Dean-isms

Dean's been saying some pretty funny & adorable things lately. I really need to start writing them down immediately because I always forget them. It seems like several times a day he'll say something really funny or cute and I'll think "I need to remember that" and usually I forget about it eventually. I'm also constantly amazed at how observant he is and his ability to remember things that I wouldn't have thought it normal for a 2-yr-old to remember. Anyway, I thought I'd share a few funny things he's said and done lately:

Driving to school Wednesday morning, I was listening to the radio and Dean was being nice and quiet in the backseat. Out of nowhere, he starts this conversation:
Dean: "Grandpa CR's in Kansas"
Me: "yes, Grandpa CR lives in Kansas".
Dean: "Oh. And Grandma Jo too?"
Me: "yes, and Grandma Jo too".

Yesterday one of the cats had thrown up on the carpet in the living room and Dean decided that the throw up was Monster Poop. He came up with a very elaborate story about where exactly Monster Poop comes from (complete with words like "Monster Butt" and "squatting" and then some kind of growl or roar of some sort before he cracked himself up).

Dean's reading skills continue to improve. It's really amazing. You might remember that he was sight reading several words at 18 months old. Now, at 2 and a half, he is starting to actually use phonics and sound words out. I have no idea how he knows to do this. I'm pretty sure they're not teaching him that at preschool and we're certainly not trying to teach him that at home - although he has always had an intense curiousity about letters and numbers, which we do encourage - and we do read to him daily. But has known for some time all the sounds that each letter makes and he has somehow figured out how to put the sounds together when he sees the letters in a word and he can sound out lots of words that he sees - if he's feeling patient enough to do that - a lot of the time he just doesn't have the patience and is constantly pointing out words in books and on signs or food boxes or anywhere else and asking "what's that say?". If we tell him a word once, he seems to know it from then on. I often wonder if he has one of those freaky photographic memories. Several times a day I'll notice that things have gotten too quiet in his room - Fortunately he's pretty good at entertaining himself for long periods of time and will happily play alone in his room - but when it gets quiet it either means he's doing something naughty or I'll go in to check on him and find him laying in bed "reading" a book. I love that!!

Another obvious sign that he's a genius - he will make letters out of ordinary objects that are unrelated to letters. For example, if he's coloring, he'll take his crayons and line them up in a way that the crayons themselves form different letters. He's very good at this and to my knowledge nobody has taught him how to do this. He'll take a handful of crayons and put 2 of them perpendicular to each other and get very excited and say "Look Mommy! a T!". He has also been known to make the letters A, H, I, U, E, F, L, V, X on a regular basis out of crayons, legos, and even lining up cheetos (how do you scold him for playing with his food when he's working so hard on something so intelligent?)

Anyway, I was looking through the Costco mailer the other day and on the front of the mailer were just a bunch of different products clustered together. He pointed at some Jif Peanut Butter and said "Mommy, you need Jif?". I think he sounded out that word Jif all on his own. I don't know where he would have ever heard or seen it before (unless it was a random TV commercial) because we buy organic peanut butter and usually it's the Kirkland's brand from Costco. I asked my Mom and she buys Peter Pan. Then he pointed at a tiny little cell phone on the front of the mailer that happened to be an AT&T phone and said "Great Grandma's phone". Now, the phone looked NOTHING like Great Grandma's phone, but Great Grandma's phone is an AT&T phone. I think he recognized the logo. Nobody else in our family has AT&T phones. But the crazy thing? He hasn't seen Great Grandma's phone in almost 3 months!! (and he probably only saw it a handful of times anyway).

The Preschool sent home a little questionnaire for us to fill out with Dean that was all about him. one of the questions was "Who is your Family?" Dean's answer: "Daddy, Mommy, Auntie Jayci and Nani". I thought that was pretty cute. Of course, he also said that his favorite food was vegetables (which is so NOT true).

After he comes home from school, I usually ask him about his day and what they did at school. He has obviously already developed an aversion to this pestering. I'll say "Did you have fun at school today?" and with a big sigh he'll say "yes Mommy" all melodramatic like. When I ask him what he did he almost always says "paint". I also usually ask him about the story they read and he ALWAYS tells me it was about kittens. So on Wednesday I decided to question him a little more (thinking surely they read about something besides kittens EVERY day):
Me: "What story did you guys read at school today"
Dean: "kittens"
Me: "Well, what was the story about?"
Dean: "kittens"
Me: "What were the kittens doing?"
Dean: "Playing"
Me: "What were the kittens playing?"
Dean (obviously thinking for a minute before answering this): "jump rope. Now go away Mommy".

Now, I have to add a little disclaimer here. Dean is very smart, but I think sometime's he's TOO smart for his own good! He can be a little demon child when he wants to be or when he's not getting his way. He says the cutest and funniest stuff and is learning like a sponge - if only he would learn to mind us and use the potty as quickly as he's learned all those other things!! So even though he's a little smarty pants, he's definitely a 2-yr-old complete with daily meltdowns and a huge stubborn streak (I think that's the Hutson in him, but my Mom refuses to admit that....hmmm...wonder where she gets that stubbornness?).

Ok, sorry. That post pretty much turned into my "yeah, I have the smartest kid EVER" rant....but really, I do!! :-)