Mercer's Top 10 List

1.  He loves being read to.  Last night I read the book, I Kissed the Baby, about 8 times (not exaggerating).  There's a line in the book that goes, "I kissed the baby, did you kiss the baby?"  And each time after I read that, he looks and me, smiles and gives me a smooch.

2.   He can rock a tuxedo shirt.  Not many men (or men in training) can pull off this look.  As evidenced below, both of my men CAN.

3.  He eats Hummus.  In fact, I'm pretty sure Mark taught him to double dip because we'll put some on a cracker and he'll lick it off and then ask for "MO" (more).

4.  He's facing forward in the car now and can actually say, "Car" - so, he gets all excited when we're getting ready to go out.  In fact, he gets so excited that as soon as we mention "out" or "school" - he runs to stand by the door until we're ready.

5.  He likes to imitate animals noises.  We'll say, "Mercer, what does a (dog, cat, cow, duck, gorilla, bear or tiger) say?"  And he'll make some kind of noise and gesture.  For example, "What does a gorilla say?"  And he goes, "o o oh o" and pounds his chest.

6.  He can say his colors - yesterday we learned (from daycare) that his favorite color is yellow, or as he says, ""Dellohhhhhhh".  I went through the whole rainbow with him and the only color he has a hard time saying is "orange".  Mark thinks that this makes complete sense since both of "Mercer's" dogs are yellow and his room is (iridescent) yellow.

7.  Daycare Lady (Miss Laura, or as Mercer says, "Miss Wara") said that Mercer gets uber-excited when it's "circle time".  For those not familiar about the "circle time" concept - it's when all the learning happens - flashcards, colors, books...food for the brain...he eats it up.  Miss "Wara" said that Mercer catches on quickly and in her professional opinion, he is going to be a genius.  I think her expectations are higher than MINE!

8.  His pallette is expanding.  He's eating more "real" (versus pureed) fruit.  It seems that he especially likes grapes.  He also loves Spaghetti & Meatballs and quesedillas.  Our ethnic tastes are rubbing off on him!

9.  If you're not looking, after having put food down for the dogs, Mercer will run over to their bowl and shove a handful of their food in his mouth.  Handful = 15 or so pieces of dog food.  He looks like a chipmunk because there's so much kibble jammed in there.  And then we (as his parents) get the dangerous task of fishing out each piece from a mouth with 8 little teeth in it.

10.  He's Daddy's Little Boy...and Daddy eats up every second of the attention.