record keeping

As I've said before, one of the main reasons I've tried to keep this blog going is for the record it is creating of this time in our lives. I am up and down in keeping up with written journals, and while we have zillions of photos capturing every milestone and plenty of the mundane, they are mostly just stored in random files on the computer.... So guzo is, in some sense, the best and most organized keepsake of Simon's adoption and our first year++ as a family.

Which brings me to my next problem. Even guzo is suffering lately from lack of posts... gaps in time... my failure to note down all the little things that make me laugh and that I know I will want to reminisce about later, but fear I will not remember.

So this post is my attempt to close some of those gaps, to note down the moments in our daily lives that are special and joyful and amazing, but that do not tend to get celebrated in the same way as some of the bigger milestones (the birthdays, the "firsts" - steps, teeth..., the holidays, etc.). This is more for me than for anyone else, but for those of you who have followed our journey for all or part of the last 2.5 years now (yes, we've been blogging for about that long!), I hope these thoughts allow you to also share in some of the fun.

With that, I note - in no particular order - the following random Simon greatness:

Simon's favorites:
Music: Black Eyed Peas' Boom Boom Pow (aka "boompow, boompow"), I Gotta Feeling ("hooo hoo"); Muse's Uprising; Sesame Street's Sing What I Sing Sing After Me, Madagascar 2 - Will.I.Am's Move It
Food: anything... but especially pizza ("eeeza") and cookies ("koo-koos")
Activities: cooking (the real deal is preferred... but will settle for his play kitchen if he has to), cars, story time, coloring, chasing mommy and daddy and ej around the couch, watching videos of himself

Simon's least favorite:
- being told no

Mommy's least favorite:
- terrible two's temper tantrums

Mommy's comic relief from terrible two's temper tantrums:
- when Simon, in the middle of a screaming, raging tantrum, stops and looks up to make sure we are paying attention... and then as soon as eye contact is made, deciding the tantrum can resume

Simon's words (he's got lots, but these are some of his favorites and they make me laugh - even when they shouldn't):
- No!
- pee (which alternatively can mean: the Black Eyed Peas, play, and, well... pee)
- cook! cook!
- DJ (for EJ)
- mommy ;)

Simon-isms:
- "boogie-woogie" = shake your head left and right, like you are rocking out to a great song
- "tent" = put a blanket over your head... even better if you can get mommy or daddy under the blanket too... and the best if you can get mommy, daddy and EJ under the blanket!

Cute things that Simon does that I think are unique, but that probably every two year old does:
- pretends to read newspapers and books and pretty much anything that has letters - and, amazingly, they almost always say the same thing: A, E, A, I, O, E...
- will stay in his crib for up to an hour after he wakes, laughing and singing and babbling - I am dying to install a video-camera in there just to see what's going on!
- hides behind our curtains and shouts "Si... Si..." to let us know he is hiding and we should be calling "Si... Si..." as if we cannot find him
- announces that he is going to do something he knows we do not want him to do... waits for our response (i.e. don't do XXX)... then smiles, turns away and runs as fast as his little legs will carry him towards the forbidden!

Life is good.