Toddling

Having a toddler is so much fun! Over the past couple of weeks, Gavin has learned so much. He loves climbing on top of things, as pictured below. He finds great fun in standing on his truck, getting stuck, and needing help down. Though in the last couple of days, he is successfully getting down from the truck on his own.

His language skills are developing as well. He makes great attempts at repeating words: Jesus (jee-jah), balloon (loon), banana (nanana), all done (ah-duh), Stuart (nuar), horse (sssah), remote (momma), phone (momma), momma (momma), dadda (dadda, sometimes momma). Hummm? Momma seems to be his favorite word. Glad to know he is thinking of me while I'm gone during the day. He also is picking up on the tone of conversation and how laughter fits in. He frequently will babble a sentence or two and then chuckle at the end, like he's telling us a joke. It's so funny that we end up laughing at him, he laughs more, we laugh more...it's great fun.

Gavin also is transforming his walk into a little skip/run. I think within the next week or two he'll be full speed ahead with running. Tonight, he tried on a pair of sandals that I bought for our vacation next week. He spent a good deal of time studying how they felt on his feet, stomping while looking down at them. In the end, I think they will work out. And if he's anything like me, he'll be living in sandals from now until the snow flies next winter. Ahhh, sandal season is great!

So, here are a few photos from recent days...

I tend to get a good number of shots like this one below. Every time the camera comes out, Gavin heads for it like a zombie in a trance, drawn to the big black thing on momma's face. He just has to touch it.

Here he is modeling some of his sun-wear for our vacation to Florida. Keep that sun off of my skin! Note the mass drool -- tooth number seven is just starting to poke through and number eight isn't far behind. Turn on the faucet!

More to come on our travels...vacation, WOOHOO!