I know all parents think their kids are smart, but I really am surprised these days by how much Ian retains. Like last week, the cleaning people accidentally uncovered Ian's old binkies and left them on the shelf of his changing table. Ian saw them after his bath and gleefully grabbed two of them and yelled, "BINKY!" and popped one in his mouth. Jeff and I were so surprised! He gave up his binkies back in March and hasn't used one since. He could talk then, so it was a real shock to hear him say the word "binky". We said, "Binkies are for babies. Please give them to Mommy and Daddy." He smiled, chewed a little longer, then pulled it out and gave up the binkies. Haven't heard a peep about them since.

Yesterday morning he woke up and didn't ask for Daddy right away like he usually does. When Ian went into our bedroom, he looked at Jeff's side of the bed and said, "Daddy, where are you?" (It sounds more like "Air ah oo?") I told him Daddy was at work, and surprisingly, there was no fussing or crying. This morning, he asked about Daddy and I told him he was at work, so Ian said, "Choo choo. Daddy choo choo." Now, maybe I'm giving him too much credit, but I was surprised he connected Jeff going to work with the train. Then he said, "Daddy bus!" and laughed.

Last night we had a little more drama with the new school bus from Tia Cindy and Uncle Dennis. He just loves that bus. He insisted on dragging it up the stairs and then was all pathetic and crying when I took it from him because it was time for a bath. I really can't complain about this kid because he gives that pathetic cry, but he still does whatever I tell him to do -- after a big hug and a bunch of "I love you, Ian". He'll keep wailing intermittently, but he'll cooperate.

I'm working on some photos we took at the park over the weekend. It was sunny, but really windy and a bit chilly in the shade. I had bought some sidewalk chalk a few weeks ago because he loves drawing with the chalk at school. I tell you, 99 cents goes a long way in keeping a toddler entertained. He had us drawing buses and "bomberos" (technically, that means "firemen" in Spanish, but that's what Ian calls fire trucks). He's not as keen on "avis" anymore (but he has all his classmates saying it). The other thing that occupied him for a while was a long thin branch. He was waving it around, dragging it on the ground, etc., for a good 15 minutes. Again, who needs expensive toys???

His favorite words right now are:
bombero - usually followed by the sound "woooo wooooo"
jing cha che ("police car" in Chinese) - usually followed by the sound "woo woo woo"
bus - modified either by "DA!" (big) or "baby" or "nano" (yellow) or "rojo" (red -- Daddy bought him a little red double decker bus)
All of the above are also used in conjunction with the word "more" when he wants us to draw them for him (over and over and over and over and over).

For some reason, he won't say "yellow" clearly. Jeff tried to clarify it one evening in the bathtub and it went like this:
Jeff: "Yellow!"
Ian: "Nano!"
Jeff: "Yellow!"
Ian: "Nano!"
Jeff: "Yellow!"
Ian: "Nano!"
Jeff: "Ye-ye-ye yellow!"
Ian" "Ye-ye-ye nano!"

Oh, well.