Good-bye Tripod.

We had to say goodbye to our dear Tripod on Friday. Two dogs came into our yard and attacked him. Our neighbor ran them off but it was too late; Tripod didn't make it. Ted and I are devastated of course, and I've tried my best to keep myself together as much as possible. Twice though I just broke down sobbing in front of Andrew. The first time he laughed at me, I guess thinking it was a game or something. The second time he wasn't too sure what was going on. He walked over to me, looked at me a little odd, smiled and gave a partial laugh, but I think he figured out that time that something was wrong. On one hand, Ted was hoping that Tripod would live long enough for Andrew to appreciate a truly awesome pet. On the other hand, I'm glad that Andrew doesn't understand the loss right now.

Saturday he woke up in a pretty subdued mood. Not sure what that was about. He didn't want anything but milk for breakfast, and then curled up in my lap and went to sleep. We transferred him to his crib where he slept for an hour and 40 minutes.  He woke up happy though, and we went and ran errands to get our mind off of Tripod. Andrew fell asleep in the car  shortly after leaving, slept for 40 minutes, was an angel the entire time we were out, and slept for probably 30 minutes on the way home. Three naps!  He's been drooling more than usual so all we can assume is that it's his teeth bothering him and making him extra tired some days.

We play with the blocks together. The wooden blocks, as well as the cardboard stackable ones. He likes it when I build a big tower, and gets great delight in knocking it over. He does try to put some back after knocking the tower over. He's pretty successful too!

We have a broken laptop that we gave to Andrew. He wasn't interested in it until I wrote a bunch of words on a piece of paper and taped the paper over the screen. Now whenever you open the laptop for him, he alternates banging on the keyboard with each hand to mimic the sound of typing.

Early this morning I was lying on the couch while he played on the floor. He came over to me and touched my foot so I wiggled my toes. He started to laugh and tried to wiggle my toes for me. Then I moved my foot out a little and tickled his tummy with my toes. That really got him going. Soon he was backing away from me, then coming forward to tickle his own tummy with my toes.. back and forth.

Speaking of tickling.. the "Are You Ticklish" book is one of his favorites. The very last page is of a little boy in a tent and usually we tickle Andrew when he opens the tent. The other day, though, I saw him get to that page and he tickled himself! Ha ha! 

He is reading a lot of words. I need to write them all down to see how many he knows. Today during the meeting, with each book, he would sit and quietly read to himself. I knew he was reading because when he got to familiar words, he either pointed to that part of his body, or made the animal sound.  Later on I reached over and just pointed to a word and he responded.  He puts his hand on his head for 'head.'  Growls for "Tiger". Points to his "ear", says "hi", waves, etc.  I'm really impressed.  His word of the week has been Gorilla. He has said it perfectly clearly once, but the rest of the time its more like "Go-eh-La" and sometimes just "Gola" but totally recognizable.
He has found where I moved all of his Your Baby Can Read books and movies. No other books satisfy him - he stands at the cabinet and just bawls because he can't reach his videos or books. At the same time - he'll have a bunch of books in reach on the floor and he doesn't want them. Arg!

I finally bought him that bounce on toy he liked so much several months ago at another kid's house. It's a little Zebra and he can bounce, rock, and spin while on it. It plays music and has lights and stuff. Its pretty cute. He likes it.  I dont think he'll be entertained by it for much longer, but it's something different for now. And being that it is something he'll outgrow, we will be able to get rid of it again and not have to keep it for a long long time and be totally overrun by toys.  It will be a sad day when I have to get rid of his push mailbox. That thing has been great and he loves it!

This Sunday morning he had a spell of being upset that he couldn't reach his videos/books. I gave him a bite of this new chocolate covered acai-blueberry fruit thingy I found at Costco. Then he was eyeing my glass of milk. I gave him a sip of milk from my glass.. then he hugged me and walked away happy!  He was just a little angel at meeting today!! Daddy had to run the sound so we sat in the second row by ourselves. I let Andrew have the aisle seat just hoping he wouldn't throw books into the aisle.. and he didnt. I didn't give him his book bag. He sat there perfectly content with nothing for at least the first five minutes before I gave him a book. He quietly read books for a long time. About ten minutes before the end of the meeting is when he started getting upset about having to stay in his seat. But still - he did great!

After the meeting we had to go to Publix and pick up a few things. When we headed for the milk aisle, we were facing the pharmacy. I saw Andrew throw his arm up in the air. I realized he saw the "Pick Up" written above the pharmacy window.

The following video is from 11/3/10 when he was helping me unload the dishwasher.

And, after the dishes were done, he stole the basket and was wheeling it around!

For the next video, I closed the door and asked him to knock on it. Gotta get some practice in!