A Duder post

Our sweet little Dude is so amazing.  He is growing up so quickly, and does so many hilarious things!  He is currently learning how to write.  He does really well when he can use his finger (like painting, or on a touch screen) but he's getting the handle on how to wield a writing stick.  :)  He can do O, D, T, L, Q, S and is very close on many others.  He's so very quick.

Hard at work learning his letters

At the library they started a reading program and for every 5 hours you read (or in Lucy's case) get read to you get a prize.  Dude reads probably more than an hour a day.  His nap times consist at least of 'relaxing' time.  He's at the weird stage where he still should sleep, but if he sleeps to long then he's impossible to get down at night... so we usually put him to bed with a few books and then he can read, relax and recoup.  Well, lately, we've been catching him trying to sneak books into bed with him at night time.  He thinks he's being so sneaky too... he's very cute.

Dude with his books and pals during nap time

He is also eating a TON.  Recently at night time he's been telling us that he's always so hungry and so tired... so Gaetan tells me that we'll have a big breakfast the next morning.  And he always requests M and M pancakes... haha.  Well, he's been eating like 3 waffles and an scrambled egg amount of food each morning.  It's unreal how much he can eat!  Must be a growing boy... I can't imagine what it's going to be like when he's a teenager.

We were giving dude a treat and he was only supposed to have a bite, but then he grabbed the whole thing and ran off to his hiding place...

This isn't a guilty face at all...

The other day when we had a playdate with a friend who's baby's name is Max he said, "Max, I'll eat you up, I love you so!"  Which, for those of you who don't know, is from Where the Wild Things Are. He's been reading that a lot lately, and it's funny that he made that correlation and that he remembers!

He is our littler talker too.  Especially in the car.  He's amazing.  Right now he's working on listening right away, and that there are consequences to not listening or throwing fits.  We have found that the thing that gets him to pay attention the fastest is the threatening of his pals being taken away.  First with Chaz, then Dog and the worst is Hippo.  He has never gotten Hippo taken away, but it's been close.  One particular night when he was being extra stubborn (and he got everything taken away and had to bargain to get Hippo back) he was upset, so we asked him why.  We like to ask him why he is upset or sad or scared or whatever, so then he has to think about it.   This time he said he was upset because he was afraid that we were going to take his best pal of all away... Lucy.  He didn't want her to get taken away because he loves her so much.  ::heart melting::  His little sister is his best pal... I love it.  For the most part he's really good about not throwing fits, but of course, he is two and every now and again there is a bit of a flare up.  So he is learning about consistency... :)

Dude pushing Lucy around in the stroller around WMU

Something else that really impresses me about him is his ability to know where we are.  When we get in the car he can tell us if we turn this way where we'll be, or that way or the general direction of some of his favorite places.  For example he knows how to get to the cookie store (Meijer), the library, soccer, where Momma runs (the gym I used to go to) and then there's the freeway... when we're on the freeway he always asks if we're either going to see Grandma and Don or go to church.  There was a stretch of a few days when we were letting Gaetan sleep in so we would run some errands and there was a Biggby that just opened up so they were running a lot of promos/free drinks to get their workers ready and now everytime we drive past a Biggby Dude tells us that's where Papa gets drinks.  Haha.  And once, we got him chicken nuggets from a McDonalds and now when he sees the golden arches he says that it's the nuggest place... Then while we're on the freeway he'll point things out... different billboards that we've pointed out to be him, which I think is impressive.  There was this inflatable dinosaur in front of a business that he loved to see, but then they took it down because the sale is over, and every time we pass by the spot it used to be he'll ask us where it went.  I feel like that's pretty good and good at focusing for a 2.5 yr old, not to mention we don't drive past those places all the time.

Hippo dancing in the wind

He was having a blast

Happiest when he has his pals

What I think is the most remarkable is how mature he really is.  After Wilfreda left yesterday Gaetan had a pretty serious conversation with him about her.  Tristan always says night prayers and always prays for his favorite people... and then Gaetan asked him about Oma (since we had just seen her) and Tristan said that he didn't really like her.  That he knew that she was OK to be around when she we here but that he knew that she was not very good.  He called her a baby because she whined a lot and that's not good... he said that it was OK that Lucy was a baby, because she was his baby, but Oma was a whiner.  I think it's interesting that that can pick up on people who are good as acquaintances or people who really care about him and will be there for him when he needs it.  I hope that we can continue to have such open communication with him about such things so that he can have an understanding about life.

Our sweet sweet boy is growing up so quickly.  :)  Dude, Momma and Papa are so incredibly proud of you every day and we love you more than we could ever express.  May you continue to be passionate and love God as much as He loves you.

JVG