Micah, our next-door-neighbor not only meticulously polishes the inside and outside of his mint-condition 1965 Mustang frequently, but he also indulges Micah by letting him sit in the "wace caw." Micah can hear the engine revving from inside our house and stops whatever activity he's engaged in (or not, see "dinnertime" below) to go take a look. He still loves to identify all forms of transportation, and any car ride with Micah is a running commentary of what types of trucks, busses, and other vehicles he sees out of the window. Even from inside the house, he can identify the different sounds of helicopters, airplans, motorcycles, and lawn mowers, and if he hears an ambulance or fire truck, he wants to go see it. He's also loving his brand new electric toothbrush, and reminds us every day when it is time for his "noisebrush" (come to think of it, it is used more for making noise than brushing teeth at this stage, so perhaps it is a better name!)

Micah looooooves music, so we recently bought him this cheapo plastic guitar, which has become his prize possession despite the fact that it quickly lost two strings. I bought him a much sturdier little harp that has actual metal strings and makes actual pleasing sounds, but so far, he's less interested in that. Whenever we go somewhere with live music, Micah is happy to just sit and watch the instruments for a long time. Music lessons are definitely in our future!

I don't think we've ever used the term "milk mustache" with him, but that's what he told us after he drank Daddy's post-exercise protein shake. We're happy to sneak in extra calories wherever we can, because our boy is lean like daddy and not very interested in dinnertime. We've found we're more successful at getting him to eat if we let him away from the table and then periodically entice him to have a bite when he runs by us. Not a method of eating that will win us any best parenting discipline awards, but for a wiggly little boy, perhaps the best way of getting calories in. He will still eat almost anything, but if it is red in color or unfamiliar to him, he'll ask "spicy?" to make sure it isn't. He loves nuts and dried fruit, and knows where to find it in the cabinet, but his favorite snack is a bowl of "ce-re-er-re-er-real."

Our annual local pumpkin fest. It was very hot and he still doesn't understand the idea of posing for a picture, so this was the best I got. My little boy is so patient and gentle. He put up with several photo sessions, and let Mommy and Grandma drag him all around the park, before finally asking, just as we were considering leaving, "Micah turn horsies?" We thought he hadn't realized that the horse-drawn carriages circling the park were an optional attraction; turns out he was just waiting for us to figure out that a ride was his rightful reward for posing for pictures!