Kimball, lately

Kimball is now 2 years and 9 months old. He has developed so much over this summer! Around March and April, he was having a lot of really bad tantrums. I think it was frustration with not being able to communicate, because right after that, he really started talking. And this summer he has only gotten better, really learning how to string words together and converse.

He is still our sweet, sweet boy. Out of the blue he will come up and pat me on the head, or lean in with a kiss and hug and say, "love you so, mom". Every night as we say goodnight (and I mean EVERY night), he chants, "Little hug, little kiss. Big hug, big kiss." And we hug and kiss accordingly.

He loves his friends, and asks daily if they are coming over to play. When they come over, he always has an initial negative reaction to them using his toys, and sometimes it's pretty intense. But he settles down quickly enough and plays quite well with them.

Kimball listens to everything we say, even when he's playing with toys and seems to be in his own little world. I can't remember what Jordan and I were talking about, except one of us said the sentence, "taxes keeping [something/one] afloat". Really, I can't remember the context or subject, but Kimball pipes up from the back seat of the car, "taxes keeping me afloat!"

Tonight Jordan was whistling Darth Vader's theme from Star Wars, and Kimball looked up at me and exclaimed, "Star Wars!" He's seen that cute VW commercial with the little kid dressed up as Darth Vader a couple of times, but not for several months. So Jordan let him see it tonight, and for the rest of the night, he was Star Wars. I figured out that he thinks Darth Vader's name is Star Wars. So I kept hearing him talk to himself and say things like, "Yes, Star Wars. Oh, thank you, Star Wars. Sit down, Star Wars."

Some of Kimball's new favorite tunes are ABBA's "Mama Mia"(he calls it "Mommy Mia") and Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now". Did you see the cute Google Doodle of that song? (Best one Google's ever done, I thought.) Kimball loves it. He'll burst out randomly with lines like "I'm a tiger, in the sky!" and "Having a good tiiiiime!" He also sings, "working at the car wash, yeah!" I have a video of that somewhere that I should load.

Kimball is still in diapers, but last week I started asking if he'd like to use the toilet, usually when we were changing his clothes or diaper. He was enthusiastic and started learning how to go #1 in the big "potty". We broke out the literature.

Then, a few days ago, our neighbors and friends who are moving away gave us this never-before-used item:

Kimball was so excited to have "me own potty" like the ones in his books. He took to it immediately. Yesterday, he even notified us in time to help him go #2 in his own potty. TMI, maybe, but we were so proud! He got to go out for a cupcake date with me to this delicious place. He chose the chocolate marshmallow cupcake. Now, I'm in no hurry to get him all the way trained. If there's anything I know about Kimball, it's that he can't be rushed. (And frankly, diapers are easy!) But I'm happy that he's liking this and is so proud of himself.

He's finally learned how to pedal his little red Radio Flyer! Rides it everywhere. Sometimes very slowly. It makes trying to rush out to the car when you're late to church an exercise in patience.

We're both really into the show "Blue's Clues" right now. He kind of got stuck on an episode called "What is Blue Afraid Of?" (The answer is an owl.) He always asks, "me watch Glues Glues, 'Fraid Of, see ghost, see funny house, see picture Steve, dat kinda spooky, funny eyes, move like this" and proceeds to swivel his eyes all around. (It's one of those paintings in corny movies where the eyeballs follow the unwitting occupants of the haunted house.)

He says his "L's" really well, but his "F's" are more like "S's". So, flip flops are "slip slops". And his prayers--which he demands to say every time, never giving others a turn--go something like this:

"Sahder, [Father] thank you a dinner, Jesus Priced, Amen." We have to encourage him to include more, especially when it's breakfast, not dinner.

One day I told him "no"...I can't remember what he wanted. To go outside, maybe, but we couldn't. So he ran to the bedroom where Jordan was, and ran back, and asked again. When I said no again, he said, "Daddy told me!" meaning Daddy said "yes". It starts this young??

I heard him playing with his rubber duckies in the bathtub last week. It went something like this:

"'Nough candy! 'Nough candy!"
"No, me need candy!"

He also put two of the ducks under water and made the third one cry and say "where Mommy? Where Daddy?" Then the two popped out of the water and the baby said "Yay!"

Here are some other cute sayings that I wrote down because they were too precious to forget.

"Thank you loving me." --Totally out of the blue! Melted my heart.
"Ash-a-ley! Ash-a-ley!" --He only calls me this when he wants to get out of his crib.
"Mommy missing daddy." --When we were still in Utah and he could tell I missed Jordan.
"A morning!" --His way of greeting me in the mornings.
"Jesus love me. Give me big hug."

Well, that is our cute Kimball. We lost the battery charger to our camera sometime, somewhere this summer, so I have no recent pictures. Here are some we took in Utah!