It has begun. Liliana said her first word on July 22nd. It was "Dada"--of course. She started saying "hi" the following day. Now she likes to wake Ish up in the morning by saying "Hi, Dada!" over and over again. I look forward to her learning more words just so I can hear her sweet little voice.
One of Little Ish's favorite phrases is "looks a lot like". He is getting fairly good at making comparisons this way. Some of his recent comparisons are:
"Gandalf looks a lot like Dumbledore"
"Plum looks a lot like moon" (it was a crescent shaped slice of plum)
"Chip looks a lot like body of Christ. The Eucharist"
It is so interesting to me to hear about how he sees the world.
Little Ish turned two last month. Despite all the comments I've heard about the "terrible twos", I am finding this to be a fun age thus far. Little Ish is talking in mostly full sentences (although his word order is a bit more akin to Latin than it is to English). Honestly, I think his facility with language may be part of the reason that two is not so terrible. Anyway, I thought I might share some photos with how we celebrated his special day.
On birthday eve, Big Ish and I transformed Little Ish's highchair into a pirate ship:
He was really thrilled when we brought him downstairs in the morning singing "He is the birthday king!" to the tune of Pirate King from The Pirates of Penzance (if you don't know the song ask Little Ish to sing it for you sometime!)
We spent a good portion of the rest of the day playing outside between our house and Lola and Dziadzia's house (Ish's parents):
We finished off the day by having Little Ish's Godparents over for dinner. After dinner we had cake and ice cream and watched The Pirates of Penzance.
Sometimes having a toddler is a very firm reminder of how important living in the moment can be. Tuesday was a warm and rainy day, and as all 4 of us were making our way to the car, Little Ish was stopping every few feet to put his hands in the puddles along the walkway. Tired of urging him to hurry so he wouldn't get soaked, I tried walking quickly ahead of him so that he would speed to catch up--a trick that has worked on many occasions. It didn't pan out that day. By the time I had made it about 50 feet away, I heard Little Ish calling, "Mama!" The delight in his voice was evident; I turned around. There he was, with a huge grin on his face, sitting in the middle of the sidewalk. I was on the edge of a frustrated groan when he looks up at me and says, "Mama, Little Ish swimming in puddle." I couldn't help but smile despite him being soaking wet. Not wanting to go through the hassle of going back to the house to change him, we just removed his shorts and he went into the car in his diaper and t-shirt.
When we returned home from our errand, I was urging him to move along to no avail. I could feel myself getting a bit frustrated with him, and for once, I decided to ask myself why. Really, I just didn't want to get everything I was holding to get completely soaked. I quickly rushed ahead of him to drop everything off inside. The look on his face when I told him we were going to play outside in the rain was priceless. He went about his way stomping and splashing in the puddles. And then, in true Little Ish fashion, he ran up to me declaring, "Ish singing in the rain just like Gene Kelly!"
