Our Future American Idol?

Ok, so I'm going to shamelessly brag, boast and otherwise put our son up on a pedestal. Prepare your eyeballs for some major rolling.

Yesterday, I was washing dishes, and Paul was just dancing around, being his merry self. All of a sudden, I hear him bust out in Twinkle, twinkle - he sang the entire first line (with a couple of babble syllables at the end), then he sang, "Up above the (insert some unintelligible babbling)". I really thought I was hallucinating considering the most I've ever heard him string together is 2 words - if even that. And I've never done more than sing that song to him once or twice in total - weeks ago! I guess he must have heard it on a Barney DVD. Kudos to Barney! (He's in LOVE with Barney now, by the way!)

He also can sing "A-B-C-D" to the alphabet song, but I credit that to his leapfrog phonics toy that he plays endlessly.

He says "Bless you" now after you sneeze.

Anyway, that's enough on the boast post.

We just came back from a trip to see my Dad's lake house on the finger lakes in NY (Cayuga to be exact). Our first time there. The countryside was beautiful. I actually listened to country music and LIKED it for the first time - those sappy love songs are really enhanced when you're out amongst fields of green, lakes of blue, and lots of stinky cows, horses, etc. Will I be a country music fan for life? I doubt it.

We had a great time. We got to see my Aunt Sandy and Uncle John, and their kids and grandkids, most of whom had no idea who we were of course. Also got to see my Aunt Jackie, Uncle Bob and Aunt Evelyn, and cousin Nancy on my Dad's side. It's been too long since I'd seen them. Funny, I find myself saying to my cousin's kids the same thing that I used to roll my eyeballs at whenever relatives said the same to me ... "I haven't seen you since you were ___ years old! You are SO grown up! You were only THIS tall the last time I saw you!" Haha! A few relatives said that to me, minus the "so grown up and tall" part, which I can understand. I'm sure they tell themselves, what can I expect after 20 years? For her to still be 4 feet tall? Haha again.

On the way home, we stopped at Philly just for some good ol' city fun - good way to balance out all the countryside we saw. We stayed in a hotel with Paul for the first time. He did remarkably well - even when we were tiptoeing around the hotel room for fear of not waking him up since he gets 6 or 7 hours more sleep than us on a given day (when you include naptime). Kids are so resilient and adaptable. Or at least Paul is. We took Paul to a science museum for kids - he loved all the stuffed animal exhibits - lions, gorillas (which he called "monkey"s), bears, dinosaurs, etc.

Here he is in front of the waterfalls in Philly.



Be sure to check out the slideshow at the bottom of the page for pictures from our NY trip.

Here's a bonus pic. He likes to put his stuffed animals on the diaper pad when it's time for a diaper change. Here he is changing monkey's diaper:



Happy Birthday, USA!