Give Me Water!

I'm writing today to update you on what's been happening Memorial Day through July 4th. Wow - what great holidays! Both were spent at Black Butte Ranch, which is in central Oregon. It was here at this ranch on Memorial Day weekend that I discovered my true love of water - especially water fountains!!! They have a great kids pool there and if I could spend every day there, I'd be in heaven :) When we went back to the ranch on July 4th I was all over it. I was even dunking myself a little bit! I can't wait to be able to really swim like my big cousins!

One thing I can do now like my big cousins is run! I like running everywhere, walking is for losers. Mom says she's had her fair share of mini heart attacks watching me take a couple mean spills in the process. In fact I have a mean bruise and cut on my knee right now that won't seem to heal because I keep falling and tearing the thing open again, but it doesn't stop me!

And speaking of running and walking, I LOVE shoes. I loves putting on my shoes (preferrably by myself, thank you) and putting on other people's shoes, too. Daddy has BIG shoes. They are heavy for me to carry around but I still like to take them from the garage to the front door.

I've been reading lots of books and I can usually give you a synopsis of each page of the story. Sometimes, in the rhyming stories, I'll go ahead and let mom read the beginning of the sentence but then I come in and end it. It's good fun. Yesterday I thought 'hey, why don't I read a book to my stuffed duckie!' and went ahead and read to him like mom does to me with my duckie on my lap. It was cool. I think I'll start reading more to him so he learns the stories, too. When we're looking a book and I don't know what the animal or picture is, I just ask Mom and Dad now - I say "what this?" and they tell me every time! They are just a wealth of knowledge!

Some other things that seem to get Mom and Dad all proud of me are counting to 10, saying "please" and "thank you" unsolicited and knowing my shapes. My favorite shape is the triangle. And when I draw now, I can draw big circles. I still love drawing. Mom also laughed pretty hard the other day when I decided that I would get some revenge and make her sit with me while I clipped her finger nails with her hair clip. I did one hand and then said "other hand please" just like she does. I love copying Mom and Dad, and usually they like it. But they didn't like when I said "crappy" the other day.

I learned a new game, too, it's called ring around the rosy. I like to fall all the way down so I'm laying flat. Oh, and now I can do all my puzzles totally by myself! I definitely have some Plummer in me because I love doing my puzzles. Now that I've mastered the ones I have, I'm hoping Mom and Dad will fork out some dough and buy me some new ones. We'll see.

Something not so cool is I'm finally popping alot of teeth - all at once. I think I have four coming in up top all at the same time right now. I look forward to oragel now and even ask for it when the P's just don't get it.

We still don't have our yard put in yet, but Mom says it's coming. Not sure about that one because they've been saying that forever, but I suppose I'll still trust them. Mom says by the end of the month I'll be running around out patio and on our grass. Right now I like to run on our neighbors' grass. And I'm getting less shy about our neighbors' dogs, too. I like to pat them, whereas before they freaked me out a little bit. Our neighbor, Moya, is mommy's helper for the summer so she comes over two days per week for two hours and mom takes her with us to do errands so that she can shop while Moya follows me around the store or gives me snacks in the shopping cart.

Lastly, I've been practicing and practicing but I can't seem to be able to jump. So if you have any advice on this (mom and dad have just not given me anything useful) please let me know. I would really like to do this because it looks like a blast. I bend and then go for it but no air.

That's about all for now. Hope everyone is staying cool this summer - it's been 100 degrees all week in Portland this week, so we've been enjoying the A/C indoors.

Click here to see more pictures of the beginning of my summer ---> http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=o8wftuh.aibp0vrd&x=0&y=-lhx8tx

LOVE YA!!!