scootland

Scotland in October turned out to be marvelous. I spent a large part of my time sneaking up on sheep for a picture. Once they saw me coming with my giant baby belly they would sound the alarm and waddle off the other direction. The boys' sheep bleatings from the car weren't really helping either.

But the countryside was breathtakingly pretty. It seemed as if it hadn't changed in a thousand years.

A Highland Cow.

Simon golfed while I went to the spa. Our hotel was just outside Edinburgh, but felt miles away.

Sadly, Simon and I would have never dated if he looked like this.

According to Nessy sightings, she's most often seen when the water is glassy like this. We didn't see her, which may be because she doesn't exist.

I sat on a fence calling out to this guy. But he wouldn't budge.

all hallows eve

M is a man of few words. These are they:

mama
dada
ball
(nodding head yes)
(lion roar)
ba-oo (balloon)
bay-ee (baby)
ma (more)
up
duck
mmm (moo)

So I decided he should be a duck since we could converse about it. I loved it, but he wasn't so sure. Luckily it was cheap and didn't take long to make. Thankfully he still doesn't say "no." I'm trying to hold that one off as long as possible.

And FYI, I learned today that he can actually read some words, being:

kick
yes
yellow
tongue
clap
ball
hat
monkey
bird
bee
knees

He acted all of these out to me or pointed to examples of them. I had no idea. Apparently he can also spell out animal names from scrambled letters. I'm not so sure this is normal for an 18 month old. But now I know that he DOES understand what I'm saying to him and is most often just ignoring me. Well buddy, the gig is up. You can't spell hippo and then act like you have no idea that I'm calling you to come get your diaper changed. Whenever I do, he avoids eye contact, slowly starts walking away, and then sprints into another room. Already he's been trying to trick me, and sadly he's been winning. Trick or treat I guess.