Two more months until Adik turns 3! He is now at his 34th month! Whee!
[[image:2014-adik34month-01.jpg:Adik loves the Nutella jar!:center:0]]
* Mouse over the pictures for captions
Adik’s reading skills just seem to keep improving. He is retaining words and recognizing them again. He is also able to approximate the sounds of words that he is not familiar with by looking at the letters. We are constantly amazed by the words that he knows. He loves reading the names of the authors and titles of my books, for instance, and so it did amuse me when he read “The Causal Angel” by “Hannu Rajaniemi” with no issues when I pulled it out of the amazon box.
Speech-wise, Adik continues to speak in complete sentences and is more and more expressing his own ideas. He now joins in our conversations about the dreams we had at night (sometimes what he says does not make too much sense, but then whose dreams do, right?). And, rather than just participate in Yaya’s games, doing everything she wants him to do, he now wants her to play his games or wants to change the game and will use his words to argue with his sister about whose version of the game gets played. Often this will degenerate into wrestling, and Adik has a bad habit of hitting and sometimes kicking (Vin and I are trying very hard to stop him from contininuing down this path of violence) or they will start chasing each other around, giggling and screaming hysterically. On the subject of screaming, Adik has the most eardrum-splitting dog-summoning amazingly loud and high-pitched shriek. When he does this in the car, you really feel like you’re going deaf. It’s a talent that he has. Or perhaps a super power.
However, despite his talents with the written and the spoken word, there are some words that he cannot seem to grasp. He will mispronounce them every single time. One of the words is “Sacrifice” which is the title of one of his favorite Elton John songs. So when he requests it, he says something that sounds sort of like “sa-fras”. Another word he has trouble with is “Pepsi” which when he says it sounds like “Bees-bee”. It just makes me laugh and laugh that this child of mine who can read “Hannu Rajaniemi” and know that it is the author of a book cannot say “Pepsi” correctly! There are a few other words like this (not too many really) but it does amuse me to no end.
This month, Adik has been obsessed with youtube videos involving Coca-cola and Mentos being dropped in. He just loooooooves them. He also notices that I have the occasional coke and wants to examine the can or bottle that I might have and we pretend that he is dropping Mentos into it and shriek and run away from the faux explosion. One of these days we will have to humor him and do some Mento + Coke stunts of our own. Also, he has been watching hyper-real artwork videos on youtube focusing on Coca-cola (bottles, cans, etc.) and Nutella jars. Sometimes he likes to dance to the music, and sometimes he likes to sit still holding an actual item that is being drawn in his hand and examining it and the artwork progressing on the screen.
Food-wise, Adik is quite the grazer. He eats a little bit here and there all day long, rarely ever having a full meal. But he snacks on a variety of things. Lately his favorites have been toast with “chocolate butter” (Nutella), “car chips” (Pringles Sour Cream n Onion flavored potato chips), and he does enjoy eating peanut butter by itself. He likes some chocolates sometimes and has come back to eating noodles with me. A couple of months ago I may have burnt his mouth a little too much with some super-spicy noodles and he sort of stayed away from noodles for a while, but he seems to be back to eating noodles with me. He comes running when he smells noodles in the kitchen. He also enjoys beef bacon and likes to eat a few bites of Vin’s breakfast sometimes.
So Adik spent his 34 month birthday in Tampa and I was at work for most of the day. But he had a good day (he usually does, he is a happy little boy). Adik has been sleeping past 10 AM most days and missing breakfast at the hotel so there aren’t even breakfast photos at the Hampton Inn & Suites!
[[image:2014-adik34month-03.jpg:Good morning!:center:0]]
[[image:2014-adik34month-04.jpg:Look at Adik’s crazy sleep-tousled hair:center:0]]
[[image:2014-adik34month-05.jpg:Fun with The Old Big Thing:center:0]]
Adik breaks out his dance moves:
[[image:2014-adik34month-06.jpg:Shake it, baby!:center:0]]
[[image:2014-adik34month-07.jpg:A little joget perhaps?:center:0]]
[[image:2014-adik34month-08.jpg:Bradley the Bearcat dances with Adik:center:0]]
[[image:2014-adik34month-10.jpg:A little quiet time with Bradley:center:0]]
Adik has grown quite attached to Bradley and sleeps with him every night. Sometimes I have to kiss and hug Bradley and rub noses with him too. It’s all very cute and sweet. In the hotel rooms, Adik loves to climb on the heater / AC unit as it is by the window. He also loves deep window sills and likes to sit directly in the window (regardless of which floor we may be on, he doesn’t seem to be affected by heights). If he can’t get on to the window sill, he likes to use it and put things on it. Before we leave the hotel, we always have to check on the window sills, behind curtains, under furniture, and inside drawers to see if he (or his sister) might have secreted items without our knowledge. Always a fun time!
[[image:2014-adik34month-09.jpg:Cheerio box, huggy, Cheerio bag and single-serve peanut butter container on the window sill:center:0]]
After I got home from work, we decided to go for a walk. The kids love taking walks in Tampa as there is an amazing number of geckos around. They call it the “lizard walk”. So after work, we all went for a lizard walk.
[[image:2014-adik34month-12.jpg:Let’s have a fun lizard walk!:center:0]]
[[image:2014-adik34month-13.jpg:Peering for lizards:center:0]]
[[image:2014-adik34month-14.jpg:Walking around the Hampton Inn & Suites (Adik loves the signboard):center:0]]
[[image:2014-adik34month-15.jpg:Lizard hunters on an expedition:center:0]]
[[image:2014-adik34month-11.jpg:Cicak! (Lizard):center:0]]
That night, Adik enjoyed holding his Coca-cola products (do not worry, we do not allow him to drink any of it):
[[image:2014-adik34month-16.jpg:Yay! Empty Coca-cola bottle!:center:0]]
[[image:2014-adik34month-17.jpg:Yay! Coca-cola can!:center:0]]
And then a spot of wrestling. Adik does his trademark lie down on Yaya’s head move:
[[image:2014-adik34month-18.jpg:Attack Yaya!:center:0]]
[[image:2014-adik34month-19.jpg:Ha! I have vanquished her!:center:0]]
[[image:2014-adik34month-20.jpg:What mischief must he be contemplating now?:center:0]]
And then it was bath- and bedtime for little boys (and their sisters). However, before we end this entry, there are a few fun photos that were taken during the month that I feel I have to include in this entry. Some fun at home:
[[image:2014-adik34month-02.jpg:Amused grin:center:0]]
[[image:2014-adik34month-29.jpg:Adik Holmes makes a surprising discovery!:center:0]]
[[image:2014-adik34month-31.jpg:Adik and Lily-kat:center:0]]
Some on the road photos:
[[image:2014-adik34month-22.jpg:Pool fun:center:0]]
[[image:2014-adik34month-23.jpg:Enjoying the sun and water:center:0]]
[[image:2014-adik34month-24.jpg:Admiring himself and the jack-o-lanterns in the mirror:center:0]]
[[image:2014-adik34month-30.jpg:Selfie with Papa:center:0]]
And now a section on funky photos using photobooth on the big thing (iPad):
[[image:2014-adik34month-25.jpg:Selfie in the dark in the car:center:0]]
[[image:2014-adik34month-26.jpg:Thermal photo with Mama:center:0]]
[[image:2014-adik34month-27.jpg:A little ghostly:center:0]]
[[image:2014-adik34month-28.jpg:I love how this one turned out:center:0]]
That’s enough photos then. Until next month! Happy 34-month birthday, baby boy! We love you!!!
[[image:2014-adik34month-21.jpg:My sweet boy:center:0]]
