Hug

When my parents visited, they brought with them some great toys and books (and clothes--love those Lightning McQueen jammies), among them this fabulous board book by Jez Alborough. It chronicles a lost little monkey's search for the perfect hug. It's mostly wordless-- (the illustrations are really excellent) the only written words are "hug," "Bobo," and "Mommy." This means that Dangerboy can "read" the book all by himself, which is the cutest thing ever. Yesterday in the car he flipped back and forth between the pages of the climactic scene, where Bobo gets reunited with his mommy. He narrated it himself: "BOBO!" "MOMMY!" And the best part is, you're guaranteed hugs from your toddler when you read it together.

In other cuteness, Dangerboy has been pretending a little more. Yesterday we found a baby snail on our walk and DB wanted it up on his tray. He told the snail we were going home and offered it a Cheerio. The kid loves snails--he made up his own snail pantomime, where crawls around dragging his forehead on the ground in front of him, saying, "'Nail, 'Nail."

Today he was playing with P.'s wooden giraffe, and he said, "Walking, walking. Show, Elmo? OK!" (Translation: "Want to watch Elmo on TV? OK!")

And lastly, twice yesterday DB opened up my underwear drawer, pulled out a bra, and started to say, "Syko, Syko." I though maybe he just happened to hear a motorcycle (Syko) in the parking lot as he went through my drawer--not so unusual. But the second time, he looped the bra around his neck and went to the front door saying it again. Peter said, "Do you want to see a motorcycle?" DB, enthusiastically: "OK!" So, the kid has some connection in his head already between motorcycles and bras. There's some kind of joke here, I think, but I don't know what it is.