Drunken Midget

   We are right in the midst of the drunken midget stage. Oliver is walking, but still a bit unsteady. He can make it all the way across a room, if nothing gets in his way. Unfortunately life is a cruel mistress and often tests him with all sorts of things: carpet, toys, the dog, the cat, and the worst beast of them all, gravity. Sometimes I wonder if Oliver's large head causes some of this gravity issues, that giant dome must be heavy. Slowly and surely he makes progress. Crawling is still faster, but walking allows freedom of the hands to carry important stuff, like a wooden spoon and the remote control. All this walking does set my mind at ease however, I was getting a bit stressed about him being able to walk by the end of August. That was the deadline for him to be able to enter his new daycare. But I think he's got it in the bag now.

With Daddy on Father's Day.

   There are lots of new words too. I will try to list all of them. He knows the dog's name and one of the cat's names. He can say kitty and meow. "Bubble" is a favorite word, not only because he LOVES bubbles, but I think he has attached that word to anything he wants to play with. I think he does a similar thing with the word Daddy. He calls Easan daddy, but I also have witnessed him calling other men daddy. I do think he knows the difference between Easan and the random glumpy dude walking his dog past our house, but he hasn't learned how to say "mope" or "that guy's got nothin' goin' for him." (That was a shout out to my dad and his famous sayings.) He can also say water and banana, but those sound more like "wawa" and "nana." Easan cautions me about repeating his incorrect pronunciations back to him, something about how kids don't end up learning the correct words for a long time when their parents do that, and it apparently tears gaping ignorant holes in the fabric of our language. Linguistics nerds, what can I say?

Got to see his favorite animal at the zoo.

   Oliver also knows an impressive library of animal sounds. His favorite is the elephant which involves a spitting noise and waving your arm like a trunk. Tigers, lions, bears, sharks and most other predators make a whispered roaring noise. Cats say "mao mao,"  dogs say "arf arf," ducks say "ah ah ah." Wolves howl, birds tweet, mice squeak, lobsters and crabs make pinchy motions with their hands, roosters and other birds squawk and sheep say BAA. We go through the animal book every damn day. The kid has it down. 

   The kid is doing so much cute stuff I could go on all day. He blows kisses, gives high fives, and dances. Oh man, the baby dancing is just rad. Sometimes when he's feeling funky he will stomp his foot, sometimes he waves his arms, and sometimes he will do an awesome pelvic thrust combined with an arm in the air. That one is my favorite.