Birthparents..............

Dakotah has been looking at pictures of his birth parents, R and W since he was born...we have pictures in his room, in the kitchen, and in his photo book. Once in awhile he wants to get the picture down that is in his room and look at it ....he stares intensely at it and puts it back. He has been talking a lot lately about "his daddy".....yesterday, he was talking about his "daddy" and Mima asked him if he wanted to see a picture of his birth dad and he said YES....she showed him the picture of R and W holding him on entrustment day July 26th, 2006 ...she said their names and told him that the little baby was him...he seems that he is really starting to "get" it...it's ...it's intense and it's awesome.....this little 2 1/2 year old boy will continue to learn his story, he will know his story and he will know that we love and admire his birthparents SO much..I want him to know who they are, who his birth brother is....if not only in face but in spirit but from our stories..... I hope we do it the right way!!!!

More "random" things from the mouths of babes...

So I tell Dakotah last Saturday that his friend Bryson will be going to the same school as he will go to....
Mama: Hey, D, Bryson is going to go to the same school as you..isn't that COOL?
D: MY SCHOOL?, yeah!!! I'm gonna go to MY school and learn somethin' real quick and use the big boy potty!!!

Oh, he is taking ownership and seems to "get" what school is.....my boy is growing up...I cried!

Dakotah sees his backpack that I drug out of the closet:
Mama: Hey, look at this COOL backpack, you can carry this to school
D: YEAH, let's put it on! He puts it on and goes out and gets on his bike...
D: "which way is my school mama, on Burnside?.....OMG, I'm melting....then he proceeds to pretend that he is going to school...runs in the bedroom and sits by his puzzle and says "I'm gonna learn somethin' REAL QUICK okay"...... MAMA IS SO NOT READY FOR THIS!!!!!!

BUCKET DRUMS

Dakotah is totally taken with the "bucket drummers" that are on the corners in downtown portland..he informed his Mima today that he wanted to go downtown to burnside to see the drummers....she asked him how he knew they were on burnside and he said "that's where gramma said they were"...Gramma made D a set of bucket drums for Christmas and he was so excited that he didn't even see the black football helmet that he had asked Santa for for 2 months and was so excited about...it was precious how he walked past the toys, the helmet, the stocking straight to those drums...he LOVES them and everyday he wants to do something to them so they are "like the drummer downtown".....we will be riding the train downtown tomorrow to see the drummers and maybe, just maybe, one of them will let D play again..he got to play some when we went down in on one of the snow days...he looked like a pro........you think they would call DHS on me if I let my son sit on the street corner in downtown pdx and play his bucket drums?? HMMM, I wonder??

RANDOM CUTENESS

I LOVE all of the RANDOM, smart, witty, funny things that Dakotah says and does....if I don't write them down then surely I will forget and they are just too precious to forget...

One of our favorite books is "I Love you More"..it's a cute story of a mother and a son answering the question "Do you know how much I love you"?...with responses such as "I love you higher than the highest mountain and I love you bigger that the biggest bubble"...so we are driving along the other day and I ask Dakotah "do you know how much I love you"? and he says to me " YOU SAY IT" so I say " I love you brighter than the brightest sun" and he say's "I love you longer than the longest straw".....now we play this "game" every day and it melts my heart.....

Dakotah now know's his ABC'S so of course I have been asking him if he wants to say them for poeple....(I should know that my son does not like being a show monkey)..so I asked him last weekend if he wanted to say the ABC's for his cousin Sam and he goes thru them and gets to LMNO..and then says PISS and laughs his head off!!! LMNOPISS(I'm certain he doesn't even know what that word means ) I know, not technically FUNNY BUT coming out of the mouth of a tired, giddy 2 1/2 year old...IT'S FUNNY!!!

I LOVE that every time I tell Dakotah..."oh, mommy can't do that because (fill in the blank)....he says "WELL YOU BETTER TRY"!!!!! I guess we've taught him well.

Dakotah has taken to wanting to give people haircuts.....he was "giving me a haircut today" and he says "I'm giving you some color and cutting your hair like you do at work"..AH!!! my little man knows what mama does at work besides "make money"...

The BIG BOY potty

In june, Dakotah was showing a lot of interest in the potty..he used it a couple of times a day for a few days....then BAM..he decided I DON'T WANT TO USE THE POTTY so we layed off...we knew that when he was ready it would happen and we knew that HE knew when he had to go and that he COULD use the potty so we just decided that when he was ready he would be ready...no hurry...he wasn't even 2 yet!!!! *that's him in the picture above in June the first time he went pee in the BIG boy potty

FAST FORWARD to 6 months later: Dakotah is officially potty trained....he decided 13 days ago that he wanted to use the potty first thing when he woke up, mama pulled up his pants and that was the end of the diapers...we sported pull ups the first 2 days in public and went commando in sweats the rest of the time...after 2 days of reminding him about every 15 to 30 minutes that he didn't have a diaper on and to let me know if he needed to use the potty, he had the hang of it...he still wasn't sure about the big POOP in the potty on a regular basis but he has it down now and is quite PROUD of himself...he has only had a handful of accidents....stays dry most nights..(we still put a pull-up on at night JUST IN CASE)..but he is officially in BIG BOY UNDERWEAR......no diapers, no pull ups during the day and WOW am I proud of him....he can even hold it in the store, restaraunt etc..until we get to the bathroom....HE'S A BIG BOY NOW.............and he is 2 1/2 TODAY!!!!