Growing up, little by little

Riley has become quite the talker these days. his vocabulary has exploded and we can actually carry on conversations with him. I was amazed at the information he could recall from our busy day.
Earlier in the day, we were able to have a play date with some friends from school and their little ones; Annibelle, John, Katie and Laura. While I was rocking Riley that night to get him calmed down, I asked him about his day.
Me: Riley, who did you play with today?
R: John, Katie...
Me: Who else?
R: (silent)
Me: What about Annibelle and Laura?
R: Annibelle...Laura
Me: What did you do today? What did you ride on?
R: A choo choo train, ride in the tunnel...airplane
Me: Did you ride in a boat and in a little car?
R: (he said something silly that I knew he hadn't been on)

I think I am going to try to talk to him more about his day when I am getting ready to put him to bed at night. It really seemed to get his brain going. I was very impressed that he was able to remember what we did during the day. Of course, in the end, our conversation got silly, but my child is silly, soo...

Today, Riley and I ran some errands and because I was tired of the same old Target store, we went to the one on Wendover. It is close to Party City and Michael's, two stores that Riley is familiar with, but not the exact stores he is used to seeing since we were on the other side of town. Now I know my 2 year old can't read and I would never expect any toddler to be able to read, but he correctly identified the shape of the Party City store sign and the Michael's store sign so I think that's pretty good for his age. 

 It's also been fun to see what kinds of things interest him. At the beach, he wouldn't stop talking about the Skywheel, "upside building" (Wonderworks), fireworks, and thunderstorms. At home he is super interested in any kind of machines, the song "Wheels on the Bus", Curious George, Bob the Builder, playing with his 8,000 Hot Wheels cars, seeing friends and grandparents, and watching Ice Age. He counts to nine regularly without any help and knows the letters X, W, S, K, M, L, and A.

We have also been trying to find foods that Riley likes to eat since he is pretty picky. he will eat apple slices, any kind of berry, chicken, fries, drinkable yogurt, raisins, bread and cereal. He will drink milk for us now, which he totally refused for a while and LOVES juice.

Riley would like to type to end the blog entry:
7yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyhdhbhxb .,

Hope everyone is have a great summer,
Sarah, Riley and Josh