Swimming, scooters, and sentences

After a week of inclement weather, it turned beautiful again: blue skies and 80-degree afternoons. We had a gorgeous weekend here, and it was especially nice because Doug was home for the weekend.

Carter and I went swimming a lot this weekend. His swimming has really come a long way since he started this level in January. He's starting to develop some respect for the water, much to my relief. When we go down to the pool, I no longer have to keep a death grip on him. He get in and stay on the (very wide) top step, and won't go in further until I get in with him. He seems to have figured out that he needs to be swimming TO something or something short distance away. He swims really well, and finally will go horizontal in the water after he jumps off the step. I can be 8 feet away from the steps, and he'll swim to me no problem. Then I turn him around and he'll swim back to the steps. It's really amazing!

His language is always evolving. He tends to speak in complete sentences now, except that the words he's not sure of come out as nonsense syllables. He knows what the sentence is supposed to sound like; he just doesn't know all the words yet! He will chatter on and on, and sometimes it's like listening to someone speaking a language you sort of know: you get the big words, but not the nuances. He knows so much, and it often catches me by surprise. We were playing outside today, and he walked over to the fire hydrant on the street to inspect it. I asked him what that was, and he said, "It's a fire hydrant, for the fireman." I asked what the fireman did with the hydrant, and he explained at great length (in the manner I describe above) that they hook their hose to it, and water comes out, and doggies like fire hydrants too. I was totally surprised! Sometimes he is clearly thinking very hard about what he wants to say, and is obviously searching for the right word.

I tried to get him talking here on video. We were at Wal-Mart looking at the fish tanks. (Two-year-olds are so easy to entertain!)



While we were there, we checked out the bikes. Carter insisted on wearing this helmet!



We ended up getting him a scooter, and he was so excited. The kids on our cul-de-sac all have scooters, and he's always trying to play with them. Now he has his own. The girl next door tried to teach him how to ride it, but so far he's mostly interested in pushing it around.



He eventually got all of his vehicles out and was playing with them. Here is a video of him playing with his stroller. I have titled this, "How a boy plays with a stroller".



While we were playing, he got my rainboots out of the garage and put them on! He tried to walk around, but without much success.



We went to Gymboree this morning and I took some pictures of him playing. The light was weird, but it gives a sense of what it all looks like.









Here is something I've been trying to get on video for a week now. He can go down the stairs without holding onto anything. I ran to get the camera and missed most of it, but I still have proof!