Stuff Patrick is Learning/Funny Things He Says

Can you believe that this little guy . . .

Is now 2 1/2?

I can't. I know all moms says how fast their kids grow up, and that's because it is true! Patrick is so grow up now and learning so much. Here is some things he knows and what he is learning.

• He has known all of his letters and their sounds for about six months. He loves his letters. He tells us EVERY SINGLE TIME he see a letter ANYWHERE. He like to "read" the signs when we are driving around, and sometimes he even reads the letters in order. He can write an O, but is not patient enough to learn the others yet. But he ask us to write the letters all the time.
• He is working on the alphabet song, but we aren't quite there yet.
• He is working on counting and knowing his numbers. He pretty much knows the numbers by sight, but not 100% yet. He loves to count, but it usually sounds like this, "6 . . . 4 . . . 8 . . . 2 . . . 3 . . . 9!" He can do 1-4 and 6-9, when he wants to. He is trying to match the numbers with the corresponding amount of fingers, but he still gets tangled up doing that.
• He still LOVES animals and know their names and sounds (even if they don't really make a sound, like for giraffe, he does a "chewing leaves" sound). When we go to the zoo, he repeats the names of the animals over and over. He even knows the kudus, flamingos, water buffalo, and the other lesser known animals. He knows where all the animals live in the zoo and how to get where he wants to go.
• He is now a proficient jumper and loves to jump off of steps and over cracks in the sidewalk. Luckily, he hasn't jumped off anything too tall yet!
• He has learned that if he can't reach something, he can go get his stool from the bathroom. Reed couldn't figure out how he kept getting into the Christmas candy until one day he watched him run and get his stool. He has also found some creative ways to reach his fish tank and throw toys in there. Like the day he dragged his hamper all the way out of the closet and turned it on its side so he could climb on it.
• He is currently obsessed with drinking straws. He is DONE using sippy cups and refuses to have a lid anymore. Now he only wants straws. He still only gets about 2" of liquid, but it makes him feel like a big kid. Also, he is constantly biting his straws.
• He has learned to open doors. Consequently, we have turned around the door knob in his room and added a chain to the front door.

Some funny things he has done lately:

• After watching a Halloween episode of Mickey Mouse, he has started bringing me his pumpkin buckets and saying, "Trick-or-Treat!" Which is funny because he has never even done that for Halloween before.
• Reed was gone at school one day, so I put some music on to get me in the mood to clean and organize. Patrick gave me a weird look when I started singing and dancing, so I asked him, "Do you want to dance with Mommy?" He walks past me and says, "No thanks."
• One night I heard him get out of bed around 2 am. I picked him up in the middle of the hall (wide awake) and asked, "What do you need?" He whispered, "Crackers."
• When asked what he wants to eat, 95% of the time he will say toast.
• He likes to label things now, so when he sees a picture of animals, the biggest one is the daddy, the medium one is the mommy, and the small one is the baby. He also does this with different sized rocks, chips, blocks, and any other inanimate objects.
• Patrick will only sing along if we are listening to Abba or Elton John. Also the only time he will dance.
• A long time ago, I taught Patrick how to have "Animal Kingdom Battles" with his cute little Fisher Price animals. Now, everything he can get his hands on turns into a battle. Animals battle, foam letters battle, pencils and markers battle, goldfish crackers battle, etc. He even does a "BATTLE!" war cry.
• Patrick loves sports. Sometimes I think he is going to make us rich by inventing an entirely new sport. Like the other day when he put his basketball on his tee ball stand, hit it with his baseball bat, and yelled, "Touchdown!"

That's our silly boy in a nutshell!