Gavin Michael Curt

Looks aside, Tyler and Gavin are two very different boys. Gavin sleeps through the night. Gavin hates diaper changes. Gavin loves playing with his wee wee (sorry son). Gavin eats like a bird. Gavin loves milk. Gavin dances side to side, Tyler bobs up and down. Gavin charms everyone with his smile, Tyler wins 'em over with his laugh. Gavin hunts for Easter eggs by scanning the room with focus and honing in on an egg, yelling "Egg!" Tyler will step right over an egg saying he can't find any.

We went to the zoo for Easter. Dada thinks he can talk to the animals so he tried getting a monkey's attention by making his elephant sound. The monkey went nuts, patting the top of his head with one monkey arm, his opposite ear with the other. This was so bizarre, Dada did the elephant sound again. The monkey did his move again. Someone thought he was flashing gang symbols, or was Dada making a mating cry? Gavin suddenly needed to get the heck away from the monkey. Poor child was sincerely scared. I've never seen him this scared. He was clinging like he does when we approach Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny, but he was also sobbing and shaking. He knew something was not right, no idea what. But luckily, once we got away from the monkey section of the zoo, Gavin was fine and had a blast walking all around the zoo. We picnicked at Land Park after. Gavin ate nothing but cheetos, grapes and a cupcake. He fell asleep for nap as soon as we put him in his carseat. It was a very Happy Easter.

Papa was babysitting last night and he called within a few minutes of us leaving the house. He was cracking up because while trying to get the DVD player working so Gavin & Tyler could watch their show, Gavin handed Papa the DVD remote (there are several remotes laying around but he had the right one), saying "Here Papa!" His ability to communicate and navigate the electronics caught Papa off guard.

I don't think I've blogged about this before. Gavin is a neat freak apparently. You give him a towel and he goes to town cleaning and scrubbing everything in his path, the floor, the wall, every toy, every shelf. I'm using this to my advantage while it lasts.

Gavin is a little climber. He's getting really good at climbing all the ladders at the park across the street. I don't recall allowing Tyler to scale them until he was much closer to two years old because he was not so stable with climbing. But Gavin scales that thing like he's a pro. He also scales my pantry, his crib, the chairs, ladders, and any other tall thing he can find. At the park, he gets up to the top of the play structure, turns around, and says "No no no" because Mommy freaks out when he gets too close to the edge. I was worried Gavin wasn't going to acquire that ability to sense a dangerous situation Tyler has, with the way he laughed whenever I warned him he'd get hurt. Yesterday he got out of the car, turned around and yelled "No Street!" I think it's working finally!

Last night I got this crazy attack of the hiccups at the dinner table. Really loud, knock the wind out of you kind of hiccups. After the first big loud one, Tyler and Gavin went from chit-chatting to stone cold quiet staring at me like I was possessed. Then another explosive hiccup errupted out of my mouth as they were staring at me and they burst into laughter. Gavin spent the rest of his time at the table trying to imitate me instead of eating his dinner.

Gavin got a haircut this weekend. It was a joint effort between Mommy and Daddy. He started, I finished. Unlike Tyler, Gavin is so excellent at sitting still for the haircuts. His hair is so fine and thin. Just like mine. Tyler also got a haircut. His hair is full and boy does he ever have a lot of it!

Gavin is becoming a great communicator. Or, at least, a great interpreter. We were at the park and he kept laying down in the shredded bark. I told him not to do it but he insisted. He's still so young, I'm used to him doing things I tell him not to because I assume he doesn't understand me. Well, I won't be assuming that much longer because what happened next made it pretty clear that my words make perfect sense to him. As he lay (lied?) in the shredded bark, he got this not-so-brilliant idea to pick up handfuls and drop it on his tummy. Low and behold, some of these splintery wood chips went right down his diaper and when he stood up, he immediately got this look of discomfort on his face. I explained to him that the bark mommy told him not lay down on went down his diaper and asked him if he wanted me to get it out. He said Yes and nodded his head. I did something only a mother can do in the middle of the park, and reached my hand down the front of his diaper, picking the itty bitty pieces of bark out. It occurred to me that it probably wasn't very sanitary to just drop the bark back on the ground as I felt the ten other moms at the park watching me but oh well. Since I had a captive audience I had to say something again so people didn't think I was just fondling my child, so I again told Gavin that we don't lay down in this stuff because it will go down our diaper. While he tried to go on with his play time, with every step he took, he made that same "discomfort" face. So, I asked him, "Do you want to go home and change your diaper so that you feel better?" As I was asking this, I figured the idea of going home wouldn't sound better than the idea of staying at the park so I didn't really think we'd go home, but Gavin immediately turned around and started walking across the grass to our home. Yeah, he understands me.

Tyler and I were playing his new Go Fish game. Gavin wouldn't stop stepping on the fish, even after my warnings. So, I got up and put him on a timeout for stepping on the fish. When his timeout was over, he came to our game and immediately stepped on the fish again. Then he said to nobody in particular "TIMEOUT" and went to sit himself in the naughty chair. He may not say much but he can definitely understand the complex language we speak.

Gavin had so much fun at Tyler's 3rd Birthday Party at Byer's Gym. He started the party out a little groggy from a brief late afternoon nap but awoke when Gramma arrived. He stayed cozy in Gramma's arms for the first 10 minutes or so, but once he spotted the tub of dozens of balls, it was all over. Gavin was running around the gym so fast and going in so many directions, he couldn't keep his feet under himself. Boom he fell down going this way. Got up and boom fell down going another way. The fact that the gym floor contains built-in trampolines, mats, and other squishy materials added to his lack of coordination. He jumped up from one fall with a mouth full of blood. He didn't care. Gramma washed it out with a drink from the drinking fountain. He screamed and cried to get back on the gym floor. He was in pure heaven. After running all over the trampoline track and biffing it hard on the mats, we tried slowing him down. Gramma tried hard to keep up with him. Nothing worked. This kid was literally in two places at once! Back at the balls, he decided to place himself in the big tub and bury himself in the balls. The only thing that slowed him down was a break for some ice cream cake. That night, he conked out within five minutes of laying down for an earlier than usual bedtime.

Little man is so fun when I pick him up from Kindercare. He loves to sing bye bye to everyone. He says Bye bye Brian. Bye Bye Matt. Bye Bye Dorian. He says these names so well, too. But the funniest, most peculiar thing is he won't say bye bye to Ms. Amber, no matter how much I tell him to. He just smiles at her. Maybe we should tip him off to the name Tyler used to call her, Bober.

It just occurred to me that all the bumps, bruises and falling down mishaps Gavin had recently were probably due to a growth spurt he just had. I didn't realize is until the doctor weighed him last weekend - he's gained 5 pounds since October. Wow that's a lot for our little man. He's finally ready to move up to size 4 diapers. By this age, Tyler was ready to move into size 5s.

His vocabulary is growing also. Sunday morning Gavin and I were at the store buying last minute birthday balloons for Tyler's family party. I let Gavin pick the balloon and told him we were going to take it home and say 'Happy Birthday' to Tyler. Gavin began singing so so so very quietly I had to lean in to hear him pick up where I left off, "to you. Hap Bird to you. Hap Bird to you. Tyler. Hap Bird to you." Wow he's got so many words now he can sing a song. This was a reality check for me, I had no idea he could sing and now I know it's because he rarely gets a chance to speak between Tyler, myself and all the other noise in our house. Note to self, spend more one on one time listening, not talking, to Gavin.