Cole - my joy..."Yook uh me!"

I absolutely love this picture. Cole wanted to wear "the zoo shirt", his favorite piece of clothing. He got it, didn't think to remove his other shirt first, and put it on...backwards, and never pulled it all the way down, but he was so proud. I hear so often, "Yook uh me!" (look at me). I am reminded of how blessed I am that we are healthy and I'm here to look at all his antics and celebrate his accomplishments with him.

Cole makes me laugh every day. I always thought that 3 years old would be my favorite age, and I'm revelling in it! Here's some funny, cute, and clever memories that I want to keep forever:

1. We were reading a book about a raccoon and his forest friends. Cole was naming all the animals, paused at the porcupine, and then triumphantly said, "Pinecone!!" Close :)

2. I was trying to think of something to occupy the boys one afternoon, and we had recently been blueberry picking. I was racking my brain for an activity as I drawled out, "Lets...find...some...". "Blueberries!!" says Cole. Good idea son :).

3. Cole went through a phase, for weeks, where he regularly called me "Tis-Teena" (Christina), or "Momma Tis-Teena." If he really wanted my attention he called me by my first name, but as I tried to ween him from this habit to remind him that I'm "Momma" to him, he would use the double wammy. He's started it again, and as much as I try to remind him that he doesn't call me Christina, it sure is cute to hear his little voice calling from the other room, "Tis-Teena! Tis-Teena! Momma Tis-Teena, yook uh dis! (look at this)"

4. In an effort to get healthier we eat much lower-carb than we ever have before. So I made "Cabbage Lasagna" one night, which uses cabbage instead of noodles. It's actually really good and all of us liked it, but Thomas, who loves to be derogatory to get a laugh, told Cole that is was "Cabbage Surprise." Cole, not getting the joke, ate his dinner and loudly announced, "More Cabbage Surprise please!" It did get a good laugh :).

5. It's one of my goals as a parent to stimulate my kids' imaginations and creativity to find constructive things to do with their time. Not necessarily to always do those things WITH them, but my mom always told me that kids often need direction, they need help to stimulate their imaginations and keep them engaged. Once they're going on something, they can often play without you for hours. But sometimes they need help getting started with an idea. Cole has taken it upon himself to let me know when he needs this. "Momma, I want to do something FUN," he says expectantly. I can't always help, but it makes me smile that he thinks I'm a sure-fire answer to boredom.

6. We work on memory verses a couple mornings a week at breakfast. A 2 1/2 year old's ability to memorize is amazing, as I've found out. To start with I would say each line and he would repeat it after me. I didn't think he could do any of it on his own. One day I started one of them, "He must become greater," and before I could finish Cole says, "No, don't say that!" I was a little taken aback until he smiled and proudly said, "He must become greater, I must become less. John 3:30". I was shocked! I personally didn't even know the reference to it, but that little brain is absorbing everything. I then tried some of the other verses, asking him if he knew them, and was amazed to see how many of them he could say with just the first few words as a prompt.

7. Still on the topic of memory verses, I started one morning, "The Lord is..." and he took over with, "The Lord is my shepherd...not want...Psalm...[jibberish] five six seven eight nine ten!"

8. A couple months ago I said, "Thomas, do you want to put him to b-e-d?" Cole pouts out, "I don't want to go to b-e-d." Surprised, I asked him, "What's b-e-d?" "B-e-d is night-night," he says knowingly.

9. We were looking at "Cars and Trucks and Things that Go" a few days ago and there are a bunch of different animals in a bus. He was asking me what each of them were and I would tell him. He got to one and I said, "I think it's a donkey." He retorts confidently, "I think it is NOT a donkey." He couldn't give me a better guess, but he was sure my guess was not right. A few animals later I told him one of them was a pig. "No, it's not a pig. It's a HOG." Ahh, the nuances of animal species. All his looking at National Geographic's "Mammals A-Z" is coming back to bite me.

10. Cole was looking at a book that happened to be on his bookshelf and announced vehemently, "Hey! This is not a book! It doesn't have any pictures!"