Alright already. Enough with your commentary ye Waltless ones. I present the Two Year Post. Ginger said I didn't have to be cute. I just have to tell you about some of Walt's favorite things at this, the beginning of his third year (gulp!).
I'll try not to get too choked up doing this because, and I say this with all of the humilty I can muster, I am one of his favorite things. Poor Ginger. All of those nights feeding him, trips to the park, waffles toasted, diapers changed and noses wiped, and she has to play second fiddle to me, absentee Da-eee. Oh well, we can't choose our fans, but if we could . . . well . . . no . . . I can't; that's just too sappy. He yells my name more enthusiastically than I can remember each day when I come home from work. He wants to show me things all of the time. "Da-eee, wah. Da-eee, wah," as he presses the button on his fire engine to make the siren sound. Then, he looks at me with such pride. As you've already seen, I'm the sole invitee into the Zippity Zoo tent when it makes an appearance. That's fun, if a bit cramped. We also love playing with his many trucks, but, as you've also seen, that usually results in them being piled into the back of his giant dump truck or lined up perfectly in his room or on his toy box.
He likes sports. Particularly, he enjoys football, although his interpretation of the sport is not at all similar to the version you're used to seeing. Unlike NFL quarterbacks (or any player for that matter), Walt always, always throws the ball first, then runs and falls down simulating a tackle. He's only recently begun "tackling" me. He runs at me full speed, yells "tackle" and flings himself on top of me. This is best performed on carpet and not the hardwood that is predominant in our house. I keep telling Ginger that the constant head-knocking will make him tougher, but apparently, that's not "medically proven."
Walt still likes to go outside, but the weather has not cooperated much recently. During our last trip to the park last week, he stayed in the swing with me pushing him for at least 15 minutes. He was loving it. The higher the better. That was new. He and Ginger accompanied me to a race in a state park a couple of weekends ago, and, after watching about 300 runners go by, he insisted on running everywhere for the rest of the trip. He cheered me twice along the course. Those were my fastest two miles. He very much enjoyed the other spectators' dogs and throwing acorns in the lake while he and Ginger waited for me to finish.
Talking. Where to begin. I fully expect that Walt will be doing his own posts on this blog by the next birthday. He is full of words. Some of his favorites: No, Mine . . . uh, I'm drawing a blank. Seriously, he has quite a full vocabulary, but he is two, you know. He talks himself to sleep most nights and, seemingly, talks himself awake in the mornings. He mixes in some songs at times, but generally, he's running his yapper from start to finish. He can pretty much tell us whatever he wants us to know. That's not to say we could turn him loose at the bus station and expect him to get home (we've actually considered that lately), but we don't have any trouble understanding his demands most of the time. Usually, he wants to "tay" something. "Tay" trucks. "Tay" football. "Tay" basketball. "Tay" blocks. Or "wah" something. Usually "Red Car." That would be "watch the movie Cars" to the rest of us. Our apologies to Pixar Studios, but we just can't get him to use Lightning McQueen's name.
Music. Which brings me to the title of this post. If you're still reading, I'll reward you by explaining that the title is a lyric from a song that Walt's favorite artist in the whole wide world sings. It's a traditional song sung by Dane Zanes and Friends on their DVD, All Around the Kitchen! If there's one thing that Walt requests more often than Cars, it's Dan Zanes. He can't get enough of the concert DVD. It always makes him smile. And I must agree, it's really good stuff. He's recently added Laurie Berkner to his collection, and he still bangs the drum and dances quite often. The boy loves some music.
His behavior, you ask? Oh yeah. That. It's changed, as Ginger mentioned in a recent post, but he's still a very sweet boy overall. He pushes our limits (and buttons) sometimes. OK, all of the time, but that's what two year-olds do, right? One of our all-time favorites is his version of his mother saying, "That's bad behavior", which she has to say quite often. He's begun saying it before we get a chance to. It's tough to discipline him when he flings a toy across the room and then looks at you rather sheepishly and says, "Da bah behaber." I can't even type that without laughing. That's our Walty.
Since we all have jobs and lives outside of this blog, I guess I'll just wrap it up by saying that while Walt has many, many favorite things as a vibrant, jabbery, handsome two year-old, his mother and I really have only one, him.
Here are some photos from the big birthday celebration in Murray this past weekend.
