Leo's been here 20 months

We had to take pics of Leo over two days because he’s very uncooperative in his chair. Plus, our camera finally gave out after 20 months of constant use.

Leo’s strongest skill is still talking. He’s surprising us every day with the words he knows. Like the other day I was using dumbbells and he said, “Exercise!” I don’t remember even saying that word to him. It IS in his “Going to Bed Book” so maybe that’s where he learned it. He also recently learned to say "Granny Jo." It sounds like "Ganny Doh." Sometimes it's just "Doh Doh."

He’s putting a lot of words together but mostly they are commands—which makes him sound a bit bossy: “Mama, get” or “Dada, clean” or “Nuh-no, Sit” or “Mama, cook.”

Speaking of cooking, he thinks I’m cooking whenever I do anything in the kitchen. Even if I’m opening a jar of baby food he says, “Mama cook!” And then he often likes to “cook” too by stirring something in a pot.

He’s quite a singer too. We know exactly what song he wants us to sing because he can hum the tune or sing a few of the words. He sings E-I-E-I-O very clearly. Ooh, I just got a video of it:

He’s really good with names. We only have to introduce him to someone once or twice and he knows their name. Also, he knows who goes with whom. So if we say, “David,” he says, “Lah-rah!” He might make a good politician.

Leo speaks in the third person: "Leo out," "Leo down," "Bye bye, Leo," "Night Night, Leo."

He's very clear about what he wants to do. When we were in Colorado for Christmas and he got tired of the sled (which he calls the "snow slide") he said, "Bye bye, Snow Slide. Baby Ah-yee's house." That of course, meant, "I don't want to snow slide anymore. Let's go back to baby Ellie's house."

He's constantly asking to go outside in the backyard to play basketball. "Ow-sigh! Ow-sigh! Bah-ball!" he says, over and over again. Yesterday I said, "Leo, it's too cold to go outside." He said, "Jah-ket!" and ran to the coat closet.

He can read his name. I think. Whenever I point to something that says "Leo," and say, "What does this say?" He says "Ee-oh." The reason I'm not totally sure is that sometimes I ask him what other things say and he says "Ee-oh."

He loves to say "Teh-as Bite" for "Texas Fight." He says this about anything burnt orange.

He's still crazy about balls--football, basketball...and we've made up some of our own games like "double ball." That's where we each have a ball and we throw it towards each other. As we do this we say, "Double ball!"

It's not all talking and ball-playing, though. There are melt downs and tantrums and typical toddler craziness. When he deliberately disobeys we put him in time out. He thinks it's fun, though, and puts himself in time out. He calls it "Hide Out!"

And speaking of hiding, he loves to hide in our closet behind Frank's shirts. He says, "Leo hide," goes behind the shirts and then comes out screaming, "Dah!" He always puts his hands over his mouth when he does this. He also likes for Frank and me to hide.

He bumps his head all the time. In fact, he just bumped it right now on his gate in the playroom so I need to go comfort him. I should add "experience in kissing boo boos" to my resume.