Toddlerhood starts with a cackle

Hopefully, you can hear the sound of Griffin's cackle. This is a sound he developed on his own one day, when he really wanted something. We were lucky enough to get it on film for posterity. He still cackles when he sees that he's about to get something he really wants.

As you can hear, Griffin is quickly developing into a toddler. When he doesn't get something he wants, he loudly protests, with a scream that can pierce the ears. His fete de resistance is to lie flat on the ground on his belly and play dead. He's performed this fete at home, at the grocery store, and just about anywhere else when he doesn't get his way.

He has also become very affectionate, showering us with hugs and kisses. Although we had not planned on teaching him how to blow kisses, Elmo was there to show him how. He goes around blowing kisses to anyone and anything he sees. Still haven't caught that on video, but we'll get it some time.

Griffin loves to draw. He has a small little doodlepad, crayons and paper, and colored chalk he uses outside. If we let him, he can spend hours drawing. For fun, I write Griffin's name on the doodlepad, holding his hand as I spell it out. My goal was to get him to say his own name. Although we haven't gotten that far, I was pleasantly surprised to see that he can now write a pretty decent letter G, although I'm doubtful that he knows what it is. He can also draw a circle, sometimes drawing pages full of them. With the chalk outside, he drew what looked like the letters P, O, U, and a few others. I don't think he knows the letters or intentionally draws them, but it does amaze me that he can draw more than just a random scribble.

He still doesn't speak very much, so he'll probably learn how to write his own name before he speaks it at the rate we're going.

He loves hanging out with the dogs. The picture above is of him and Dante, looking out the window, which is another of his favorite pasttimes.

Towards the beginning of June, we went to the Renaissance Festival with a family I know through work. I was pleasantly surprised that there were rides for kids. Below are a few pictures from our visit.

Griffin is starting to get into his "train" phase. The word he uses for train is "ning! ning!", but is also the word he uses to describe large trucks.

Finally, I think we made some progress on potty training tonight. While in the middle of changing Griffin's diaper, he ran off bare bottomed towards the laundry room. I followed behind him when I realized he wasn't coming back, and found him in the corner of the kitchen aiming a stream of his pee onto our shampoo vac. I quickly realized that if he got in trouble for this, I could traumitize him for life (kidding, but we might backslide if we ever got around to potty training). So, I became very excited and exclaimed, "Griffin, you're going potty! That's great! But next time, let me show you where to go". I then brought him over to the potty chair that his grandparents bought him, and showed him how to sit down on the chair to go potty. Afterwards, I put his diaper on. A few minutes later, Griffin came back to the potty chair, and started sitting on it and pretending to use the potty. I might be getting a little too excited about this, but just knowing that one day, he'll be out of diapers is something that I'm looking forward to.

In June, Griffin got to see his grandma and grandpa Crofford, and his cousins Katie and Josie. Once I get pictures downloaded to the computer, I'll definitely post them on the next blog.

Summer is quickly passing, but hopefully I'll be able to blog again before falls comes around.