Crazy fan yelling

Oscar likes to turn on the fan in his room and then yell into it.
He's also replaced "Dada" and "Mama" with "Daddee!" and "Mommee!"

Oscar, age 2

If you ask Oscar how old he is, he will tell you "Two."
If you ask Oscar how he's doing, he will say "Uh good," with his inflection rising.
If you ask Oscar what he ate or would like to eat, his answer is "Meat."
Oscar likes to watch "Car? Eye?" and "Truck? Eye?" videos on YouTube. That's how he refers to Pixar's "Cars" because all the cars and trucks have eyes.
On the street, he will identify Jeeps, trucks, cars, rigs (SUVs) and Neenee (Mercedes Benz, like his Naunie drives).
He has started to string a couple words together like "Mama work" and "Dada home." Tonight we think he uttered his longest sentence: "I don't want to." (when asked whether he wanted to put away his toothbrush and toothpaste)
Today he marched through the kitchen and into the bathroom and shut the door. Adam checked on him. He was using Mr. Potato Head's nose to "unlock" the door and told Adam "key."
"Key" is also what he says for cookie, Monkey and cat. Context is very important when trying to understand toddler speak.

Lately when we go for a walk, Oscar's often walking instead of riding in the stroller. Here's a nice family walk we took last week.

Waste Management

Our friends Will, Stacy and Sam are on vacation at Playa Viva in Mexico. This morning Oscar and I were checking out the resort's Web site (Will had tipped me off to a cool video of baby turtles). Oscar wasn't too impressed with the baby turtles, but there were many other videos available to watch, like "Nature Preserve" and "Tree Houses." Which one did Oscar want to watch? "Waste Management." Chip off the old, old block, eh?

Is it any wonder it was on his mind? Tonight he pooped in his potty for the first time. Yea! Photos available upon request.

In the meantime, here are a couple recent pictures to tide you over plus a video.

Oscar sporting, sort of, his new hat from Gramma's trip to San Antonio.

Punk Rock Bath Time


Happy Easter

Babbling

Oscar has many, many new words, both verbal and signs.

He also tells us stories, talks on whatever he's using as a phone and asks questions (we can tell by the way his voice goes up at the end of the babble).

He is obsessed with a mole on the bottom of his left foot and will show & tell anyone who's interested, "mole!" as he pulls off his shoe and sock and grips his little foot as close to his eyes as possible to make sure the mole's still there.

Another of my favorites is when he says "home." He really draws out the o-m sound.

The other day, he was making fake crying sounds and hugging George, his stuffed monkey, and patting him consolingly. I got a little teary seeing my son's compassion for his distraught friend.

One of the fun babbles Oscar does is...well, I can't figure out how to spell it on here. In any event, I managed to capture it on video tonight, so thought I'd share.

Fridge toy

Oscar likes his magnetic and musical barnyard animal toy. He has a hard time deciding which tune to play sometimes...and then there's that annoying towel...

Happy to be home

We had a fantastic road trip last week: we drove from Salem to La Grande on the 7th and stayed with my dad and Rebecca; drove to Nampa, ID, on the 8th and stayed with my brother and his family for two nights; returned to La Grande on the 10th and stayed with my mom and returned to Salem on the 11th. Whew! Our hosts were wonderful and we saw too little of all of them.

Grampa and Oscar
Justin and Oscar
Gramma and Oscar
The purpose of the trip was to attend Adam's 20th class reunion for Centennial High School. It was fun to see Adam's best childhood friend Aaron, along with his wife, Deb, and to meet the folks who used to live in his neighborhood when he was a kid. It was also great to see Mrs. Billingsley and Deb and Aaron's kids. Back in La Grande, we had a lovely visit with Beth, Kevin, Tess and Colm.

Aaron, Elizabeth, Adam and Oscar
Beth and Oscar
After staying in three places over four nights (setting up good middle-of-the-night spots to nurse and change diapers was interesting!) and an 8-hour trip home on Monday, we were so glad to be home. I'd wisely taken Tuesday as a vacation day, so the three of us just relaxed and enjoyed ourselves. Here's a video of just how happy Oscar was to be home: