A Ladder to Heaven

One of Andrew's favorite places to eat is Amigos - but he calls it Amingos. 
Our neighbor is Mr. Bobby Brown but he refers to him as Mr. Brownie. I'm so nervous I'm going to call him that myself!
He thinks barbecue is called "barbecube"
I gave him a popcicle recently and he kept calling it a "papa-cicle"
We also have to drive past a McDonalds a lot when going into town... he calls it "Donalds"


He has been very interested in airplanes lately. He will notice one in the sky even if its barely a silent speck in the sky leaving that white trail behind it.  He talks about airplanes a lot and I recently showed him that he has a book about "Amazing Airplanes" on his bookshelf. Now when I ask him to go find a book to read - that is the one he gets!  He still loves "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" and the "ABC Look at Me" book.  He doesn't ask me to read to him every day like he used to. I have to ask him if we can read together!

One Friday evening, Aunt Eese was able to come for dinner and a visit. While outside on the swings, she apparently had a lovely dreamy conversation with Andrew about airplanes. One thing led to the next and they had a whole plan laid out of taking an airplane to the beach and then taking a boat to go swim with the dolphins.  Andrew was so excited he could hardly wait!  He told me all about it during dinner but he didn't understand why he couldn't go now.  I tried to explain to him that Aunt Eese doesn't have a plane, or a boat, and the beach was too far away and we didn't know where the dolphins were... we just couldn't go right now.  Annelise and Ted were barely containing their laughter as I'm explaining this to him, and Andrew looked utterly humiliated. I could tell he was holding back tears and remaining strong, but he was very disappointed. It broke my heart.  He mentioned wanting to go to the beach twice on Saturday.

Our little family study, after having Andrew read a section of the Great Teacher book to us:
"So do you remember what is Jesus' daddy's name?"
"Jehovah."
"Right. And who is Jehovah's son?"
"Jesus."
"And where does Jehovah live, do you remember?"
"At the Wetzel's house"  (that is where we met for service for a couple of months)
Ted and I look at each other and laugh a little. So he tries to correct himself, "At the Kingdom Hall."
"Well, Jehovah lives in heaven. Do you remember where heaven is?  It's up above the clouds in the sky. We can't see Jehovah, but he can see us and he hears you when you pray..."
"It's too far away in the sky! We need a ladder!"   [I love this little boy and his logic!]

He definitely tries to stall going to bed now. Wanting some water or refusing to pee when we ask him to before bed but then needing to pee after I have him all tucked in. Or he'll ask for teethers or "some cold medicine please mommy?" in the sweetest voice he can find.  "No sweetheart, just go to sleep." Then he gets the biggest grin on his face and turns over on his side because he thinks it's funny and knows I've called him out on his trying to stall.  More than once he has also turned himself sideways in the bed and then whines and whimpers and calls for help saying he's stuck... "I need help!"

We have unplanted strawberries sitting on our deck. Every single strawberry that blooms he takes interest in well before they are ripe. We tell him not to pick them and not even to touch them when we see him next to them. So what does he do? He doesn't pick them.. but he leans over and takes a bite out of them!  They don't stand a chance to ripen all the way!

Andrew has also recently just started talking away in nearly complete jibberish - but most likely just wanting to get in on conversation and therefore is imitating what we sound like to him. Inflections, chuckles and all!  He does speak very well and thought out sentences too when he genuinely is communicating to us. 

I love when he comes in to wake me up in the morning.  Lately he comes in and says, "Mommy, Andrew is probably awake now."  Then he tells me what time it is on my clock, turns off my white noise, hands me my glasses and says I need my "regular glasses" (as opposed to sun glasses) and "andrew is excited" when mommy gets out of bed.  Then he'll be talking about other people he's thinking of.  "Amber Perry come to Andrew's house to play?"  "Nana takes care of Daisy dog... Andrew can take care of Daisy dog too?"  "Daddy is at work at Nissan."  "When the minute hand gets to the 6 then Nana will be here!"  If you don't acknowledge that he has said something - he'll get closer and practically shout it at you with great enthusiasm.

He also likes to whine and come running for a hug and says, "I'm so sad! I'm so very sad! Andrew crying!!" and then says, "awww"  like I would.  Then we'll go between sad face, and "Happy!" face, sad face, happy face!  Sometimes he'll throw in excited too.

Actually he understands excited really well. Anytime he is anticipating something that gets him excited, like flying the balsam wood airplane outside with daddy, or flying a kite, or getting to do something he wants, he can hardly contain himself and yells, "excited!!" as he jumps up and down waiting for us to catch up to it. 

Since Andrew is such an early riser (between 5:20-6:20) Ted thought we should try one of those sleep trainer clocks. Neither of us wanted to pay for the ones we could find. I happened to find a different one in a toy store I popped into Thursday.. Momo is the monkey that sleeps on the clock. You set the alarm and Momo closes his eyes and will open his eyes at the set time. So when the child wakes up and sees Momo's eyes closed, he knows to stay in bed and go back to sleep. If he sees Momo's eyes open, he knows he can get out of bed.  Andrew didn't know what to think about Momo. He didn't want Momo awake, he wanted me to put Momo to bed. Well, the next day Momo's analog clock quit working. We told Andrew it was broken and needed to be fixed.  "Take it to Monty!"  Ever since we took the car to Monty to be fixed.. he thinks anything that gets broken needs to be taken to Monty to get fixed. 

I have posted pictures on facebook rather than try to post them all here. But.. here is one my favorites from recently: