Julian is on fire lately. He's having another big language spurt, and is putting together whole sentences more often than not, which is pretty darn good for a 27 month old. He's also developing quite the sense of humor, and is not afraid to speak his mind, though he's very polite and courteous about it.

A few Julian anecdotes:
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He is WILD about gummy bears. I don't give him the candy kind, but he does get one gummy bear multivitamin twice a day, and his calcium supplement is in gummy bear form too. So three times a day he gets a gummy bear, generally after each meal. He practically falls on the floor in ecstasy when I take the jar out of the cupboard to give him one, and happily shouts, "A GUMMY! Hooray!" They *are* mighty tasty...I'm a gummy bear aficionada myself, and these are some damn good gummy bears.

Anyway, I had just given him his evening gummy bear after dinner, and I took that opportunity (while he was busy chewing and smacking and savoring every last molecule of gummy bear) to go hide behind the cupboards, snatch a chunk of dark chocolate, and wolf it down for *my* dessert. I finished it up quickly, wiped my mouth of any traces, and came over to pick Julian up and give him a hug.

Julian: "What do you have in your mouth, Mommy?"

Me: "Who, me? Nothing." (It was true, the chocolate was long gone.)

Julian: "No, you have CHOCOLATE!!!!" and he starts laughing like crazy, having totally busted me.

Me: (shocked) How did you know I ate some chocolate?

Julian: "I can smell, Mommy!"

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Yesterday I led a meeting for our local Diaper-Free Baby group on Beginning EC. Our meetings have been pretty informal thus far, so this was my first time leading a more formal, structured group, and I wanted it to be good.

So far things were not working out well. Dan had a conference call at his desk right next to the printer, so I had to hold off on noisily printing the handouts until he was done, which wasn't until the last minute. In the middle of printing 10 copies of page 3, my printer cartridge ran out of ink, and I had no time to refill it. So I had no handouts for my meeting, I was late, and Julian woke up from his nap in a NASTY mood, screaming and crying and bawling hs eyes out. Shit!

I finally got Julian fed, dressed, and into the car, along with my EC paraphernalia for a Show & Tell session. No handouts. Ugh. Now I was about 15 minutes late, so I was speeding a bit on the way there. No too bad, but definitely above my normal speed-limit-or-below zen-of-hybrid-driving pace.

So I'm driving fast, and swearing under my breath at the fools who are clogging up the road in front of me, and this is very different from my normal driving behavior. Normally I could give a crap about getting anywhere on time, because if I'm late to the grocery store or a playdate, it's no big deal. Honestly, I very rarely drive over 60 miles per hour anymore. It lowers my gas mileage!

I do stress out when I'm late to lead one of my hikes (which is pretty much every time), but not too much. This time though, I was stressed about being late.

I had *just* zoomed in front of a big Hummer (flashing my "My Hybrid can beat up your Hummer - Pollution is out of style" bumper sticker, of course) when all of a sudden Julian piped up from the back seat...

Julian: "Too fast, Mommy."

Me: (shocked) "What was that, baby?"

Julian: "Too FAST, Mommy. Too fast. Go SLOW, Mommy."

Me: "Oh, am I driving too fast?"

Julian: "Yes! Slow!"

Me: "OK, you're right, I AM driving too fast. Sorry love. I'll slow down."

First of all, I had no clue that he ever even noticed how fast I was driving. And second of all, I was surprised that he would *want* me to slow down. After all, he is a toddler boy. Don't they like everything fast? When he rides in the child seat on the back of my bike he *always* wants to go fast, like coasting downhill fast, except all the time.

Yet in the car I was driving too fast for him, and he wanted me to slow down. So he just told me, which I was glad of. He didn't cry or whine, he just calmly asked me to slow down. He knew what was making him upset and he knew to ask me to change it. Great! And I followed through by respecting his request and slowing down. So that was nice communication teamwork for us. Yay!

And the meeting went well too, in spite of not having any handouts. I don't think anyone would have read them anyways. Go figure.

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Julian couldn't say the word "elephant", even a few weeks ago. He could only manage to say "elpet". I thought it was cute the way he was saying it, so after trying to correct him a few times, I started saying "elpet" too, mostly in reference to his Celeste (Babar's Queen of the Elephants) doll.

Well, he was playing with Dan tonight, and they had a toy elephant (not Celeste), so Dan was of course talking about "your elephant" and "what is the elephant doing?"

All of a sudden Julian came running into our walk-in closet (where I was donning my pajamas) and announced to me breathlessly, holding the toy:

Julian: "Mommy! El-e-phant! El-e-phant!"

Me: "Yes, that's an elephant."

Julian: "NOT an elpet! *El-e-phant* Mommy."

...and then he ran off to go play with Daddy again.

Like I was the one who came up with that silly baby way of saying "elephant", and I had been saying it wrong all along. He was kind enough to come and correct me when he found out the right way to say it. Ha!

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I love it when he instructs me in how to do or say something properly. He's a very kind and patient teacher, not pedantic at all.

Sometimes I forget how fast his brain sucks things up, and I go back to using a simpler word for something that we may have used before, not realizing that he's already learned and filed away the more advanced word for it.

We were on a lovely hike the other morning in a fairly rural area 30 minutes south of here. As we were getting ready for our hike we heard a rooster crowing nearby.

Julian: "A chicken!"

Me: "That's a rooster. Cock-a-doodle-doo!"

Julian: "Oh...a rooster!"

A few minutes went by and we were almost ready to go when the rooster crowed again.

Me: "Cock-a-doodle-doo! I heard a chicken!"

Julian: "No Mommy, that's not a chicken. That's a *rooster*."

Well duh...what was I thinking?

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Today being Mother's Day, we are going to spend a mellow morning (I will try to squeeze in a yoga class while Julian and Dan go to the park), take a good nap (me too, hopefully) and then head up to Pichetti Winery in the hills above Cupertino. It's only about 25 minutes from here.

I've never been there before, but it sounds lovely. They have incredible wines (including a spectacularly delicious Zinfandel) and a nice picnic area, plus there are breeding peacocks on the property, and right now it's mating season. A friend of mine went there with her son last week and said it was fascinating to watch the males doing their displays and courting dances.

So we'll picnic and wine taste....some friends from my hiking group are coming too. Then when the winery closes at 5:00, we'll go for a hike. The winery backs up onto a lovely open space area with hiking trails, so it's right there. Perfect!

Then for dinner we're going to Dan's parents' house to celebrate with his mom. So all in all, a fabulous day ahead. Hooray!

For my own mom, I was able to find a nice little laptop on Craig's List to replace her old one, which finally died after several years of dutiful service. So hopefully she has it up and running by now, and can enjoy being online again in time for Mother's Day. I'll find out when I call her!

Julian is finally getting to the point where he can talk on the phone a little bit and not only understand, but be understood. I put him on with my mom the other day and they had a little conversation. Unfortunately he tends to clown in a new situation (like he wouldn't stop kissing the phone for about 2-3 minutes), but at least she got to hear his voice and visit a bit with him. So hopefully they can visit again by phone today.

Time for breakfast. No burnt toast on a tray for me today, I guess that will have to wait a few years. ;-)