October '09

I always attempt to compose these monthly posts as things come up throughout the month, and alas, I always find myself halfway through the following month trying to recall things that Alex was doing weeks and weeks before. Thus, I only have about a quarter of the info I wanted to share about last month...However, I do have quite a few pictures from October, not including any of the ones from the five Halloween events I've already blogged about. That's gotta count for something...

Favorite phrases:

"I need...please!!" This phrase has been both a blessing at a curse. A blessing because it generally replaces whining as his main means for getting something he wants. Hallelujah, praise the Lord. Although we need to work with him on the distinction between "needs" and "wants" because right now, everything is a necessity.
"[Murphy] is making noise!"
"Where's [Murphy] go? Oh there [he] is!"
"Murphy goes poop outside in the grass!"

Favorite food(s): butter (alone or on something, doesn't matter), chicken, panpakes (aka pancakes)

Things that we love about Alex:

How he adds an "S" to things that are already plural. For example, when he wants to color, he might ask, "Mom, where'd papers go?" or he'll ask me to "turn waters on", or my personal favorite, whenever he refers to people he doesn't know, he calls them "peoples". Like if we have friends over and they leave, he'll ask, "Mom, where'd peoples go?" or if he hears someone talking in the distance, he'll say, "Hear that?! Peoples are talkin'!"

When he mispronounces something and I correct him, he'll repeat what I say and affirm it with a "right", as if to say, "right, that's what I said." For example:

A: "Mommy, [Alex] do paterpillar puzzle!"
Me: "You want to do the caterpillar puzzle?"
A: "Yeah, the paterpillar puzzle, right."

When he doesn't want to do something that I ask him to do, he'll say it's "Mommy's turn!"

When I go in and get him in the morning, and he greets me with some random piece of information, like, "A horsey makes the sound, 'neeeeigggghhhhhh!!!!!!!'", as if he'd been thinking about it while he was lying in bed and couldn't wait to tell me.

We spent a lot of October outside, enjoying the fall weather. At MDO, they take nature walks around the church whenever the weather permits, and Alex has since become fascinated by acorns. An acorn sighting is comparable to an Elvis sighting as far as Alex is concerned.

On this particular afternoon, I had dropped my lens cover and it landed on what I thought was a caterpillar. I asked Alex to hand it to me and he about jumped out of his skin when he saw what was underneath. I about peed my pants from laughing at Alex's reaction, and once I had regained my composure, we took a closer look. Upon further inspection, what I thought was a caterpillar seemed to be some weird cocoon of some sort, green with "eyes" and a creepy spike on its hiney. I know little to nothing about bugs and such, but what I do know is that it didn't move when I poked at it with a stick, and the next day it had disappeared from the driveway. Looking at pictures of it still freaks me out.

Second only to acorns is frozen yogurt from iheartyogurt, which Alex insists must be eaten outside, regardless of the temperature.

On the not-so-nice days when we are stuck inside, we try to stay busy playing games or reading or doing puzzles.

In addition to vehicles and acorns, Alex was obsessed with pumpkins this month. To this day, if he spies a pumpkin out of the car window, he shrieks, "I see a pumpkin!!!!" then proceeds to ask - repeatedly - for "One more pumpkin, please!!" as if I can make pumpkins materialize out of thin air. Which obviously I can. Because I'm a mom and am equipped to perform such miracles. And I am just sick about the fact that we didn't make it to the Arboretum this year to see the pumpkins - in fact, we never made it to a single pumpkin patch and ended up buying Alex's pumpkin from the grocery store. Uggh, the shame...

Anyway, pumpkin carving was a total bust this year - Alex took one look at the slimy pumpkin guts and was all, "You want me to do what??". He then said, "Mommy's turn!" and moved just out of arm's reach but close enough that he could watch Mom butcher that poor piece of produce. It was a pretty pathetic effort, let me tell ya. I was this close to borrowing some of Mr. Potato Head parts to give my pumpkin a face, a thought which occurred to me after I had already disemboweled the stupid thing. Note to self: You don't enjoy carving pumpkins. Next year, that's Daddy's job. (Camo 'do-rag courtesy of Grammy and Poppa.)

Bathtime has become a ten-hour ordeal because I can never get A to get out willingly - I usually end up draining the water and letting him play until he freezes and wants to get his jammies on. However, he tends to ham it up while in the tub and I usually get some funny pictures.

His happy face...

...mad face...

...serious face...

...sad face...

...and the aforementioned "poker face", which originated when we were listening to Lady Gaga's "Poker Face" in the car and asked Alex to show us his poker face. His response:

I don't know what face this is...maybe his "Alex Attitude" face? That pretty much sums up this month, I think...