Ok, so the grandmothers have come to me, teary-eyed with wringing hands to plead for more blogging content. So I guess I'll have to comply. :-)

Yesterday started off with rain through the night, but most of the day was sunny and warm (by New England late-fall-early-winter standards). This produced puddles and play-in-puddles weather, which Eric was determined to take advantage of. We went outside three times to throw rocks in puddles, watch the neighbors, and walk/run/hop up and down the street. The too-big dinosaur boots I bought him early in the spring are fitting better and he used them to good effect to stomp in puddles (necessitating a change of pants and socks, but saving his sneakers from the ravages of the washer/dryer).

He's building more complex thoughts and sentences every day, it seems, and has among other things identified Mommy's Chair (as well as Grandpa's Chair, and Grandma's Chair until we made the table smaller and it went away).

I finally finished recovering the dining room chairs -- we only bought the fabric the LAST time Dennis and Jewel were here -- a year ago?. Eric helped me by handing me the hammer, stealing the hammer, demanding screwdrivers, learning how to work the battery-powered screwdriver and immediately disturbing himself by trying to unscrew his tummy through his shirt, and playing with the staple gun ("my bang!") which he was only allowed to play with because he doesn't have the strength to do anything with it (I barely have the strength to use it sometimes). He also helped by prying out staples that I got started, and there were only about 1,000,000,000 staples in three layers of fabric, as well as some assorted nails and tacks (one of which Eric discovered on Thanksgiving, resulting in his first BooBoo that required a bandaid). As to that incident, he still has a little discoloration on his palm from the nail-prick, but it's healed nicely and since he had his tetanus shot within the last two years (get it? ha!) I didn't bother calling the doctor. He got a fish bandaid which he would have named Nemo if he'd ever seen the movie.

He's fascinated by trucks, cars, and buses, and especially by trucks carrying cars (duck darry dar? doe duck darry dar?). That was the silver lining last Sunday when both our cars broke down -- Eric got to see two tow trucks, one of which we got to ride in, whee!