It’s so much fun to see Rerun develop his own sense of self and sense of humor over these last few months.  He’s very much a two-year-old, so the answer to every single question is “no,” but he’s begun to tell me when he needs a diaper change (he says “poo poo,” no matter what he’s done), try to sing his favorite songs (“The Butterfly Song” is a favorite, along with this one), and begun to put names to faces.  He can say Tad’s name properly, but he gave Ane a brand-new nickname – he is now calling her “Hasa,” which, to my ear, sounds very Japanese.

But by far, the sense of humor is the best part.  Like all kids, he appreciates slapstick, and his siblings never fail to provide fodder for that (intentionally, most of the time).  But he also adores funny voices.  The Webmaster does a good Yoda.  Me, I manage a decent-enough Cookie Monster, but the Webmaster’s is better.

The Cookie Monster voice is important because Rerun’s favorite Sesame Street character is still Cookie Monster.  Grandma and Gichan gave him his own Cookie Monster hand puppet for Christmas, but they still have at their house the vintage Cookie Monster hand puppet that the Major, Ressis, Auntie and I all grew up with.  That Cookie Monster is quite battered after so many years of love and play, but it has one great advantage of the modern Cookie Monster puppets – it can actually eat things.  The old puppet has a slit at the fold of it’s mouth that allows Cookie to “eat” items.  Which is a vital part of Cookie Monster’s act, of course!

Yesterday evening, the Webmaster and Ane were at church for the Monday night activities, so I took pizza over to Grandma’s house after Tad’s swim lesson and speech therapy sessions were done for dinner.  Grandma watches Rerun for me while I’m running around on Mondays.  So the boys and I crashed her house for dinner.

After eating, Tad was actually playing pretty nicely with Rerun, but as Grandma and I were chatting, one of the boys handed me the Cookie Monster puppet.  I started “talking” to Rerun in the Cookie Monster voice – “Rerun?  Do you like… cookies?”

Rerun began to giggle.  Then it developed into his full-out belly laugh.  It is probably the most infectiously happy sound in the whole world, because whenever he starts laughing like that, I always end up laughing along.  So I hammed it up, which was aided by Tad, who was trying to stuff items like blocks and small doll plates down Cookie Monster’s gullet.  I made Cookie Monster eat them, then I made him burp in Rerun’s face.

This got him laughing so hard that he actually fell down on the floor and rolled around, helplessly laughing.  Grandma had never seen him like this and was laughing herself (as was I).  ”You’ve got him laughing so hard that he’s going to wet himself,” she said.  ”Good thing he’s already wearing a diaper!”

And not more than five minutes later, mid-laugh as Cookie Monster was eating yet another wooden block, Rerun stopped, looked me in the eye, and said, “I poo poo.”

Grandma and I laughed so hard that we cried.

I changed his diaper before we left her house.

We finally managed to have our dear friends Mr. R. and Mrs. K., and their kids Gracie and L., over for dinner this weekend.  Since we only get to see and feed them once or twice every couple of years, we go all out on the food.  So I made a favorite cake for dessert – Mocha Chip Bundt Cake.  It always comes out looking like a giant glazed chocolate doughnut.

(Photo courtesy of the Webmaster’s Android phone)

Mrs. K. adores chocolate cake, and the kids eagerly dug in as well.  Still, between the 9 of us at dinner and dessert (because Rerun would not be denied a small piece as well), and sending a chunk of cake home with them, there was still half a cake left.

No worries, though, because we were heading to dinner at Friend and Doc’s house on Sunday.  Cake is always welcome there.

Rerun has become quite hung up on cake recently.  He does love a good cupcake, as we all know, and he’s going through that phase of not liking cold foods very much.  Even ice cream is too cold for him right now.  He much prefers cookies and cake.  And this song has encouraged the desire for cake.

The cake was very much appreciated at Friend and Doc’s house, and it even got Rupert to eat the meat that he had previously refused, because he wanted some cake.  In fact, he was kind of put out with me when I took the remaining chunk of cake home.  He only reluctantly let me walk out with it because it was, as I pointed out, in my container.

Rerun ate another small slice of cake at Friend and Doc’s and relished every bit.  I was carrying him past the cake container later that evening and he pointed to it, exclaiming, “Cake!  CAKE!”

I hugged him.  ”You like Mama’s cake, don’t you?”  I said.

“I like CAKE!”  he answered back.

That might just earn him another piece later.

Before I dug the alphabet magnets out, I brought this out of the garage.

You can never start learning typing skills too early.

I thought this was the old, busted keyboard.  When the Webmaster got home that day, he told me that, no, this was a WORKING keyboard.  Apparently the old, busted one got tossed a while ago.  So I told him to find another one from the garage that Rerun could pound on.  After all, how many keyboards do we need???

This was a gift from Auntie that was given to Tad.  We never felt comfortable about letting him use it without scattering the pieces everywhere or trying to eat them.  But I dug this out for Rerun, and he LOVES it.

It keeps him occupied and out of his siblings’ hair.  I brought out all the capital letters (left the lowercase letters and numbers in the bag) and set him up with a complete alphabet.

Rerun is absolutely obsessed with the alphabet.  He loves looking at letters everywhere we go – street signs, labels at the grocery store, in books.  I will be doing laundry, working on cards, typing, reading – and I’ll hear Rerun just screeching out letters.  His new favorite TV show is “Super WHY!”, because of the ABC song and the super letters that pop up.

It’s so much fun to watch him.  And other people are starting to notice/hear his alphabet, too.  I caught him singing the ABC song to himself as he was playing with the magnets.

So, it’s yet another win for Auntie and her super present-buying skills (five years later), total fun for Rerun and a lifesaver for me.  Because when he’s not bothering his siblings… everyone wins!