Ice Cream??

The world of two comes with it's own little obsessions, and what better to enter a toddler's life than the creamy goodness of ice-cream. When given the option of cereal and waffles for breakfast, she simply states "Ice-Cream." And when I ask her what she wants for lunch, snack, dinner.... we both understand that the question is truly rhetorical; after all, what's better than ice cream!?

We have a pocket cell phone that is never on but she plays with in the car. Just imagine me driving in the car playing a Disney Bambi tape, when I hear in the back: "Hello! It's Audrey."

I ask her, "Honey, who are you talking to?"

She says, "Lissa". (her aunt Alissa)

It's those precious (and amazingly random) moments that make you smile and give her about 100 more kisses.

Speaking of kisses... Audrey and I have Spanish games. We count to 10 easily by now, but more recently we have two other additional games. The first is "mas rapido" (meaning "go faster")- if she wants the stroller to go fast, she has to ask in Spanish. She picked on that one fairly quickly. Our walks in the stroller become jogs from time to time- Audrey will pipe in the middle of a family walk and I readily obey the order from little Miss Audrey "Mas rapi-dos"- take off running and then double back to find Jen walking behind us. Audrey waves to Jen and by the time we have made it back to mama, another round! My favorite and latest game is "Quiero Besos" (I want kisses). Initially just "mas besos" but we've just added the "Quiero". When she says the words, I chase her down and give her kisses. Can an adoring father ask for a better game?! She might get a kick out of it too- Audrey has never minded being chased. You'll find us in the front yard running around the maple tree.

Full sentences from Auds is no longer a rarity- "Grasshopper, where are you?" came out last week. Asking Jen "What's that?" is now common. Counting up to twenty, singing the ABCs, small phrases from Hello Dolly, Twinkle-Twinkle and other songs are common. We even made up a song since she gets bored from her old ones.

"5 Alligators out to play, chomp, chomp, chomp along the way.

One alligator when for hay, now only 4 alligators out to play.

4 Alligators out to play, chomp, chomp, chomp....

At the end we say- no alligators, we can go swimming!"

She and the cat have quite the arrangement at this point- kitty treat goes from mom/dad to audrey to the cat. Nick has been SO good with the tootsie pop- and this only strengthens their relationship.

This weekend the wife and I are camping up north- woo hoo. Date weekend! We're also excited to hang out with brad and sarah next month for a football weekend at the navy game.