Hunter thoughts from Florida

Some Hunter observations from our recent trip to Ruth's place in Bonita Springs, FLA:

I love it when Hunter has an announcement to make. He'll stop, lean his body forward, screw up his eyes in concentration, and raise up both index fingers and say "Wait! Hunter will be right back!" or whatever important think that's on his mind.

We were putting him down to sleep on a twin bed, so I was lying next to him one night, rubbing his back, when he started giggling hysterically. His eyes were closed, but something was amusing him, because he was laughing on and off for a good five minutes. Then he passed out, just like that. What a way to fall asleep - happy and laughing.

In Florida, we obviously didn't have all of the toys that we do in Ashland, so we had to be a bit creative when coming up with stuff to play with. The most amusing thing was water bottles. We drink a lot of bottled water when we're down there because the house's well water just doesn't agree with me, so we've got large gallon+ bottles for the house and smaller bottles for trips in the car. Well, one afternoon Hunter literally spent two hours playing with water bottles. He'd get daddy to fill up the smaller bottle from the pool, and then sit down next to both bottles. Then he'd count with his inexact command of numbers, always starting with three: "three, pour, six, sephen, eight, GO!" and quickly unscrew both caps, then pour the water from the smaller bottle into the larger one. This happened a few times before he would upend the by-now relatively full larger water bottle, spilling water all over the pool deck and himself (he spent most of his pool time naked) and cheering loudly.

Another good activity was throwing balls. Hunter would stand in front of the garage looking down the slight incline to the other side of the cement driveway. The balls could be throw or rolled but they would end up in the grass, be collected, then tossed back to the garage where another round of throwing would commence. Occasionally, the balls would be thrown up in the air, or he would gather them all up in a stroller and then walk the stroller around the driveway.

As Hunter gets older, he's expressing his opinions more and more. Our current favorite is when he'll stop in the middle of something and just say "I happy." Another example is when we were flying back to Logan, he kept repeating "Boston" and was so excited to know where we were going and to be going back home that he would say: "Boston! I love it!" He's been telling us when he's having a good time by saying something like "Having fun, Mommy!" or even just stopping what he's doing for a "love you daddy". it's really fun to see him coming into his own. The night after the first day back at day care, he was excitedly telling me that "I played with friends!" and listed them out for me: "I played with Gabby, Danny..." Etc.

Probably the most amusing thing that occurred recently are his imaginary phone conversations. he'll steal a cell phone and walk around the house "talking" on it. When traveling, this distraction can be a godsend, so in the car at one point, he was talking on the phone, but this was a real conversation; he was pretending to talk to "JenandMax":

"Oh hi Jen, [unintelligible murmur] Max [la la la], Dave, oh wow... cool!" And then he hung up the phone.