and some photos of the kid, too.

Yes, I am aware that it is haircut time! Boy Friday is looking quite shaggy.

Friday apparently knows about half of the letters?! Of course, W is his favorite "da-doo-ee" - and there are quite a few that he just knows the object appoo for A. He keeps going into the kitchen and yanking the refrigerator open. The other day, he decided he wanted KIWI!!! Oddly, he hadn't had any kiwi in weeks. I hadn't mentioned kiwi either... so I'm not at all sure how he suddenly got it in his head that I had kiwi in the fridge. Had to go buy some. I left the kitchen a couple of days ago, only to return and find half the contents of the fridge stacked on the table. He exclaimed "blackie!" when he saw me {that'd be blackberries}. Friday is all about the fruit - no thank you on the vegetables. Except carrots. Sometimes he'll eat a carrot.

The choo-choo addiction is still in full force. We're watching choo-choos all day long here. Sometimes on both the TV and the portable DVD player at the SAME TIME. Boy Friday has favorites, but is learning all of the names - Bertie the Bus, Diesel, Percy, Toby, Thomas (those two both sound like Tibby), Gordon, Mavis (currently Me-me). He's now got three wooden Thomas trains (Percy, Victor, and Diesel), and he'll be getting a few more. Hopefully we won't get pulled into owning fifty trains and train tables and whatnot.

Here's one of the things Boy Friday likes to do:


He'll line them up on window ledges throughout the house. The one in the kitchen is especially bothersome, as it SLOPES and the trains/cars/trucks slip off continually. So he'll shriek. The shrieking is fun. The ledge he's using in the above photo?



Yes, he's standing on the back of the couch.

water's a bit high i'm thinking

water's a bit high i'm thinking
Originally uploaded by tygerlotus

Went to the Chicago Botanic Garden yesterday. Weather was lovely and cool with a nice breeze. Apparently, however, the recent rains have caused the river to rise a little. Some areas of the park were inaccessible - including the serpentine bridge going out to Evening Island {where the bell tower resides}.

Friday at the Garden

Boy Friday was not being especially photogenic yesterday. Mostly he just grimaced, squinted, and refused to remove his sucky.



Who can blame him, though? It was hot, sunny, and he was tired. He does enjoy flowers, though, and his word for flower now resembles "flowee" rather than "sha-ee" - what he used to say.

Friday is getting really good at colors, too. Poo-pie (purple), yay-why (yellow), gwee, oofta (that's orange), boo, why (red, I think). He says both one and two, but isn't too clear on other numbers. And he even knows some letters! I bought some alphabet pasta soup thing from Target, and it was a noisy meal. He kept picking up the letters and telling me what they were. Especially "W" - not sure why he likes that letter so much. He can identify E, P, W, O (but he often calls it "eye" because, you know, it's a circle, so it must be an eye). Daduee is vitamin - he really enjoys getting gummy vitamins after dinner. mukum is milk. seewee is cereal. And today (actually, yesterday too) he insisted on the pik bowl (pink). Not sure why he needs his seewee and mukum in a pink bowl, but hey, that's ok with me.

This kid is weird, though - he likes strong flavors. Like see saw (soy sauce) - if you give him rice, he'll insist on seesaw with it. And he enjoys ju (juice) - grapefruit juice! The kind without any added sugar, too! Vinegar? sure! Why not? So, you really can't assume he won't like something just because it's a bizarre and strong flavor. In fact, he won't eat lightly flavored cheeses. They have to be strong - he's not overly fond of mild cheddar. Sharp is ok, but he'd prefer parmesan.

Oh, and now that his yellow duck bath deflated, we went through a couple of days where he'd stand and cry "all done!" over and over. That was short lived, though, and now after dinner he says "bat!" for bath. Really enjoying throwing water EVERYWHERE. I think some hit the ceiling yesterday.

I just pulled the crayons out again (he ate a piece the last time I had them out), and he's really enjoying coloring! He does color on the tile, too - but it cleans up easily. He is also majorly obsessed with choo choos. He can say Toby and Thomas (these both sound like slight variations of "too-be")and Gordon (gordo). Of course, he doesn't have Toby or Gordon (we have Percy and Victor in the wooden set). When Friday wakes up in the morning he runs to his room and says "choo choo! choo choo!" until I turn on the DVD. I would like to change how much he watches...