Crazy Boy (again)

Just to add to the belief that our son may be a little crazy, here is what he looked like when he came downstairs the other morning. He was wearing the hat my aunt knitted for him and carrying Gato (who can't be seen here), the frog, and his 'color pad'.

The View of a Three-Year-Old

Rudy got a hold of the camera this week. We didn't realize it until a few days later when I went to look at a picture and realized there were some new ones on it.

FFF- Crazy Kid

This picture was taken at a classmate's birthday party. I tried to fade out all the other faces, but as you can see the other kids are just walking around and there is Rudy. He is going to be getting in lots of trouble at school just for being silly and a clown, but he's also going to charm the teachers, so they'll tolerate him better because they like him and think he's cute.

 

Rudyisms

He calls skunks "stunks", which really is a good name for them.

Passing a used car dealership with lots of balloons and streamers:
R: Those cars having a party?

Making lunches one morning , I told him I was making Peanut butter and jelly for both of us.
R:Why you have peanut butter and jelly like me?
Me: I want to be just like you.
R: MMM. Go for it.
Me: laughing and laughing.
So then he proceeded to come in and ask me questions and answer with "go for it" each time just to get a reaction from me.

Lately whenever we talk about staying home from school, Rudy asks if the policemen are going to come. He says "you stay home the policemen come to your house." It sounds like he's talking about truant officers but I can't imagine where he's getting that from, so I'll just chalk it up to an active imagination.

He likes to direct the conversation and will tell you what questions to ask. For example, he was writing on his 'coloring pad' on the way to school.
R: Say what you drawing?
Me: What are you drawing?
R: a jellyfish
Me: that's nice.
R: Say why?
Me: Why?
R: Because I like jellyfish.
Me: Okay
R: Say what you drawing now?
Me: What are you drawing now?
R: Another jellyfish.
It's as if he hasn't yet figured out how to say "guess what I'm drawing" or "know what I'm doing?", so he just tells you what questions to ask so he can tell you his answer.

In the mornings, when Paul leaves before us, Rudy likes to walk Paul to his car and open the door for him. He will often say "Wait, Poppy, I open the door."
The other day, Rudy was a little slow in getting out the door behind Paul, so Paul waited at the car for him and asked Rudy if he was going to open the door for him.
Rudy's repsonse was: "Why you can't open your door, Poppy?"


Rudy has been trying out "Dad' on Paul. He seems to use it a lot when it's just him and Paul. He will say "You my Dad?" and then say "Hey, Dad" a few times. The other day at the park Rudy could be heard (among all the other kids) saying "Look, Mom and Dad." But when I laughed and pointed to Paul and said "Rudy, who is that?" His answer was "Poppy." I guess he's trying to figure out whether he should start calling his dad the same thing everyone else does.


Singing songs in the car:
La La La La
La La La La
Elmo's World
Elmo love her Dor-fee, and her crayon too.
That's Elmo's World


Old MacDonald had a farm, EIEIO
and on that farm he had a cow EIEIO
and on that farm he had a cat EIEIO
and on that farm he had a horse EIEIO
(and on and on...)

Spring is Here!!!

I know it won't last, but we've had beautiful spring weather the last two days. Yesterday after school, we went to the playground. Two of our local playgrounds were remodeled over the summer and Rudy had a blast exploring them.

Today we went to a local County Park to take a walk. Rudy had a lot of fun looking for animals, throwing leaves in the water and talking about bears. He saw a pamphlet in the nature center before we left about bears and started our walk talking about how we had to stay on the boardwalk because if we went off of it, the bears would get us. (Sorry the pictures are sideways. In my folder and on Picasa, they are turned the right way but when I add them to blogger, they go back to their original orientation and I don't know how to fix it. - AND it's driving me crazy.)

Here is a video of Rudy talking about the bears we might see. (If it works but it looks like I'm having trouble with that too!)

FFF- Sometimes You Do and Sometimes You Don't

One of Rudy's favorite things is stickers. He especially loves to stick them all over himself and anyone else nearby. For Easter, he got some stickers from Grandpa. I was on the computer the other day and he was giving himself and me stickers. I was only half paying attention as he put them on my hands and face. A few minutes later I got up and looked at him and realized he looked like this



while I looked like this. (Picture taken by Rudy, by the way.)



When I asked how come I was wearing all the stickers and he wasn't wearing any, he replied "Sometimes you have stickers and sometimes you don't have stickers."

The "sometimes you do, sometimes you don't" is a very frequent phrase. I'm not sure where he got it from but he uses it for everything -
going to the bathroom "Sometimes you wash your hands, sometimes you don't wash your hands" (WRONG!)
hanging up his coat "Sometimes you hang it up, sometimes you don't hang up your coat"
and so on. Of course every time he says it Paul and I think "Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't."

Happy Easter

We had a fun but busy Easter. The day started with an early morning arrival of Rudy in our bed at 6:10am. Luckily, he fell back asleep until 7:30 - record breaking for us. Rudy was happy to see his gifts in his Easter basket - especially his "Lightning McQueen movie".





We went to church (here are the guys all dressed up and ready to go).



