Lazy days

It's funny that most people ignore the natural wonders right in their backyard. We are no exception. On this mild, sunny late summer morning we find ourselves again at the bounce house. Oh well. It is a safe, easy way to get your two year old to burn off a couple thousand calories and be REALLY tired for his afternoon nap!

Also there is a high concentration of other kids, which vastly increases energy expenditure :-)

While I'm thinking about it, I want to note the few remaining words that Alex still mispronounces. They're so cute, and he's becoming such a good speaker that I'm afraid they'll be lost and gone forever soon:

'murdercycle' for motorcycle
'murderhome' for motorhome
'pasghetti' for spaghetti - the classic! We didn't even learn this one until we had spaghetti for dinner on Friday for the first time in about 4 years
'kool' for school

In fact he omits almost every leading 's' in words. So smash becomes 'mash', 'scratch' becomes 'cratch', smile becomes 'mile', and so on. It's adorable.

Notable exceptions to omitting the leading 's' include:
'shaka brah' - Hawaiin expression meaning "all right, brother!" - his auntoh Alison taught him this, complete with the accompanying hand gesture (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaka_sign)
'Chicago' - Ok, not exactly an exception. I guess the 'SH' sound is easier for him to get right.

He also frequently transposes the first syllables of names and words. The character Ramone in the movie Cars is known as 'Mah-rhone'. Ryanne's youngest sister Melody has a new nickname, 'Medaly'.

Also he has a habit of placing huge emphasis on the first syllable of words that are important or noteworth to him. So when he greets Ryanne in the morning he might say "Hi, RYY-anne". He loves to talk about his MAAAHN-ster trucks (monster trucks).

One notable and adorable exception to the above is when he was first learning the difference between Grandma and Grandpa, he heavily favored the word 'grandma'. So when he first began to address Grandpa, he would say "Grand (pause) PAAAAH". (And was very clearly satisfied to have properly identified the man).

We realized over dinner on Friday night just how infectious these speech patterns are. Dana, Ryanne and I were all inadvertently using Alex-isms while talking amongst each other at dinner. Yikes. Let's hope it wears off sometime after Alex grows out of it!

Other Phrases We Love:
"Other buddy" = everybody
"biter" = spider
"ahind" = behind
"gob truck" = garbage truck (now Alex corrects me if I use his cute phrase)
"get for" = forget
"auto-cado" = avocado