Ode to Al

Poor Al – he hasn’t gotten much attention on this blog lately, so I figured I’d dedicate a post solely to him. He really is in a fun stage right now. He has starting talking more than ever, but unfortunately, not in complete sentences yet (or more than 1 word sentences, for that matter), so it is harder to write about things that he does or says, as half of the time we don’t even really know what he is saying (or doing for that matter), but just a few of the cute Alex’isms…

1. He LOVES the phone – whether it is the real house phone, my phone or his toy phones. Every time he sees a phone or hears a phone, he puts his hand up to his ear and says “A-LOW?” I had to spell it that way so that you know just how it sounds.

2. Whenever you ask him a question and he doesn’t know the answer (like, Where is Daddy?), he turns both hands up so that his palms are in the air and shrugs his shoulders and says, “EYE-O?” As in, I don’t know?

3. He calls Avery Day-Dee and Deacon Dee-Dee.

4. He LOVES feeding Deacon every night. Both he and Avery come down in the basement with me to get his food and then they both carry his food to the mudroom every night together. And, for whatever reason, at one point, Avery said that she thought that the basement smelled good. Not sure what child would think that a musty, nasty basement smells good, but whatever…this is about Alex not her, so we won’t attempt to figure it out. :) ANYWAY – because of that, anytime we go down to our basement (or any other basement, as I’ve come to find out), Alex yells, Yum! While walking down. Weird, but cute.

5. He LOVES brushing his teeth. Every morning, I yell out, Who wants to brush their teeth? And, he yells (VERY enthusiastically), “YEAH!!!” so, I give him his toothbrush and then he proceeds to run around with it and then I proceed to say, “Alex!! Don’t run with your toothbrush in your mouth” and then he still proceeds to run with it and I yell….you get the picture. Point being, I lose many battles. Anyway – he brushes and then comes to me with his mouth wide open yelling “AAAHHHH!!!” so, then I brush his teeth and then he gets to put the toothbrush in the drawer all by himself. Simple pleasures at 18 months, I guess.

6. His favorite past time is taking everything out of my spice cabinets and then walking away. Awesome. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve tripped over the freaking vanilla while trying to cook. And, then there was the time when an entire thing of rice vinegar got spilled. Oh - and, then the bread crumbs out of the pantry (note – these are extremely slippery, so avoid walking in a pile of bread crumbs whenever possible).

And, yes - half of the reason I included this on my list was to show all of you my spice cabinets - one of the many things I love about my kitchen. You have to admit they are pretty cool!

7. He loves giving hugs. Even to skulls at the Children’s Museum.


8. He will go to just about anyone who wants to hold him. In fact, just this last weekend, we pulled up to a friend’s house and my friend’s husband came out to the car – Alex has never met him, but held his hands up for him to take him out of his car seat. A bit different than his sister was at that age!

9. He is talking a ton. Some of his favorites are:
a. Cracker
b. Mama (or Mommy)
c. Dada (or Daddy)
d. Ba-Ba (for his sippy of milk)
e. Bye-Bye (which we have just recently mastered and no longer sounds like Ba-Ba)
f. Bar (for fruit bars, which he loves)
g. Moon
h. Car
i. Doggy
j. Boo-Boo (which he points to often and says every time I get the mederma out for it)
k. Mo (which is No, but with an M for some reason)

10. And, probably the coolest of all of his traits is that he LOVES his big sister. Loves her. She can get him to laugh easier and louder than either Josh or Me. He is also very into copying everything that she does, which often times results in both of them running around the house, jumping on things, etc., but it is really fun to watch them interact together. She is so good with him and I’m pretty certain they will be life long friends....as long as she doesn't choke him to death in the mean time...