And after church Rudy participated in his first egg hunt of the year. After that we headed to a friend's house and Rudy had another egg hunt. He and another boy were the only little kids so they got their very own area and easy to find eggs. After a few short minutes, with eggs still lying all over the lawn, Rudy decided he was done. He had some Teddy Grahams, and the matchbox car he found and he just sat down and relaxed.





After that party we went home for a few hours and relaxed, and Rudy got to watch his new movie, which I think Paul was more into than Rudy. Then it was off to Aunt Pat's for Easter dinner with Mom, Gram, Aunt Pat, Uncle Neil, Uncle Tom, Sean, Neil, and Grandpa. After dinner Rudy and his best pal, Neil, chilled out in front of the TV.

Decorating Eggs

My favorite part of Easter is decorating eggs. It reminds me a lot of my mom because it was something she and I always did together; even as an adult I would go over and decorate Easter eggs with her. Rudy really enjoyed it this year, and he got the hang of it quickly and was pretty independent.

 

 

 

 

FFF - A New Hobby

Rudy has recently gotten interested in cutting and pasting. He will just cut up a paper, and then glue pieces together. Until recently, he could only do this in my classroom before school, but this weekend we bought him his own glue and scissors.
Here is the artist at work.



Here are two projects he made in my room at school. The picture on the left he said is an owl and the picture on the right is an airplane. I still haven't figured out if he named them after he saw what they looked like, or planned to create them, but either way they are very accurate.

Birthday Fun and a Reunion

Rudy went to Max's birthday party this weekend at a Bounce place. He had a lot of fun jumping and sliding and bouncing. I couldn't get any pictures of the birthday boy because he was on the go with his friends the whole time, but here are some of Rudy and Lucy. (I am very jealous because Lucy is a great picture taker; all you have to do is aim the camera in her direction and she sits still for a minute and looks at you. As you can see, Rudy doesn't cooperate in the same way!)











And of course, after the party, the long-awaited reunion of Rudy and Gato and Max and Puppy occurred. Rudy was very happy to have Gato back, as you can see, although he was pretty cranky on the ride home and a few times whined "I want Puppy."

Finally Spring!

The weather today was just beautiful - spring may finally be here. After church we headed to the boardwalk to buy discount ride tickets. Of course, Rudy couldn't resist going on a few rides.



We walked a little but on the boardwalk; well, Paul and I walked, Rudy rode.



Then we came home and raked leaves. Look what we found in the leaf pile!

Spanish and Guatemala

If we had our way, Rudy would have retained all the spanish he came home with and we would have built upon it. Unfortunately, since neither Paul nor I are even close to fluent, Rudy is gradually losing his Spanish. There are certain words that he still uses in Spanish, although he does know the english words.
gato (mostly used for his cat but sometimes to refer to Mario or Smokey)
azul (the only color he seems to know well in spanish - he even confused his teacher when she asked him to stand up and desrcibe what he was wearing. He asnwered azul and the teacher thought maybe it was a new brand.)
moto
agua
de nada (funny thing is, this seems to be a recent aquisition. He has been using it predominantly in the last few months,)
desayuno (this word means breakfast, but very early on it became Rudy's word for the breakfast bars Paul was eating. He still calls them this.)

I still try to use spanish words with him, when playing animal games, talking about colors or counting but often he will tell me "no spanish". I am happy that he seems to still understand all the numbers and animals.

Rudy talks a lot about Guatemala. In July we are attending an event for families and children from Guatemala. I think he's at the perfect age because he's starting to get an understanding of being from Guatemala. However, there is also some humor connected to his understanding.
Yesterday Rudy asked me where Gato was. Knowing he knew the answer, I posed the question back to him. His answer was "In Guatemala." I said I thought he was with Max and he said "Max lives in Guatemala." I took it as an opportunity to talk about the fact that Gato and Max had both been to Guatemala to see Rudy for his first birthday along with Aunt Patti, Uncle Chris, Grandpa and me and Paul. We talked about how we came to celebrate his birthday with him. His response was "thank you for coming to my birthday." Later when we recounted the conversation to Paul, Rudy said the same thing to him. So sweet.

Recently Rudy started saying "yes, sir" and "no, sir" in response to questions or comments from us. We thought it was very funny. Finally one morning I said to him , "Where did you get that from?" His response, "When I a baby in Guatemala, I say 'yes, sir' 'no, sir'. That where I get it from." We later figured out it was actually from the book Fox in Socks.

FFF- Friends

One day this morning, Rudy decided that since he had Puppy, Paul and I needed a doll, too. So upstairs he trooped with Paul behind to pick out two extra dolls. He then proceded to place them at the table and have breakfast with his 3 friends.

More Fun with Puppy

If you're interested in seeing the other side of this story, visit Patti's blog to see how Gato is faring. I think he's getting a little spoiled by all the attention.

This week Puppy has been visiting Rudy's school. He helped Rudy with an art project in my classroom in the morning.



Then Rudy showed Puppy his class's fish.



Today we forgot Puppy at home. Rudy was fine with it and really didn't talk much about Puppy during the day. When we got home and Rudy saw Puppy sitting on the chair he yelled "My Puppy!" and grabbed him and hugged him and kissed him. A few minutes later while watching TV he realized Puppy was not nearby and went off to get him. I am starting to wonder if he's going to want Gato back.