Decker

Hi there everyone!

Well, it feels like it has rained a LOT this month! My grandpa Cappy says he is sorry that I haven’t had a chance to experience a true spring yet! Luckily, I have found a new passion that has kept me happily occupied for many an hour these past few weeks - the magical wonder that is Play-Doh!

Play-Doh is just great. It smells good, you can squish it, it comes in way cool colors (right now I’m in my ‘blue phase’), and you can usually sucker mom or dad into playing with you, at least at the beginning. There is, of course, a proper way to play with Play-Doh, which goes as follows:

1. Go up to Mommy or Daddy, smile big at them, and say “Paaaaay-Doh?” Wait for them to give the affirmative nod that they are willing to play at that time. (Note: If you try this in the morning, Mommy will usually ask you to wait until after breakfast. If you are not hungry, she will still make you wait until she is done with HER breakfast. Go along with this - the wait, while interminable, is worth it).

2. Grab your tub of Play-Doh, your bucket of cookie cutters, and the rolling pin. Go sit down at your Decker-sized table expectantly.

3. Mommy (or Daddy) will roll out the Play-Doh. Pick a cookie cutter, and cut out a shape. (Note: ALWAYS start with the snowman cookie cutter). Place shape on table, squish Play-Doh together, and wait for Mommy/Daddy to roll it out again. Repeat.

4. After all the shapes have been cut out and there is no Play-Doh left to roll, then spend the next 20 minutes rearranging the shapes in different ways on the table. Each time you rearrange them, take the time then to name them one by one. At this point, Mommy/Daddy will have probably moved on to do something boring like empty the dishwasher or go take a shower. That’s ok - you don’t really need them at this point.

5.When done, say ‘bye bye’ to each shape and then squish them and put them back in the tub. Then say ‘bye bye’ to each cookie cutter and put them back in the bucket. Tell Mommy/Daddy ‘put away’, and then walk each item over the kitchen and do so. Wait for hugs and praise for being so tidy and sweet.

And that’s it! Pretty awesome, huh?

I went to playgroup with my mom today, and they had this really cool wooden bar over one of the squishy mats. I’ve never really been tall enough to try it before, but I discovered today that you can grab the bar with both hands, lift your feet up and tuck them under you, and then swing like a monkey! (You have to make monkey noises when you do this, so your mom gets the full idea!). It’s really fun and I felt very proud of myself!

Speaking of monkeys, my dad has a lot of monkey toys at his office, and whenever I go there he lets me play with them. He also had a toy bird that bounces, a Buddha that squeaks, and a little plastic statue of a guy named Syndrome. I like to play with these a lot, and I remember them all by name! My mom and dad didn’t realize that until this week, when I was at speech therapy. I made a picture there, and mom said we could give it to Daddy to put up at his office. Well, that got me thinking about going to Daddy’s office right then and there - I was ready to go! I kept trying to get my mom and Pamela to end the session early by dropping all sorts of hints like trying to get my coat and trying to sing the goodbye song…I really wanted to go play at Daddy’s office! Pamela asked me, “Decker - you sound like you really like going to see your Daddy - what do you do there?”. So I told her: “Ooooh Ooooh Monkey, bird, buddha, sutta (Syndrome)”. Mommy seemed really surprised that I could remember all those things! We didn’t get to go that day, but we did go the day after that, and I had a really good time! I like playing at Daddy’s office, and I like to chant “Dada offesh” over and over to tease my mom (I know we don’t always get to go, but I like to see her say “toMORrow!!!” in her funny voice.

Decker’s picks of the week:

Movies: “Mike Susseh Boo” (Monsters Inc.) and “Doggeh Buwwah” (Wallace and Grommit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit)

Books: “The Big Honey Hunt”, “Bear Snores On”, “Big Dog Little Dog”

Stickers!!!!!!!

Hi everyone! Hope you are all staying warm and dry during this crazy rainy month! Mommy says spring is just around the corner, and then we’ll be able to go outside a lot more. I think she may be fooling herself!

This past weekend I went to Salt Lake City again with my mom, Pammy, Katil and Tully and we saw more than just rain - we saw SNOW! And a lot of it! Snow is really neat - it’s cold and white and it looks pretty when it falls from the sky. It did mean that we couldn’t go to the zoo, but that was ok with me, because I had two other distractions while we were there that I thought were the funnest things ever! I have two new passions, and words to go with them, and I pretty much spent most of my waking time this weekend exploring them to the fullest! When you hear what they are, you may be surprised and say, “Hey, Decker - I thought that used to really freak you out!”. But, I have chosen to face down my fears, and embrace them for the super fascinating contraptions/toys that they are:

Passion #1: The Vacuum Cleaner! Regular visitors to my blog may recall that I used to hate the vacuum, and then I grew to enjoy pushing it around (UNPLUGGED, mind you!) around the garage. Well, in Utah there was a vacuum in the upstairs closet, and I was allowed to open the door and pull it out and push it around the living room! I can identify the hose, the plug, and the handle (all by name), and I loooooooooove to say the work ‘vacuum’ over and over and over again - it’s so musical! I think I say it just fine, but my mom keeps trying to help me pronounce it slightly differently. I’m not sure why, but my aunties and Pammy kept getting the giggles everytime I say ‘vacuum’! I heard them saying they’ll need to explain that I’m not saying “F U” to people. That makes no sense at all - why would I naming letters when I am describing this magnificent machine? Grownups are so weird…

Passion #2: Hair Dryers! For a while now, I would notice that my mommy would disappear from the room for a while, and if I went looking for her I would find her aiming this really loud gizmo at her hair, which would dry it out for her. I didn’t like the noise, and it blew her hair around and was just kinda scary. But - I also really don’t like it when her hair is wet, so I knew it was a necessary evil. Well, for whatever reason, during this trip I decided that hair dryers aren’t actually scary, but are really sort of interesting! So much so that I decided it was important to take the two hair dryers in the house (red hair dryer and blue hair dryer, as I call them), and drag them around with me throughout the day. Pammy asked me what I had in my hands, so I held one hair dryer up to my head and made a noise to show her what they’re for. I also see my mom use a round brush when she dries her hair, so I grabbed a brush in the other hand and showed her how to use them together. For whatever reason, that got another round of giggles from everyone and “good job, little hairdresser!”. Since we’ve been home, I’ve learned to call my mom’s hair dryer “silver hair dryer”, and when her hair is wet, I drag it over to her and insist that “mama dry hair”. Hey, I just want her to look presentable when we go to playgroup!

Hope you all get to push a vacuum around sometime soon too!

Hi all! Happy Friday! Hope everyone had a good week - I spent mine learning to say a whole lot of new words, including ’soccer’ (as in soccer ball), ‘bap (big), and ’sawl’ (small), and my favoritest word of all: HUG! I love love love to hug, and I will give and demand hugs all day long - can’t get enough of them! Especially when it’s bedtime and I’m not quite sleepy enough to put my head down on the pillow - then I will ask for as many hugs as I can get! And last night my mom taught me to stick my arms out when she says “I love you THIS MUCH” and then I tackle her with a big ol’ Decker bear hug. Pretty great!