Vocal Explosion!

Duncan's language has pretty much taken off in the last two weeks. There's not much he won't say these day. He tries just about everything we ask him too and he will come up with his own words. He came out of his room yesterday morning and went over to the bathroom where he could see the light on and he knocked and looked at me and said "Is it dad? Is it dad?" knocking again, Matthew said "Morning Duncan I will be out in a minute!" and Duncan looked at me and said "It is dad!!" I mentioned he said Linda and Pat too, he just is saying so much these days. It's kind of fun because he's starting to be able to communicate what he needs, on the other hand... he is frustrated more with the things he can't get across yet. We are really the only ones who can understand him anyway. OF course, one of these new words he's learned is 'MINE!' again, I knew it was coming, I should be glad we managed to put it off this far!

His classic phrase right now is "I'm okay!" He's falling and as he's falling he will be shouting "I'm okay!" Ha!

Oh, and I didn't mention it but the potty training stopped shortly after the post about it. It's just too early. My sweet boy will go when he's on the pot, but he will also go when he's not on the pot. He doesn't yet recognize when he's wet his unders, or understand me when I explain they are wet and why that isn't good. It's still quite early so we will revisit when he is more ready. In the mean time, he gets to go on the pot whenever he is interested and I started reading him 'Everybody Poops'. "Poop!" he says, "Poop!" In fact, during knitting night when Matthew was preoccupied with Dylan he stood by the gate and called me over and over and when I finally came up he said "poop!" marking the very first time he's actually let me know he went in his diaper, eureka! Ahhh, good... progress.

After Sunday watching all the kids on their scooters I went and got Duncan and Spider Man three-wheeled scooter. It's pretty cute. He has no idea how to use it though. Not enough watching kids yet I guess. I finally got him to move his foot along the ground but he doesn't get the pushing off and forward yet... I consider not standing on it and waiting for someone to push him a success though! He came home from playing with cousins that day with two skinned knees that I must have missed occurring... Come to think of it he did complain and fuss a little once, but we all looked and thought he was whining, apparently it was a legit complaint. He looks cute with skinned knees!

Matthew's grandpa passed away a couple of days ago at the very young age of 94. He was staying with Matthew's mom for a while where she proved that she was an absolute saint. A few weeks ago he started doing very poorly and they brought him to a place where he would have 24 hour care until he passed. Not being at LouAnn's was great for him I think, he got more family visitor's during two weeks than he had for the few months before that.

I didn't know grandpa very well, though I did call him grandpa and have a few (often the same) conversations with him while he lived at LouAnn's. All in all, it was time, and he finally decided to reunite with his sweet wife. His funeral was yesterday and it was very sweet. Most of his 6 children, 31 grandchildren, and 59 great grandchildren and every one's spouses were in attendance.

For the funeral we left Duncan with his cousins, Roman and Noah at their Aunt Heidi's house. We brought Ian and Dylan, Ian slept, and Dylan was having a great time with her Uncles Michael and Brandon. Really... the funeral was great fun from her perspective. And her giggling and cute face lightened the mood for those around her as well. Little cutie-patootie.

Duncan did NOT want to come home! When we pulled up, they were outside, he was in the cozy coupe with his bright and shiny rosy cheeks (a sure sign he's tired and/or hot). He fell asleep before we got home (within 5 minutes or less) and we woke him. and hour later he fell asleep in the high chair! He was so hard to wake up! I was hoping that no nap would make it easier for him to go to bed, I was wrong... but hey, I tried.

We all went to church this Sunday, at least for the first meeting, and I think we are going to shoot for a bit longer next time. I have to get comfortable with Dylan crawling on the yucky floors and being exposed to germs now. (I don't think it would be as big of a problem if she didn't seem to catch the plague every times and/or lick her hands! Yuck!) As Jill lovingly reminded me, she will be going to preschool shortly, and the preschool floor will be yucky too! Ack! Good point... you got me. I need to not think about it and just ship her off to Matthew's Sunday school class with him. Ack Ack. I can do this!!

Sunday she wore the dress my mom made for her, it was SO adorable! So when I had out a little dress for the funeral today Matthew vetoed, he wanted her back in the adorable dress she had on on Sunday! So he got it, and we got a ton of compliments on it at today's dinner too! So cute.

Also - Dylan kisses now. I mean, you say give me a kiss, and make a couple of kissy noises and she puckers and gosh darn it, she leans in for a kiss!! What?! Yes, it's really incredible! She is a bit more stingy with them than Duncan is though, she will sometimes act like she's going to and look away at the last second... but when she lands a wet one, it's sooo worth the work you put in to get it! I had told Michael this but she wasn't performing when they were here the other ngiht. Sure enough, during the funeral Michael got all excited, he said she looked at him, recognized what he wanted, puckered up and leaned in. I was like 'I told you!!' Not that I thought she couldn't do it, but this really opens up a world of things that we can teach her to do. Though, I am pretty sure it's taken a million kisses to get to this point!

A lot of the boys in their grandpa inspired bow ties! (Lovingly stolen form his cousin Katie's blog, mwah!)