The Pumpkin and The Valen-twins: Happy Labor Day!

Hello there! Time for a much delayed update on Chad's busy life!
Chad has been working hard at maintaining his cuteness and setting the world record for banana consumption in the toddler age bracket. We also have a new obsession:

No kid should love cleaning as much as Chad does.

The new rule is: only one cleaning device out at a time. He vacuums, he Swiffers, he mops, and he would use the floor steamer if Andy would let him. He also tries to clean at school,and other people's houses, if he spies their vacuum.
It's a good thing Chad has off from school today, because he is worn out from all the parties he's been to this weekend. Saturday was his new friend Owen's first birthday party, and yesterday was a lab BBQ. He was the oldest kid at Owen's party, and spent a good part of it pointing at the dog that was behind a gate, practicing his "Ruff ruff!" noises. Last night he was one of the younger walking kids at the BBQ, and he didn't really "play" with the other toddlers, but he did run around the spare room with them during an impromptu dance party (with no music.... it was weird... but it distracted him from the host's vacuum) and tried out a new piano that we just may be buying for him in a few months! The best part of last night was that we found a new food Chad will eat: Pigs in blankets! After a solid week of him refusing to eat anything other than milk, bananas and animal crackers, it was good to see him scarf down a couple dozen pieces of bite-sized processed meat.

The little pocket on his overalls has some animal crackers hidden in it. He was "helping" me make cucumber crab cups for the BBQ, but when I let him taste some crab he spit it on the floor and told me "Ew."

He's learning so much at school, but is very sad that he only has two months left with his beloved Miss Simone. :( He knows all sorts of body parts, animal noises, and transportation sound effects. He can tell us all his classmates names, and knows the numbers 2 and 8. (If we say "One...." he'll pipe up "two!", and then be silent as we count 3-7. And then he'll jump back in with "Eight!") Alas, we got two phone calls about Chad being in an "incident" this week, which are always great voice mails to get. Once was following a scuffle over a toy, (don't worry, Chad was not the instigator in the fight), and once was when he and his partner-in-crime. Liam, tried to climb on top of a bookshelf. The teachers yelled "Don't!" and when Chad tried to reverse directions his leg got stuck and he face planted onto the floor, giving himself his first bloody nose.
Making the move to the two-year-old classroom will mean he'll start taking potty trips with his classmates. Yikes. He has shown zero interest in the Freddy Frog potty from his Babci, other than liking to push the buttons that say "Hip Hop Hooray!" and recite the Freddy Frog story. I hear an electronic voice saying, "Freddy was a fine frog." over and over and over again in my sleep.
Chad was a huge fan of the Olympics, because he was allowed to watch some of it on TV, and normally TV is forbidden. We got up early for the womens' and mens' marathons, and he sat on the couch with me shouting "Go go go!" when we saw the Americans. He had a little fist pump action to go with that cheer.

I think there was some equestrian event on when I took this picture.

You can see his trusty blanket with him.

A few weeks ago Chad was playing the spice game with while I was cooking. He'll say "Nose?" and tap his nose until you let him smell the spices. We went through almost all my spices that evening, and when he didn't like the way ground mustard smelled, he let himself into the pantry to hide from it, then popped out with the tub of 50 animal cookie cutters and proceeded to dump them all over the floor.

If you ever do any baking at my house, make sure you wash the cookie cutters before you use them.

The spice game abruptly ended shortly afterwards, when he BLEW into the curry instead of sniffing it, and got a faceful of nasty curry powder.

Here he is, reading a favorite book to his mouse/rat puppet.

We have the "Beep-Beep" sound effects for this book down cold.

We took a trip to Morrisville to stock up on fall/winter clothes in 24M and 2T. He got oodles of cute clothes, and one pair of shoes, all for $47, including tax! I wish I could get a new wardrobe each season for $47! He loved his new shoes so much! He carried them around while we shopped and paid, then wanted them put on immediately when we got home. He gave them a few good stomps, and they must have been better stomping shoes than his old kicks, because he marched around the house all evening, and occasionally pointing to them and telling us, "Shoes!" in case we had forgotten they were there.