Squeezing in some updates

Tim just emailed me at work to say that Oliver walked across the room by himself tonight!! 

Ben has started calling Tim Dada, perhaps because Oliver says something like dada and we say "Yes!  That is Dada over there!"  Ben told me he wanted a little dog and he would name it Dogga. 

Mosquitoes think Oliver tastes really yummy and he gets at least four bites each night that we are outside, while the rest of us get one or none.  And his bites swell up pretty big, though they don't seem to bother him. 

It's funny to hear Ben come up with snippets of songs and nursery rhymes he learns from Wee Creekers.  I've heard him sing a little of "Singin' in the Rain" and recite a little of Humpty Dumpty.

I've actually tried a little harder to teach my poor pre-schooler his alphabet and he knows a lot of letters by sight.  He usually calls letters "numbers."  He still loves reading.  I'm amazed that if we read a book once (and I don't remember much about it myself, and I never emphasize the titles much), he will read the title to us the next day!  One time he said he wanted to read the book about the little boy going to the playground naked.  I had no idea which book that was, so I commenced reading what we had.  Lo and behold, on the last page of one of the books we had read only once, the little boy goes to the playground in his underwear. 

It's so fun to see the boys having fun together.  The latest thing they do is:  Ben sits on his tricycle and Oliver holds onto the seat back and pushes him (walking), around and around the deck.  It's so cute to see them go back and forth in front of the glass door. 

We have a magnet thingie for the fridge that makes noises.  Oliver knows to press the button that plays a few songs and he presses it, then starts his knee-bouncy dance and looks to me for approval with a big smile on his face.