Diary of a great evening

I don't know what it was tonight, the three hour nap that Ant took this afternoon, the three combined hours of naps from yesterday (1 hour in the car and then another 2 in the late afternoon, poor guy was zapped), but we had an absolutely fabulous evening.

When I arrived home from work, Ant was running up to me, saying "AAAAAAAH!", sometimes waiting for me to return fire, sometimes not, then doing a lap around the first floor. This lasted for probably about fifteen minutes, and Nana and Papa were included in the fun too.

After they left, we played with the buckles on the booster seat, climbed up and down on "Nana's chair", played with the buckles some more, moved Nana's chair over to the vacuum sealer and played with that and some coins (vacuum sealer was off, but so much fun to open, close and put things into).

Next was supper time - I asked if he wanted tuna or meatballs, and he replied emphatically, "Meatbawws!". Always nice to have direction for meals! I prepared the TJ's meatballs to a little bit of fussing, I can never cook anything quickly enough, but it settled down pretty quickly once the "meatbawws and sauce" were provided. He asked to sit at the table instead of having the booster seat tray on, and was actually a lot less messy than normal with this meal. Ate three whole meatballs, plus dipped half a slice of toast in the leftover sauce and ate that too.

After we were done eating, more playing with the booster seat, including a totally unprompted rendition of "five little monkeys jumping on the bed", complete with finger wagging "NO mowah mon-keys jumpin' on da bed!"

Our next activity was bringing in the packages the UPS man dropped off, and opening said packages. Ant's favorite was the new car seat, which he proceeded to have me put next to the stairs, followed by more playing with buckles, getting in an out of the seat, and more singing. We talked about how this new carseat was for Papa's car, because we already have one in Antony's car and in Mommy's car.

The latter led to asking to "SEE Mommy's CAH!" - which I said we couldn't do because I had ridden my bike home. So he wanted to "see mommy's bike!". Down to the basement we went. And "rode" the bike around the garage, down the driveway, down to the corner and back again. By riding what I really mean is Ant was sitting on the seat and I was pushing the bike.

Upon our return I decided it was bedtime, and actually managed to get Ant upstairs with a minimum of fuss. We had a grand time taking of his socks, and then mine. Apparently I am not allowed to wear socks if he's not! Around then Daddy arrived home, and we had to "go downsairs, see DAddy!". Which entailed more running around in circles. Very exciting.

Preparing for bed was also a very pleasant experience - takes a while these days, but much fun was had by all. Including a phone call to Nana and Papa, where Antony had a five minute phone conversation with them! He was often just repeating what they were saying, but he did say "Hewwo Nana" or "Hewwo Papa" all by himself, as well as answering their questions in the affirmative when appropriate. Papa asked if the new carseat had come, and Ant said "Yaaaah". Papa then queried, "who's car is the car seat going in?", and Ant answered, "Papa's cah!". He asked "Nana doin?" when she got on the phone, she told him she was making supper, and a minute or two further on in the conversation, he said "Nana makin' suppah". He's listened on the phone before, but never come at all close to having an actual conversation like he did tonight.

We then played the monster spray game (I pretend to be a monster, giving very friendly growls from time to time), and he makes a "tsch tsch tsch" noise while pretend spraying me, at which point I run away because the monster spray is very effective. (This game was originated by his ten month older cousin).

After that came "miwk and sorie" time, we read three or four books, had a very nice teethbrushing where he actually made a pretty good effort all on his own, after asking Daddy to come up. A few more "sories" with Daddy, and off to bed he went with minimal complaints.

All in all, an amazingly fun evening!