Excuse me, pardon me, American coming through

Xaye is all about being polite. He will say 'excuse me' to anyone - or thing - as he turns sideways to pass by. Whether there are inches to spar - or FEET - he will still turn sideways, say 'scu me' and scoot past.


Most recently he has been intentionally 'excusing' himself to pass the cat, then bend down to say 'hi' and wiggle his fingers at the cat, then 'excuse' himself to pass by. He can be easily encouraged to engage in a 15 minute 'excuse me' parade with no resistance.

Also, more sentences, most recently (and notably) - "There is a duck over there" was uttered in Fels Point on Father's Day and "I want them to go with me" was cried out when Payton and Alex headed out of the campsite earlier this week.

Wow.

Of course, we are doing a lot of spelling. Or, for those that know me, I am butchering the language Jerome has a 4 year degree in.

Xaye is very articulate about what he wants - and does not want. If you don't understand him the first time, I recommend that you duck. Objects start to fly.

He has been amenable to time out, as long as he is strapped in his booster seat, that is. Otherwise, reminders reminding him to be reminded to put things down work. If you are THAT aware 100% of the time when he is contemplating sending objects to the sky.

Alex and Payton

Xavier had a chance to have some older siblings this week, as Alex and Payton Mobayenni came to visit us for the week. He enjoyed all the extra attention he received. Jen and I also found out what it would be like to have 3 kids. Whew!

Pictures coming soon!!

Jerome

Playing in the sandbox

--jeromex

Xaye must be entering his terrible twos or teething or something, cause he was a handful today!

Hanging out at the library

--jeromex

Strawberries

Today, Xaye and I went to pick strawberries. He did surprisingly well considering it was his first time (and he's only 1). We first worked on pronouncing the word correctly. For some reason he likes to call them grapes. I have no idea why. Once we established that they were not grapes, he then called them berries. After hearing me say the word a few times, he settled in to calling them "stawberries". Works for me.

Picking the strawberries and watching Xaye at the same time was not much of a problem. I pretty much let him walk wherever he wanted. As usual, he would mosey on up to people and say hi, and have a nice conversation with him.

Woooooow

Xaye's lastest source of amusement has been to move from window to window looking for trucks, listening for sirens, and pointing out cars, trucks, dogs, trees (you get the picture)

He has a small blue stool that he carries fromone window to the next as he shouts
out his observations, sometimes in single syllables and sometimes in a string of
random nouns strung together with proclamations of mechanical engines, horns, sirens, etc. (like, for example, rrrrea rrreaa is 'siren' in xaye-speak).

In the morning Xaye sometimes stands at the window saying goodbye to me.
I can still hear him a block away.

"bye bye mommy(....laka...laka...........) car (...mmmy ish..) truck, bi-bye".

Added March, April, and May pictures...

Abercrombie & Fitch

Today Xaye and I went to the mall to hang out and avoid the heat. As you already know, Xaye is a complete ham when he has an audience, and he had a great audience today. He would run up next to women and flash a smile and walk along next to them. On cue, they would say hi to him and comment on how cute he was. He almost had it down to a science. Sometimes he would "accidentily" bump into someone walking towards him. As I was apologizing for him, he would start to give the googlily eyes to the unsuspecting victim, and the next thing you know they were commenting on his hair, or his smile, or using any number of synonyms for "cute" to describe him.

It all came to a climax when Xaye strolled into the Abercrombie & Fitch store. They were playing some loud techno music, and there was a large open area just inside the store. As the music thumped, Xaye performed his "I'm too sexy" dance. There was a wiggle here, a stomp here, he even broke into a MC Hammer dance for a few seconds (where is the video camera when you really need it). For the next 5 minutes he was the darling of all the salespeople and shoppers in the store. Everyone had to look and admire (gawk) his fancy one of a kind dance steps. Once he was tired of showing off on the dance floor, he took to running around the store catching anyone who may have missed the main show, only to give them a private dance.

Unfortunately for Xaye, I had to be his ego, for after 15 minutes I had to pull him off the dance floor and back to reality. Well, at least out of the store. Where he went right back to hamming it up for the rest of the mall patrons.