Monday Update

Photos and stories about our fabulous beach trip are coming soon! In the meantime, a brief James update:

James is now interested in listening to more complex stories (e.g., Richard Scarry and Maurice Sendak rather than Sandra Boynton, although I think he will always love Belly Button Book). He's also pretty fluent at recognizing and, frequently, naming letters and numbers.

He still talks much less than he understands. I suspect he's having a version of my problem with French (which I know pretty well, though not fluently) -- I know the language well enough that it upsets me when I say something wrong, so I'm hesitant to say anything complicated for fear I'll mess it up. From some of the looks on his face when he's trying to communicate, I think he's got the same thing on his mind.

He will talk vociferously when the spirit moves him, though. For instance, I had to take something dangerous away from him the other day. He wanted it bad. No dice. James was furious. "Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, BAD!" he shouted. We don't use "bad" to describe people in our house, and it's also not something he would have encountered at school, so he'd clearly worked things out from context (we do say "a bad idea" or "a bad surprise") and had that remark at the ready.

Last night we went out for pizza with Willy, Janney, and Morgan, and had a great time. James and Morgan make quite a pair, as you can see below: