He now says "water," and "girl."
He knows were shoes and hats go, and tries to put them on people, like us. He likes trying to put me in Anna's slippers.
Today we went for one of our infrequent winter walks. I don't like taking Anders on the full 3.4 mile walk unless it's above freezing since he hates his gloves and reluctantly tolerates his stocking cap. Anders was connecting with his fellow walkers on the bike path. One women commented on how happy he looked, another imitated his open armed smile back at him, and a third women told me "good job." I'm gunning for Appalachian Father of the Year. It had been a while since an old woman randomly stopped me to thank me for being a dad.
Anders is doing more knee walking than ever before. He is walking intermediate distances on his knees. Pam took care of Anders on Friday, and she unequivocally and unprovoked told Anna that she believed Anders can walk, as do we.
Well, we spent all of October 2009 waiting for Anders to take his bottle, so we have been here before. Anders will walk in his time. He is starting to see the benefits of walking such as being able to drink his milk while walking around on his knees. That's why the knee walking has picked up. Let me be clear, when I say knee walking, I don't mean a few cute steps, he goes places on his knees.
Anders had a really funny moment that even made the grim mothers at Kindermusic laugh. Christa brought out the giant drum and Anders clearly exclaimed, "Oh, Babee!"
Oh, and I was rear ended on the way to Kindermusic. I was in shock, but Anders just laughed after it happened. There was no damage to our car. I have my eyes glued to the rear view mirror every time I'm at a stop sign now, however.
I don't remember if I noted all the funny ways Anders says "Trudy." No two ways are exactly the same "Doo dee" or some approximation of that sound is the most common.
I also don't remember if I mentioned that Anders has a nickname for me. He calls me "Dee," which is short for Da-dee. He usually wakes up once per night crying. I think he's having a bad dream. About half the time he can put himself back to sleep, but if the crying turns into him calling out "Dee!" then I know I have to go.
Anders also says "Mama" quite a bit. He says it when he's not happy with something I've done or if it's past 3 pm on a weekday and it's getting into range for Anna to come home. The odd nights when Anna has to stay late at school, Anders says "Mama" incessantly until she comes home.
Well, that's probably enough for now. I'm still threatening to write about my sports radio routine for the day in excruciating detail, but I'll save that for another day. I used to listen to NPR all day, but that really bummed me out.
