Update from Gavin: I'm 3 and a 1/2!

Update from Gavin 3 1/2 years old :) I am learning more and more about time these days, but I get a little mixed up sometimes and say things like: It was my birthday 3 miles ago and when I get big like daddy I'll be 40 pounds like mommy. What??!! I know it needs a little sorting out, but I'm just enjoying talking and sounding as much like the grown-ups as I can. I'm trying to get mommy to teach me how to read a clock (the one with hands, not just digital ones), but she keeps telling me that I need to learn how to count by fives first. Huh? Anyways, I've also been really into directions, street names and compass bearings. We have a nifty digital compass on the rear view mirror of our RAV4 and I love to announce which direction we are traveling in. I am also known to bark out orders like: Take 610 South mom--we need to go South! I'm usually wrong about where we're going, but she's pretty sure that I could direct someone to our house because I recite the turns before we even get to them. What can I say? It's boring just riding in the car; I want to be driving! One sidenote on driving: There is a tollway in Houston called Katy Tollway that we pass a couple times a week. I call it Katy Trollway--always makes mommy smile and think of her dad, my Poppa. :)

So we brought Elliot and mommy to their first pro baseball game a couple seconds ago...I mean a couple weeks ago (I'll get it, I'll get it!!). We had super-duper fantastic seats (5 rows from the dugout!), but Elliot and I weren't really understanding why we should sit still and watch some dudes throw a teeny tiny ball around. Every now and then the crowd would clap and cheer and we could get behind that, but other than that we just wanted to explore the stadium...talk about some majorly cool stuff! Mommy wished we could have watched more of the game, but maybe next time. Though we didn't make it through the whole game we did all have our Astros gear on which was lots of fun.

Well, reading is still great, but now I'm bored with a lot of my baby storybooks and we are taking more trips to the library (which is close by) to get fresh stuff for me to read. Mom tries to hide her freaked out look when I plow through books that are for 5-7 year olds, but that's pretty normal for me. I just like to read and learn--that's it. Here's a video of me reading a library book about helicopters. Mom was trying to cook dinner and sent me to the living room to read until she was done. Then, next thing I know she's in there w/ the video camera -- instead of cooking. Hhh! [more blog after video :)]

I got to go to Vacation Bible School for the first time this year. What a blast!!!! We learned cool songs, made crafts, took a nature hike, played outside and even had a concert in front of our parents! I pretty much just sat on the stage and looked around most of the time--not yet sure whether I'm a natural born performer. It was so fun. I want to go again!

We've been riding with daddy on his bike. Well, we're not on his bike, but Eli and I have a little trailer that we ride in. Elliot belly-aches much of the time because he doesn't like his helmet and it' s hot or whatever. But we are exceedingly cute in our huge, round bike helmets and I never mind looking cute, so I have fun. Besides we get to watch daddy work really hard to make the bike go fast and that is always entertaining.

So for a while I'd ask to play with daddy's cell phone as soon as he walked through the door in the evening. Eventually I realized that was rude (daddy told me) and that I should say "Hi, nice to see you daddy" instead. So for a while I said the obligatory "Hi, nice to see you." and then immediately asked for the phone. Then I realized even that didn't go over too well, so now I have an handful of polite little phrases I say (usually) at the socially acceptable time.
Hi, daddy, I'm so glad you're home; it's nice to see you.
Mommy did you have a nice run?
Mommy did you have fun playing with so-and-so's mommy?
Have a good day at work, daddy.
Sweet dreams, Elliot. Shhh. Go night-night now. I love you.
Hi my name is Gavin Malden; it's nice to meet you.

And finally, just for fun: here are some things mom wrote down over the past few weeks...

