Riley Reflections

"I'm turning into Spiderman!" - Prompted, no doubt, by his Halloween costume...but whether wearing it or not Riley will run around the house pretending to shoot webs out of his wrists and spouting this phrase to all who will hear it.

Some favorite phrases of Riley's are "IT'S INCREDIBLE" and "I CAN'T BELIEVE IT!" which he says with such excitement and sincerity, whether it's because he made a fantastic piece of artwork, or just because Mommy made dinner. Too cute, in my personal opinion! Oh! And he enunciates the word 'incredible' so precisely, I just love it!

Riley and I put up the Halloween decorations together one day and he LOVED IT! Later that evening when Daddy called to tell us he was on his way home, Riley was talking to him on the phone and telling him what we did that day. "We put up Halloween decorations Daddy...See!?!?" as he holds up the phone to our ghosts and pumpkins for Daddy to witness. It was SO CUTE that he thought people could see through the phone...he still does actually!

Riley had gotten into the unfortunate habit of saying 'yeah' instead of 'yes' when answering people. He now responds with the proper 'yes', so we nipped that one in the bud...except...on occasion...I've heard him recently reply with 'uh huh'...oh no. However...for the most part he uses 'yes' and usually in a full sentence: "Did you eat all your veggies, Riley?" "Yes I did, Mommy."; "Do you want to watch a movie?" "Yes I do." I just love it! (Yes yes, I know, I love everything about my son...so shoot me!)

This one is definitely for posterity's sake: Riley knows his name and his age and he is more than happy to share this information with anyone, however...when he says his name it sounds like 'Wally'. His Godfather, Jason, had pointed this out last month and had some fun with it, but I had paid no attention it...since then he's told at least 2 people his name and they responded with "Wally?". Hmmm....guess it wasn't just Jason's hearing after all. It's adorable, how he says his name, really, but I guess if you don't know it's Riley it's not quite as intelligible as it could be.

Riley STILL loves to sing! Anything and everything. He is still requesting 'Woo Hoo' (The Sweet Escape by Gwen Stefanie) and 'the other one Woo Hoo' (Black Horse & A Cherry Tree by KT Tunstall) most often, but has added 'the Shrek song' (All Star by Smash Mouth) and 'the Cars song' (Life is a Highway by Rascall Flatts) to his favorites list. He also loves to sing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star...but he sings it as "Twinkle, Little, Little Star"...too cute...also loves singing Scooby Doo theme song, songs from Pooh's Heffalump Movie, and the Spiderman theme song as well.

(Okay, I'm driving in this video, which I KNOW isn't the best choice, but I PROMISE I just had the camera facing back there and I had my EYES on the road. He sings so often when we're in the car together and I'm ALWAYS driving alone, I had to take the ONE chance and record it! PLEASE FORGIVE ME!)

One day Riley burped and it was so 'juicy', so I made this notation out loud, "Ooooohhh, that was a juicy burp!" and now, when Riley (or anyone for that matter) burps he likes to comment, "That was a juicy burp!" with a big smile on his face! And yes, I love it, so if he burps and just says his polite 'excuse me...I burped', I'll ask, "What kind of burp was it?" and he'll reply, with a HUGE smile, "A JUICY burp!"

As you probably discovered with our Halloween pictures, Riley LOVES to help in the kitchen. He is constantly asking to help Mommy cook dinner, and I let him when it's safe (like putting a casserole together, etc.). He just loves to help in general, even with the chores. He has some cleaning equipment of his own, so when Mommy gets the vacuum out, Riley grabs his and follows along. Same goes with the dust clothes, broom, mop, even the yellow rubber gloves! So cute! I need to get a picture of him all decked out!

Yesterday the theme on The Goodnight Show (I LOVE PBS Sprout) was 'insects' (big eeewww from me, but what do you do?), and for their craft they made a Lucky Ladybug. After seeing that, Riley goes immediately to his stack of library books and grabs his 'The Grouchy Ladybug' (compliments of Eric Carle) and is so excited to be a 'part of the show' in a way. Adorable. And then the Berenstein Bears went on a family vacation and Brother Bear was very adamant about taking 'lots of pictures'...which prompted my son to get his camera out and run around the house taking 'lots of pictures' of everything! He kept saying, over and over, "I got to take looooots of pictures, Mommy!". He even grabbed some prints of pictures HE took and put them on the fridge with his letter magnets, and was so proud to have them displayed like that.