Thursday, Feb. 3, 2011: Dance like everyone's watching

"Ball." He says "ball" clear as day now, often prompted by the sight of these particularly garish footed PJs he has, grey fleece adorned with footballs, basketballs, baseballs, and soccer balls. "Ball" he'll say as soon as the PJs come out of the drawer. "Ball," while he points to individual balls on the fabric. Even the oddly-shaped football doesn't throw him. They're all balls. But forget about it if you ask him to repeat himself. He's not into that kind of thing. Instead he'll revert to asking you to name what he's pointing at, insisting, "Dis, dis," which we believe means "this," as in, "What's this?" I've tried to play dumb, to trick him into saying it himself: "I don't know, Gavin, what is that?" But it doesn't work. He just looks at me like, "You know."

I also heard him say "keys" today as he plucked Aunt Laura's keys off of the table by the front door and very helpfully handed them to her. I also heard him say something that sounded alarmingly like, "I don't" when I said to him, "If you really love me you won't throw that on the ground" ("that" referring to a fistful of cooked carrot he held threateningly over the side of his highchair tray. In reality he said, "Drop," or, more specifically, "Ah drop," which basically is just his way of giving us a physics lesson. He threw a lot of carrots on the floor tonight (and carrots are one of the few things the dogs aren't interested in eating). And dumped his lentil soup out on his tray. And his yogurt-applesauce. And his cheesy spaghetti baby food. A lot of finger painting, not a lot of eating this meal. His pickiness frustrates Stacy, I can tell, but from what I understand this is normal. Also, Stacy gives him really healthy food that I think a lot of kids wouldn't exactly go, "Mmm, mmm" for ("Mmm, mmm," incidentally, is the sound he makes when he really likes something, or when he sees a picture of a banana or apple in a book). Like when Stacy gave him cooked beets and he was all, "No me gusta cooked beets, for serious," and Stacy took that to mean, "I am not hungry," rather than just interpret it as, "Dude's not into beets."

Aunt Laura taught him a new game in which Gavin puts a pair of sweatpants on his head. We took a picture of him doing this and when he saw the picture a day or so later he went and got the same pair of pants and put them on his head again. He's clearly a genius.

Mariah Carey has been on heavy rotation at our house lately. Gavin often demands music. He wants to bailar, which is Spanish for dance. Laura started this Mariah Carey kick, but I can't remember how exactly. Something about karaoke which led me to sing "Love Takes Time" and "Someday" to Gavin while he was in his high chair. He likes dinner time entertainment. So, yeah, if you're driving down our street and "Vision of Love" is a-blaring, you'll know it's dance time. Feel free to join us, so long as you understand that you can't compete with Gavin's moves.