Five Sweet Things About Oliver

The other day on the phone, my aunt asked me what Oliver was doing these days. I was quick to reply, "Oh, you know, throwing tantrums, throwing food, throwing toys...the usual." Later that night, I thought to myself that it wasn't a good answer, and that sometimes I'm quick to complain or note the things that annoy me. So for a little change today, I decided to do this instead of bore anyone reading this with my calorie intake or exercise output.

Five Sweet Things About Oliver

1. Sometimes it is so entertaining to watch him play. Of course, you can't let him know you're watching, or he'll want you to play along, or more likely, he'll stop and ask you to read him a book. But when he plays independently, it is so adorable. He likes to categorize and sort things. Like his menagerie of little rubber animals (they're squirt toys I found at Walgreens for a few bucks). He loves them. He loves to move them from one place to another, or just move their positions on the table, strategically placing them just so. That's what he was doing in the pictures above. He'll place one on the table, then stop and hold his arms out like, "Ok, nobody move!" Then he'll move one to a different spot...and so on again and again and again. I'd love to get this on video, but lately he stops whatever he's doing when we get out the camera.
2. I believe I mentioned that his newest word is "poop" (pronounced 'pewp'), though he had only said it mimicking us, not to actually identify anything. The other day, we were going upstairs and I was carrying a dirty diaper to put in the Diaper Champ, and he pointed at it and said "poop!" One step closer to potty training, perhaps?
3. This face, while he was "practicing" with a grown up spoon and his yogurt:
4. How he can feel like he weighs a ton when I'm carrying him in from the car, but is light as a feather when he crawls into my lap with a book.
   
5. The sweetest: Oliver "practicing" giving kisses on my cheek this morning. He's been doing this more lately, giving slobbery open mouth kisses and then making the "muah" sound. He gets jealous if Marty & I hug or kiss, and demands that we pick him up and hold him in the middle of our hug and kiss him too. Well, today he must have loved me a lot, because while we were reading, he stopped and looked at me and leaned in and gave me the biggest kiss! Then I got about 100 more slobbery kisses in about 5 minutes. It was so sweet and cute and hilarious, I was laughing so hard. Completely made my day!