"I'm gonna be a little pig."

"Can I have one cookie?"
"After dinner."
"Can I have two cookies?"
"After dinner."
big smile on his face, "Can I have TEN cookies?!"
with a big smile on my face, "Uhm... no."

We recently had dinner at Grandma Bess' house and got to meet a cousin from San Francisco. McKenna is six months older than Andrew, about the same size, and a full head of dark hair. Both of them are super smart and understand things that are way past their years.  Andrew enjoyed having a playmate before and after dinner, though McKenna was a bit more aggressive than Andrew is used to. I was proud of Andrew, though. Every time he got hit, tackled, chased, or yelled at - he did not respond in the same manner. He'd just look at one of us wondering why it was happening, or come to us to get away from it.

Andrew was in his room using the microphone on his keyboard. I didn't get to hear everything but overheard him thanking God for the planets and animals and food, etc. Then he says, "Is God surprised? No. He is not surprised. This is ridiculous." ?? I'd love to know what's going on in that head.

I ordered some marshmallows online that don't contain food coloring so that we could make some s'mores.  They were due to arrive Monday. So when I went to pick him up from school, I told him that we'd have a special treat after dinner. Of course, he didn't know what marshmallows were - but he was excited to find out!  We got home and played outside for a while. Then the UPS truck pulled into our driveway. Andrew went running up to the man, "Do you have any marshmallows?"  The guy looked at him, "Do I have what??"  Of course I then had to explain that he was in fact delivering marshmallows to us and they were well anticipated. 

He loved eating a couple of marshmallows straight - they tasted better than the kind you find in stores. I thought he'd love the smores because he loves chocolate. What I forgot, was that he hates having dirty fingers when he's eating. He wouldn't finish his smore because he didn't like getting the goo on his hands. 

He prefers being barefoot whenever allowed.  I told him we were invited to the Lafferty's house for dinner one evening.  He asked, "Can I take off my shoes when we get there?"   "Yes"   "Can I take off my socks too?"  "Yes"   "Thank you."   

We went out to dinner Friday evening. The waitress took our drink order and when she came back Andrew told her, "I missed you!!"  She was of course tickled. He ordered his soup and she told him she'd bring him some yummy grapes too. He said, "Oh are they so tasty and delicious?"  We all chuckled.  His cuteness got him a free dinner though. 

December 1st. Saturday afternoon, we skipped naps and went to Pinkerton Park in Franklin with Joy, Barry and Brice. He loved running all through the castle playground, swinging, and playing frisbee. Then we took a walk along the trail to the bridge and the overlook.  Halfway up he started getting slower and slower and then asked, "can we go back to the playground?"   We kept going and there was a beautiful clearing where he got to run, bang sticks on a stump, climb up and down trenches (and slide down trenches). Then we found a little stage where he became the big bad wolf and we all had to be the little pigs running from house to house. (He told us "run to Brice's house"  "run to daddy's house!")  Daddy's house was the brick house so none of us ran away. We asked him what he's going to do now since the house didn't blow down. He hardly hesitated and jumped off the stage and mumbled, "i'm gonna be a little pig" as he came and sat next to me.