(Yes, Kayla and Linnea, I suppose that exposes my non-nativeness to feel this way about the summer we had!)
At least, that is my excuse for why I haven't blogged in a while about anything, and it's certainly been ages since I've shared what Theo and Emilyn are saying lately.
As usual, I've tried to jot down things in my Notes app, so here is a collection since the last time I wrote about him in February. It's in chronological order so you can keep in mind the context of growing from 3yr1mo to 3yr9mo and through the seasons of winter, spring, summer and now fall. He started preschool last week!
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| Lol, I suppose I could have cropped this, and then captioned, "Is Theo wearing pants?" |
After I muttered to myself, "When will it stop raining?" Theo said, "It will stop raining when you go to your nap, in your dreams."
To David, regarding some privilege: "Will you talk it over with Umma?"
"Don't cry Emi, we're almost home."
"Don't laugh; it's not a laughing game."
"Breathe in and out" to himself.
Earlier this year, he asked if he could use sidewalk chalk. Since it was raining a lot, I said, "when it's Spring, we can bring out the sidewalk chalk." One day probably in March, he noticed the pink camilias blooming on the side of the house, and so he said to me, "The camilias are blooming; can we have sidewalk chalk?"
To me, "You don't need shoes on; just your feet." He knows I'm a Berkeley girl.
"I took a picture with my eyes."
When he wasn't ready for me to kiss him goodnight, he told me "Go control your computer" because he knows I usual check my email between putting Emilyn to bed and then saying goodnight to him.
"Nuna is quite the baker."
One day when David was mowing the lawn, David asked him what he wanted to do, since he dislikes the loud noise of the mower. Theo asked, "Can I stay inside and dance?" Kathy, Emilyn, and I were out at that time, so when we came home, we just saw Theo dancing by himself in the living room, and we found out the rest of the story from David.
"Can I come to your house?" He started saying this a couple of months ago, to grandparents whenever we FaceTimed them. Of course they loved this.
Back in April when it was David's birthday, I asked Theo what we should get for his birthday. Without any hesitance, he offered, "Moss killer."
And first thing in the morning on that birthday, he said, "Can we have cake today because it's your birthday?"
Again, earlier in the summer, to one of my friends: "I'm ready for preschool. I go to preschool three times a week for an hour. I start in the fall." (Actually he goes twice a week for two hours.)
Referring to packaged seaweed, "No, don't throw away the silica gel, or else it won't be crispy!"
He started buckling himself into the carseat in April, at 3 years and 3 months. So nice that he can climb in and get buckled himself.
Sometimes before bed, David has all of Theo's monkeys warm up their singing voices for bedtime songs. When they say "mi mi mi mi mi", Theo sometimes says "me me me me mini mini me."
I love watching Emilyn copy Theo's dance moves.
Because Kathy calls Theo her "Chicken Heart" or "Chicken Thigh" etc., Theo started saying "chop chop chop" while he pretends to chop his arm into bite-sized pieces for her to eat.
"Appa, statch me." By which he meant, can you pray that prayer where you ask God to let me grow in wisdom and stature, in favor with God and man?
"I'm going to preach school."
Without prompting, he began a letter to Emilyn, which read, "I love you, I like to climb, I love playing with you."
There's a Vietnamese sticky rice coconut dessert which Theo calls squishy dessert, but the way he says it, it sounds like "kwishy dirt."
"I'm not a baby, I'm a Theo. Don't talk about babies; let's talk about big boys."
One day, I said, "I'm looking for the one who loves Jack Jack (Emilyn)" when I was trying to get Kathy's attention. Theo intervened saying "I love Jack Jack!"
One day he said "The storms of Jesus Christ" maybe because we told him that God controls nature?
"Don't cry Emilyn, I'm here, I'm not going anywhere."
"I want to trick Umma."
"Wake up so I can bother you!"
On a drive, "If I see a tractor, I will tell you."
"We can go on a date? What the??? Tractor??!!"
When I mentioned I needed to go to the pharmacy, he asked if there would be any tractors. At the Farm-acy, duh.
"I don't want cat cookies, there's sugar bugs."
"I'm organizing over there." He has started to "organize" things. Am I really happy about this? YAS.
"I'm sitting on this rice sock so that I don't cough or bless you."
"We have an appleseed tree and two maple trees."
He often mashes together two thoughts into one sentence: "I don't know how to do this?"
"I'm thirsty for salt. Savory."
When I started loosely and slowly weaning Emilyn I had to tell her once, "I'm not going to nurse you right now." Theo overheard and he asked, "Is it because you're growing, and you're a big umma?"
Theo wanted more Milo (an Asian chocolate malted drink), so I told him I would pick up more of it when I went to Evergreen. A week after I had told him that, I mentioned to David that I needed to go to Evergreen. Immediately, Theo said in a robotic voice, "Can-you-pick-up-my-Milo."
One time when David was merging on to the freeway and a car sped up at the last minute to overtake him, Theo yelled out, "Share the road!" (We honestly have never said that out loud so it was really funny.)
David likes to use the speaker/amplifier in the mini-van to imitate airplane pilot monologues (e.g., ":::ssssshhhhhhhhhh::: This is your captain speaking...") so Theo has started doing it as well, only he says, "This is your speaking captain..."
"If I can watch a show with front loaders and a backhoe, then I'll get my hair cut!" Talk about sentence construction.
"Mama, did you make grits for me? I'm hungry for grits."
"My tummy loves warm."
"Look at what happened to my waffle." (It's gone.)
One day when Emilyn was crying in the back of the van, Theo told me, "She wants everything. She wants a nap, she wants to go to the park, she wants her friends." I love how he asked himself a question in his head and then answered it for all of us.
"I know her full name. Ro Ro Ro Ro Emilyn Ro."
He took care of Emilyn's stuffed bunny and treated it like a baby.
When we got in the car one day, he asked for the "joy joy podcast", by which he meant the song "Down In My Heart."
In the middle of summer, "Don't wake me up to preschool!"
When I mentioned that I might pull him out of school to go to Richmond for a few weeks in late winter, he said, "I need my daddy and my nunu. That will be too much. Or I will go with just Emilyn." When I asked, "Then what will Mama do?", he said, "Mama will get a date."
One day Theo was arranging logs on the deck and he called it Silver Lake. I did not comprehend what he was saying until later that week we went to Silver Lake and the parking lake had logs arranged to mark off the parking spaces.
He uses the word "cantilever" and pronounces it "cant-a-leave-er." It's too much.
One morning when David was home during breakfast (it means either the weekend or a weekday he's working late), Theo could tell Emilyn was starting to feel anxious that I'd be leaving to take a walk. All of this was unspoken, until Theo asked me, "You can just walk laps around the kitchen, right?" He knew that she didn't want me to leave.
As soon as Theo gets home from school, he pulls his pants off and yells, "Free!"
And then just yesterday, when I pulled out grapes for dessert during dinner, he said "I want g-r-..." and proceeded to spell a couple of other (wrong) letters. "I want icecream for dessert. G-r-..." because we always spell out the good things.
We met one of Kathy's new floormates this year and her name is Erica. Theo later commented that her name is like "the America flag." Indeed, "Erica" is in America.
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Alright, now I'm up to speed with Theo. Up next, Emilyn!
P.S. For my own record (since I'm no longer logging everything obsessively in an Excel file, ha! Although, Elizabeth, aren't you glad that I had? ;p), it appears that Theo is dropping his nap. I can't be totally sure, and I think he may still need it on school days, but I'm 90% sure this is happening right now. :'(
P.P.S. Marla, I am totally channeling the "and because it's due, this is what I will write."
