Claire is at her first sleepover tonight. We went to her friend Faith's birthday party this morning at 9:30. She was invited to go from there out to Faith's grandparent's house in Elgin where they do country things and have goats and presumably eat sausage. I had a feeling a sleepover request was going to follow her being gone ALL DAY. And I am OK with that. Mom's a principal, dad's a cop, Faith is a great kid. She is in good hands. But I am still lonely for my little girl. Not lonely for her physically (though there is that) so much as lonely for what sleepovers mean. Fast-forward: light-as-a-feather-stiff-as-a-board, Ouija boards, boys in board shorts. Bored of mom.

Reading

Today Gavin and I were laying in bed before his nap. He had a folded up strip of paper with some dinosaurs that we had colored on it, which he was using as his story. I had my book too, so he "read" from each story. For his, he said, "Once upon a time there were two dinosaurs. ROAR!!!!" For mine he looked at the boring, picture-less page and read, "Once upon a time there were E's and O's". Not much for plot, but a good read nonetheless.

Words abound

Gavin is starting to talk a lot more. His favorites:

No! (naturally)
Stop it!
Don't do that!
Too tight! (Said when he sees a diaper coming his way, let alone when I put it on. Shane saysI just don't understand what's it's like for a boy.)

Understanding that he is mirroring what he hears the most, I need to find some more positive ways to re-direct him as he is dangling from the ceiling fan.

His first non-copied sentence came the other night as we were watching Water Horse: Legend of the Deep. The Loch Ness Monster thing is angry and sees his nemesis, on the shore, which happens to be a dog that looks like Rosie, barking on the shore. After some roars and teeth gnashing, the dog's barking ceases....we can only assume what happened, as it is a kids movie after all. Gavin had no problem putting it together and thus his first real sentence: Didodaur bite Ro Ro!