What with the kitchen remodel and my current push to finish the dissertation, I haven’t had the time or energy to write up a complete monthly update for Thomas in quite some time. But in the meanwhile, here’s a partially annotated list of things Thomas currently loves:
1. Trucks. Thomas loves trucks. And buses. Whenever we’re out driving around and he sees a truck, he shouts “MMMmmmmm!” (his imitation of a truck’s sound). Sometimes when I’m putting him to bed at night, I will think he’s asleep, and then a truck (or snowplow, very common these last few weeks) will drive by outside and he’ll sit straight up and shout “MMMmmmmmmmmm MMMMMMMMMMMMmmm!” Lately his truck-lust has landed most soundly on the Power Shovel that sits just a house down from Will’s parents’ place, where they’re still building another duplex. He loves the shovel so much that he will start trying to put his coat on and then knock on the door to let his grandparents know he’d like to go out and say hi. And now he says “shovel,” though it sounds more like “wuvwul.” Or actually more like “WUVwul!! WUVWUL!!”
2. The color orange. Oh my gosh this kid loves orange. If he can see the orange sweater his Aunt Hannah knit him, good luck getting him into any other outfit that day. Which is fine a couple of days a week but not when the sweater has been spilled (or worse, puked) upon and placed in the hamper and he digs through, pulls it out, and then throws a fit when I won’t let him wear it. Sweater or no, he points out orange things all day long–orange shirts in books, orange signs, orange clothes at target, and of course his favorite snack, mandarin oranges. At swimming lessons, one of the activities involves throwing dozens of balls out over the pool and having the babies grab them and thrown them back into a basket. Only Thomas won’t throw back the orange ones. He has a word for orange, though it sounds like “nanya.” I have no idea why. We think maybe he knows Spanish.
3. Thomas the Tank Engine. Those of you who have been around him in the last few months know all about this one. He will randomly point to the TV and yell “Gah Gah!” which we’ve figured out must be his imitation of the engines’ “choo choo!” He gets very happy when the theme music comes on. Thomas the Tank is sort of confusing for us, though, for obvious reasons. For ages, we’d ask “Where’s daddy?” “Where’s mommy?” and he’d point to us, but then when we asked him where Thomas was, he’d point to the TV. Sad. (He only gets to watch for maybe 15 minutes maybe three times a week, but he’s obsessed and persistent.) Then, about a week ago, he actually did smile and point to himself when we asked him where Thomas was. But though he pointed to himself, he said “nanya.” To be fair, he was wearing his orange sweater that day. And since then he’s pointed to himself without saying “nanya.” But for that brief moment I was afraid he thought his name was Orange.
4. The Wiggles. Thomas loves the Wiggles and asks us to play them often. He communicates his request by pointing to my computer (we usually play his music via my computer’s iTunes) and making his “dance” gesture, wherein he moves his fists up and down vigorously. Yeah, I’m not a good dancer and I’m the only example he’s got. He especially loves the Wiggles’ “Hot Potato,” which has an interlude between the verses where they’re singing some high-pitched nonsense syllables that sound vaguely like “HEY wiggy wiggy wiggy HEY wiggy wiggy wiggy!” He loves that part and sings along, almost on pitch (hooray!). (You can see the video and hear the wiggy wiggies here, but just so you know the video is super annoying and Thomas has never seen it.)
5. Snowmen. Thanks mostly to Raymond Briggs’ Snowman book and movie. (If you haven’t seen them, by the way, they’re awesome. Neither one has words–the book is entirely illustrations, and the movie sets them to a fantastic orchestral score.) I built him a snowman outside our window, a short little snowguy a little taller than Thomas. And we used a tangerine for his nose to gesture towards the orange (there it is again) on Briggs’ snowman. It was cute until we got another two feet of snow and now it’s just a sad, mostly buried snow-dwarf. With a tangerine on its face. Thomas still likes it though.
7. Richard Scarry books, (especially this one) but mostly only the page just inside the front cover of each one. He loves to look at that first page and point to “the donkey with a blue shirt riding a tractor” or “Big Hilda Hippo,” and he’ll do this for a long time, but he never really wants to go further into the books.
There are other things he loves–stars and fish come to mind–but I’ll save those for another day.
