Leo's been here 23 months

If you ask Leo how old he is, he'll say "TWO!" That's because all his friends are turning two. He keeps saying, "It be Leo's birthday" because when it's a friend's birthday I say, "Soon it will be Leo's birthday."

Remembering the cute things Leo does and says at the end of the month is always tough so this time I kept little note pads upstairs and down so I could capture things as they happened. So here we go:

Cute things Leo says:

"I say no!" For instance, "Leo, would you like some oranges?" "No!" "Are you sure? They're really good." "I say no!"

"Be Patient." When he's waiting for me to make his Mac N Cheese, he'll say, "Be Patient!" or actually he screams and cries, "Be Patient!"

We heard an Ambulance and he said, "Ambilance!" I was surprised because I didn't know he knew that word. Then he added, "Not fire truck."

(Sorry if the following is clumped together; I have tried to put spaces in it but it keeps clumping.)

"I want lollipop!" He will chant this over and over and over again. When I don't give in, he'll say, "I need hair cut!" He knows you get a lollipop at the hair cut place.

"Please," "Dank-you," "I sorry," "Scuse me." We're working hard on manners but he generally only says these things when prompted. Every time he asks for food I say, "What do you say?" and he says "PLEASE!" and when I give it to him I say, "What do you say when I give it to you?" and he says "Dank you!" And today, when he pushed his friend Bianca and said, "She fall down!" I said, "What do you say to Bianca?" He said, "I sorry." Thanks, Granny Jo, for the book about manners. It is helping a lot.

"That MY ball" or "That MY train!" He says this when I say it's time to do something. "Leo, it's time to go bye-bye." "No, that's MY school bus!" I think he's trying to say, "No, I'm busy playing with this." I always say, "I didn't say it wasn't your school bus but we're still going bye bye."

"It be Leo's turn." He's learning (very reluctantly) about taking turns. Whenever it's someone else's turn he says, "It be Leo's turn!"

"It too big!" When I put something on him that he's never worn before he says, "It too big!" even if it isn't.

He doesn't quite understand choices. "Leo, do you want the blue spoon or the orange spoon?" "YES!"

"Mama be right back." He says this to comfort himself. So like on the way to the YMCA he'll say, "Mama be right back," to remind himself that I'm going to leave but I'll come right back. Oh, and he knows what I do while he's at the YMCA play center. When I come get him he says, "Mama teach bike class!"

"I try" means "I cry." Sometimes it's "I don't try" right before he starts crying. Now I can put together the one above with this one: The other day he said to me, "Mama, don't try" and I said, "Why would I cry?" He said, "Leo be right back!" Aw.

He's pretending all the time with his trains and his Little People. He'll pretend that Thomas is eating lunch with him. I'll say "What does Thomas want for lunch?" Leo says, "Thomas want Mac N Cheese!" And at the end he'll say, "Thomas all done!" He also goes up to his trains and says things like, "Hi, Percy! I'm eating banana!" He makes his Little People play Ring-Around-the-Rosie and Duck, Duck, Goose. He still makes them kiss. Sometimes a train will kiss a little person. "Thomas and driver kissing!" he says. The other day he was playing with his Little People Airplane and he said, "It flying to Baby Ellie's house" and I said, "Is Leo going to fly on the plane to Baby Ellie's house too?" He said, "No, I too big!" Ha!

He can say his ABC's sort of. He has the tune down and some of the letters. It sounds like this, "A, B, C, D, Uh, Uh, G, A, I, Ah Ah, La, La, La, La, P!" He can count to ten but sometimes he gets distracted and forgets that he was counting. When he does make it to ten it sounds like this, "One, Two, Fee, Foh, Figh, Sis, Se'en, Ate, Nigh, Ten!"

To get him familiar with his numbers we change the date every day on these little blocks that belonged to my grandma. When we used to do this at Christmastime we would follow that with moving the snowflake on the advent calendar. He STILL asks about the snowflake! And when I say, "No, we only have the snowflake during Christmas," he says, "Kiss-mas tee!" and points to the dining room where it used to be. I'm like, "Dude, it's been three months!"

He knows three states-- Georgia, Texas and Colorado. He often is correct when we ask him things like, "Where does Rah Rah live?" and "Where does Leo live?" but sometimes Rah Rah lives in Colorado and Leo lives in Texas and other mix-ups like that.

Whew, I've written a lot and nap time is short around here so I need to wrap it up. To sum up, he says a lot of funny things, has a lot of tantrums, sleeps very little, survives on a diet of Mac N Cheese and milk and loves sports, trains, books and people.