Ollie boy!

 Here are some little stories about things that Ollie says and does. 

He is write the little character nowadays. As Luke has kind of taken a side step from his hot wheels, it seems like Ollie has stepped into the void and he is enjoying hot wheels city and racing cars down the tracks. 

He loves to sing, he can Happy Birthday in English and Portuguese. And for people who aren't Portuguese, almost none of the words repeat themselves in PT, so you have to learn a lot of words which I think is very impressive for a two year old. He loves Cookie Monster. He will dress up as Cookie Monster for Halloween, and I will be his sidekick, Elmo. Luke really wanted to get him to join in the Pokemon theme but Ollie wasn't having that. The day it came in the mail, we had to bust it out of the packaging and put it on, even though it was 25 degrees or something that day. He was completely covered in sweat but so happy to have his cookie. He has a Seasame Street book with buttons and songs and he only wanted to read that book for maybe a month straight. Needless to say, he also knows the words to those songs. Wheels on the Bus is his jam and he loves to do all the motions too. 

Speaking of reading, he FINALLY !! seems interested in books, and not just his favorite ones. When he was younger, he would only listen to Llama Llama books. If it was another book, you would read a page, and he would flip it closed and say "The End". He loves especially flap books. 

We went to watch Papa run a race in Ovar, and the boys and I met papa on the train and the boys had the best time on the train. It was so cute, but Ollie was not happy to get off and everyone in our train carriage knew about that. 

He has recently become a whizz on his balance bike, he throws his legs up to balance while the bike takes him. He wants to do all the stuff Luke does and sometimes we just aren't fast enough to catch him when he tries doing crazy stuff. Luckily he moves on quickly after a crash.  He loves going swimming and pretty much all summer he asked if we could go to the pool. At the beach, it was the same thing. He loved to splash in the waves, build sandcastles, run in and out of the water with Luke. Going home from the beach was always rough! 

He went through a lawn mowing phase and was mowing our grass all the time with his toy mower. It was the best.  He still loves to call anyone up on the phone and have a little chat, sometimes he will even walk around the house while doing so. At the end, he will say Love you, bye. When asked his age, he still says sometimes that he is four, five or sometimes one if he doesn't want to walk. He tells me he is only one year old and needs to sit down instead of walking. He adores to get down and groovy and dance his little heart out, just like Luke. Potty training is going pretty well, he doesn't have too many accidents, but when he does it's just a small drop, then he runs to the potty. And luckily only one poo accident after switching to underwear.   He never has any accidents when naked though. He is always trying to get dressed by himself and sometimes can get on his undies and shorts alone. Luke also likes to help him out with this, but of course being Mr. Independent and all, sometimes he doesn't want any help and then there is a mini war in the living room! 

Joel and I played in an Ultimate Frisbee tournament  in August and the boys stayed with their avos on Saturday but we had to bring them to the tournament on Sunday and I was really nervous how Ollie would do. But lucky for us there were a bunch of older kids in the tournament (from 7-15 year olds). Ollie loved Angelo, the seven year old. Once he found Angelo and Rodrigo he pretty much stopped asking for mom or dad and was just playing with all the other kids. It was so cute, maybe next year they can just come with us for the whole tournament. 

Sometime in August he mostly weaned from breastfeeding, he was just down to his 4am session. There were a few nights before bedtime that he cried and asked for breast milk (minha ma as he calls it). But we gave him some normal milk with some choco powder instead and he was fine. After a few weeks he didn't ask. Then in October we finally told him there would be no more 4am session. He was crying and asking about it for a few weeks but eventually stopped. He does still say minha ma when he falls and gets hurt. And he his other comfort in bed  (he comes to our bed around 4am) is holding my belly button. When he was a baby, he used to scratch it while breastfeeding, so this isn't anything new but it hasn't stopped being his comfort. Hmm, I wonder how many years it will go on? :P 

When you ask him to look at the camera for a picture, he does a HUGE cheese face, and closes his eyes. 

It's very interesting to me that Luke and Ollie usually speak together in Portuguese. I'm not sure it that's because it's the language they usually play with other kids with or some other reason. If I am heavily involved in their interaction then they do usually switch over to English.  Ollie sometimes speaks to me in Portuguese and then I answer back in English, and then sometimes he will switch over to English or stay in Portuguese. It's very different from Luke who never spoke in PT to me. He has finally started to speak up at school! During the last week of school in july, the teachers said he started saying a few things. Then when he went back in September they said it was back to only yes/no basically. But earlier this week the teacher informed me that he suddenly had an outburst and now is even answering questions during class! I'm really happy because I felt like without him speaking at school, he must have been a totally different kiddo! I guess they are different in another setting naturally but so odd for such a chatty boy to be silent at school. 

It also seems like O has much more creative play ideas and likes to role play a lot. I guess this may come from the influence of Luke as well. One Saturday morning, the boys brought out their box of stuffed animals, and all the little blankets they could find. They laid out all the blankets all over the dining room and then proceeded to tuck each animal in goodnight, and then turned off the light and told everyone in the room to be quiet for the animals to sleep!  Ollie sleeps every night holding his "baby" which is a long purple cat stuffy and then the koala. There's no sleeping without those two, unless it's on holiday then he seems to be okay with a substitute one. :P 

Anyways, those are all the tales for today! I do promise I will try and write again soon as I feel like the older I get, the more I forget and these moments are just too precious! I have to squeeze them all in. :)