Nathan has been growing and advancing by leaps and bounds. And of course that is the time I choose to neglect reporting all his stories. Though he is not even 18 months old, he seems to be a two year old to us. Both Nicole and Nathan participated in the library summer reading program. They both read (or were read to) for countless hours over the summer. Still, one of the favorite pastimes is reading books. In addition to being a bookworm, Nathan is learning to say a handful of new words every day and his comprehension seems to be far above that. He doesn't seem to like to submit to the constant daily quiz that we would give to Nicole at his age: "What does a [cow, pig, horse, dog, etc.] say?"; "Where is your [ear, nose, arm, patella, etc]?"; "Can you say [some new precocious word]?". We put Nicole through these questions constantly because she loved the interaction and praise. Nathan doesn't seem to put up with this kind of testing. But when we give him a pair of folded socks and say, "Go put these away", he takes the socks to his room and puts them in his sock box. I guess what I am trying to say is that Nathan is a freakin' genius in his own way.

Yesterday, Nathan surprised us with two new boyish talents. At dinner, we were sitting at the table eating dinner when he burped. Nicole laughed and this got his attention. Then, to add a new word to his vocabulary, I told him the name of what he did -- burp! Then I demonstrated for him to solidify the word-to-action association. Both Nicole and Nathan got a kick out of this. Nathan then went on to start sucking air into his stomach in a desparate attempt to burp. And eventually, with enough air in his tummy, he did. That's my boy! Not even 18 months old and already burping on demand. After dinner, I put the kids in the tub to bathe them. After I washed him up I gave Nathan some toys to play with and started to read my book. As I was sitting there, I heard the telltale rumble tooting in the tub. Then, if the bubbles weren't enough, Nathan says, "Toot!' with a big smile to cement the blame. So I guess now he knows what burps and toots are. Naturally, Lauren was mortified by both of these incidents as a good mother should be. I guess now that he posesses the skills, I no longer need to foster them in him.

[updated 16 Oct 2006] While Lauren was talking with her mom, she reminded me that I needed to write a little about Nathan and strawberries. Not too long ago, Nicole learned to give strawberries (raspberries, zerberts, etc.). The two of them have seen plenty of examples of what a good strawberry is—the both get them regularly from us. About a week ago, Nathan started giving Nicole strawberries on her belly. The two of them were in fits of giggles for about 10 minutes.