to be heard

He puts his finger to his lips, trying to throw quiet our way. He has a lot of things he'd like to say, and just wants a bit of room to be heard.

Holding the spoon in front of his face, he flips it around and repeats Hanky upside down, now Hanky upside up. Upside down! Upside up!

He sings about spiders and stars, his words still a bit choppy, his voice pleasant but not very "inside."

When he dropped a hexagon magnet his grandmother made for him, he was distraught. 

Broke mine hepagon. Make sad Hanky. Roro make new hepagon, give to Hanky? 

(spoiler alert: she did)

He is always calling the fire department from beneath the dining room table, one hand holding a pretend phone to his ear, the other clenching a red light-up engine. And then making allll the siren noises.

Still a bit of settling in work being done around here, inside and out, blue plastic hammer in hand, he often asks Hey guys, what you working on? Hanky help?!

When something isn't going the way he had hoped, he explains, I’m frustrating. 

Wait just one minute please, when I'd like him to cooperate getting dressed, but he needs to apply approximately sixty two more boo boo bandaids to various uninjured places on his body.

He counts EVERYthing! Most often his bandaids. But also lots of other things.

He gets number words beyond ten a little confused, and my favorite is his "eleven."

one, two, three... ten, hel-whe-men, twelve, thirteen, hel-whe-menteen

While he sits at the island on a stool next to his brothers, waiting for another meal to be served, he plays rock paper scissors shoot over and over ad nauseum. 

(of note, he throws scissors every time)

Oh mercy, he says, when he needs his diaper changed.

Now your turn!  (to make a lion noise, to play rock paper, to try on binoculars, to sing the ABC song, to jump over the board, to take a sip of tea, to have your diaper changed...)