A picture says a thousand words

We had a pretty disastrous trip to Six Flags today. How can a trip to an amusement park be disastrous? Well, it's supposed to be fun, right? However, a certain, very short, male person in our group did nothing but whine and complain and cry pretty much from the moment we got there to the moment we left.

Oh, except when I bought him a gigantic (billed as "small" yet still outrageously expensive) ice cream cone. It's hard to cry when you're drowning in ice cream.

The kids ate their cones on the way out. As I was walking alone, pushing the stroller, I saw a few people look at Xander and smile. I thought it was just because there was this little kid with this enormous* ice cream cone. At one point, we passed a woman who said, "He's so cute."

I thought, he probably does look pretty cute. I should take a picture. So I got out the camera. When I walked in front of him to take the picture, I found out why everyone was smiling at him:

Jessica fared a little better:

Oh, and for those of you that aren't on Facebook, here's a cute picture of the kids from yesterday. Can you guess what they were eating?

*Note to Nutan:
Look! I managed to use both "enormous" and "gigantic" without resorting to "ginormous." It can be done.

This and that

Xander has reached what a friend once described as the "charming" stage of speech where he puts out a constant dialogue of what he's doing. Examples: "Mommy, I put my shoe on." "I picked flower." "I rode in kayak." "I helped Daddy's police car." Better late than never!

* * *

One of his new tricks is the way he responds whenever you ask him what color something is. First, he always says blue first, no matter what color the item is. Second, he always says, really fast, "I don't know, blue?" so that it comes out something like, "I dunno, blue?" Then when you tell him it's not blue, he'll respond with something like, "I dunno, geen?" I think this is just a game, because he can sort items into groups of color and he's correctly identified pink and orange, so I don't think it's random guessing.

* * *

There's been some disagreement between his parents about his hair length. Daddy would prefer than Xander have the same haircut he does--about a quarter inch. I like it long. Little boys can get away with long curly hair. Although we saw one boy this weekend, about 2 years old, practically with ringlets. I'm not sure I would go that far.

Anyway, I've been polling everyone I see, asking for their opinion. Most people agree it's okay, even adorable, for him to have it long, though some (cough, cough, Uncle Eric) won't do so in front of Hari. His two daycare teachers really like it long, so much so that they are trying to teach him to say to his daddy "No haircut."

Just like sister

Even though Jessica is gone for the week at Nanamma's house, her legacy lives on. I just gave Xander some cinnamon chips, which we're trying for the first time. He gave me "thumbs up," just like Jessica does when she approves of the food I'm serving her. Although he said "thumbs up" but actually gave me "forefingers up."

I can still see you, you know

Twice today when Xander needed a diaper change, I told him I was going to change him, and then went into the bathroom to get a clean diaper. Then, when I got back into the living room, he was on the couch, "hiding" behind one of the couch cushions. Perhaps he thought this was such a superb hiding spot the first time (even though I "found" him), he hid there again the second time. Different couch cushion the second time though.

* * *

I tried on a new dress today. Xander came up behind me, looked at me and said, "Pretty." I knelt down so we were closer in height, thanked him, gave him a hug, and he patted me on the back.

At two, he's already more considerate and sweet than many men.

Another one bites the dust

Xander's reached that stage of speech where he's just exploding with words, adding lots of vocabulary, expressing more complete thoughts in longer sentences, improving his pronunciation. It's really great.

But with that, goes the slow disappearance of the very cute mispronunciations. The most recent favorite of mine to drop off is "Jecca." Sister is now referred to as Jessie.

Everyone will be pleased to know he's still saying "No way!"

Heart melts

Xander told me several times last night "I love you so much" (unprompted) and kissed me on the cheek. However, at first he was saying "I miss you so much" until I asked, "Do you mean 'I love you so much'?" and it turned out he did mean that.

I'm losing my leverage

Bedtime is always a trial in my house. We (and by "we" I mean "Jessica and Xander") got spoiled at bedtime while we were on vacation, staying in bed with Mommy every night. Last night I had promised they could stay in our bed because it was our first night back.

Well, Xander just wouldn't calm down and go to bed. I resorted to my usual threats, "if you don't lay down, you have to get out of bed, I'm going to put you on the floor." Nothing. Then, "if you don't go to sleep, I'm going to leave."

His response? "Leave." Then, more insistently, "Leave, Mommy!"

So, I left. I knew there was pretty much zero chance that this meant he was going to lay down and go to sleep.

And I was right.

Within minutes, he had gotten out of bed, walked to the door, opened it, and was looking for me. We went through several rounds of this, each one ending with me leaving and then him getting out of bed.

Finally, I decided to just go to sleep myself, figuring he would go to sleep too, eventually.

He got pretty mad at that. "Leave, Mommy!" he said. My two-year-old, trying to evict me from my own very comfy bed. It boggled my mind.

I can no longer use his alleged need for me as leverage to get him to go to sleep. Okay, the kid gloves are coming off. Tonight, I am not staying in bed with him at all. I just have to figure out a way to get him to stay in bed.