things that are cute

Ratatouille. Garrett's current go-to Pixar film is Ratatouille, which he generally (and adorably) pronounces as "Ratatutu." For the last few days, as we've waited on the stoop for the school bus, he's been obsessively grabbing handfuls of leaves from the ground cover at the base of the tree on the curb and tossing them through the garden fence. In between telling him to stop picking the leaves! I tried to find out just exactly why he was doing this. Finally the answer was intelligible: he was picking herbs to throw into the pot just like the rat did when he made soup. He was pretending to be Remy. So now instead of trying to inhibit his budding imagination, I'm trying to steer him towards using the already fallen leaves when he's cooking.



Waving. Caleb finally waves hello and goodbye, though he's still not that great at doing it on command. He is, however, really good at waving to people we pass on walks through the neighborhood, as well as waving to his own shadow.



Emergency Vehicles. Big vans are the thing to drive in New York. They are used in lieu of pick-up trucks for construction companies, as delivery, service, and utility vehicles, and as ambulettes, among other things. Even though they are not usually used for emergencies, the ambulettes are often equipped with lights and sirens. Garrett knows that ambulances also have sirens, and, according to his logic, this means that all vehicles with lights and sirens of comparable size are ambulances (i.e. the ambulettes; he knows a fire engine and a police car when he sees one), which in turns means that all big vans are emergency vehicles, whether or not they are equipped with extra lights on top. So whenever we pass a large van, he pulls on my arm and says, "Hey! Eee-ooo-eee-ooo" (he can't say ambulance yet). I'm discovering that even though he's pointing at a construction van, it's really hard to convince otherwise.