One of Gavin's toys plays several short melodies. He named them. I asked him a few times and he remained consistent with the names:
the sailing song
strench go
the sleepy song
drenching trashcan
the video song
strench fan
island mcdonald

Gavin offered to draw a picture of Poppa one day. I corrected him thinking that he was drawing a picture *for* Poppa. He assured me it was *of* Poppa and proceeded to narrate as follows. here's his beard like a big circle and two brown eyes. and now he needs his sword! and this is his bday hat on his big strong head. and this is his arms ... and then i need some yellow for his ears ... big beard. like a big strong man...

A few days ago the boys and Jon were playing w/ balls inside. I try to keep them from throwing inside (Elliot has a killer aim and a really strong arm). Gavin said: We are going to roll the balls and do sports with the balls. We are going to do foolish things with the balls.

Well, that's it for now (5 pages later).
~Gavin

Gavin reading about Battle Creek, MI

Gavin taught me today that Battle Creek, MI is called "The Cereal Bowl of America." Who knew?? ...We're casually working on annunciation, but I'm not in a hurry for him to do anything perfectly because he's obviously a pretty self-motivated 3.5 year old. :)

Update from Gavin

Here I am painting. I like to talk about Nana when I'm painting. Miss her...

And here I am tracing the letters in my name; one of my newest endeavors. :o)

So I haven't updated y'all in quite some time. It has been so long that I'm not even sure where to start...

Well, let's start w/ my boy Elliot. He is getting more cool by the day. He laughs at my jokes and he does silly things that make me laugh. He is getting bigger and more stable so it takes a little more to knock him down than it used to. Translation: I get in trouble for pushing him a little less often b/c he doesn't always fall down anymore... I like to take his hand and lead him to my room to play with our toys; he thinks that's fun, too. So all around, we have getting along pretty well and I'm learning how to play nicely and we have a really great time.

I'm still reading away. Mom gave me the comics from the Sunday paper the other day. They are very cool: bright colors, cute pictures and lots of words. The trouble is that they aren't really for kids...at least not my age. There was a lot of things I didn't really understand--and mom says I probably shouldn't understand some of those things yet.

Another thing I like to do with words is spell them out verbally. The other day I was challenging mom to tell me what the letters I reeled off spelled: t-e-c-k-o what does that say, mommy? like that. Well, she started to tell me to tell her what these strings of letters said so off I went: h-o-u-s-o. small pause. "houso!" Boy was she surprised! Ha!

Me and the potty are really good friends. I go visit a million times a day. I have very few accidents anymore. There are toilets everywhere. Did you know that? And there are special rooms for men and women. This has led to many a conversation about the difference between the sexes. Well, it's has been pretty abstract so far, so I still get a little confused at time. A few weeks ago we went to visit one of these public restrooms and out of curiosity I asked a stranger: Are YOU a woman?. Mom was a little embarrassed because apparently it was very clear that he was not a woman. Anyway, luckily, he thought I was just saying something cute and he just smiled and nodded.

We are almost all settled into our new house. We have a super cool backyard with a couple small trees I can climb. Dad tied a swing to one of them just to keep mommy on her toes -- little brothers don't learn to stay back from swings until they are at least 2 years old. It has a big maple tree, a couple of Japanese loquat trees and a big ole holly bush (we're not supposed to play with the berries; they're poisonous). We also have a lot of patio space to ride bikes and roll balls and stuff. I have a new room, but all the same old toys, so although I do miss our old house a lot, our new one feels pretty homey already. We still go to the same church and see the same friends, so this move wasn't easy, but wasn't quite as hard as moving from Baton Rouge.

We get to walk around a lot now. There are parks to walk to and the roads make a big loop in our neighborhood so we can just walk for the fun of it if we don't really want to go anywhere.

Mom wanted to make sure I included this little list of Gavinisms:
NeighborHERD=neighborhood (already a little social commentator)
insurrection=interesting
stumfing=something

Well, I'm sure there are more, but we can't think of them right now.

~Gavin

Recent activities - photos :o)

Nov 11, 2008 Looks like Gavin wrote all these words, but he doesn't quite have the fine motor skills for that. These are just all the words he could think of for mommy to write down.