Puzzles and Other Fun

Now that I am back to working at my non-full-time-mom job, weekends have become that much more precious to our family. Maybe that's why Louis decided to skip his naps both days this weekend to spend extra time with us. And maybe that's why we weren't as upset about that as we should have been. Meanwhile, Louis has even more affection for his home since he's here so rarely now, so we tried to make sure he had lots of playtime in the house this weekend.

One of his current interests (he has so many!) is doing puzzles. There are several at Grandma's house, and he does those every day. He loves our puzzles, but after he zipped through our stack this afternoon...

...he noticed one we hadn't cracked open yet and asked for it.


I hesitated and then decided that we bought it in Guangzhou so Louis could be familiar with where his province is in China, so I opened it and Louis dumped the pieces on the table.

Louis was delighted with it and immediately started piecing it together. Unfortunately, it is really a difficult puzzle, especially for someone whose mother knows three cities in China and is not a puzzle expert. He lost interest after six or seven provinces, and Mama was left to piece it together. (And I did!) I have no doubt he'll want to do it again, though, and I'll make sure Baba is there when he does.

So far Louis is much more interested in the alphabet than in numbers, but he likes to hear other people count. Here he is playing with his abacus.

And here he is after opening gifts at Aunt Shai's birthday celebration last week. The Cat in the Hat is still one of his favorite stuffed animals, especially now that he has discovered the Cat's fame in the books on Grandma's bookshelves. It's fun to see that books like The Cat in the Hat, which couldn't keep his attention for two pages three months ago are now on his repeat request list. What an amazing age!

Last weekend we went to John's mom's 75th birthday party, and Louis had a fantastic time playing outside. He was fascinated by the short-sleeved shirt I chose for him. He was so intrigued by it that I am wondering whether it was his first one.

Here he is with his adoring (and adored) cousin Molly.

Here he is with Uncle Bob, who seems to know how to tease Louis in just the right way to get him to laugh.

Here Louis is throwing the frisbee the way Baba told him to. Baba can ask Louis to do anything, and as long as it is fun, he will do it. Louis will repeat almost any word Baba asks him to say, with one exception. When he asks Louis to say "train," Louis invariably says, "dicka-dicka-doo," his version of chugga-chugga-choo-choo.

Everything he sees reminds him of train tracks. These are ladders from a toy fire engine at John's sister Rene's house.

We also visited our local streetcar museum last weekend, and Louis got to ride on a sort of a train. After the car stopped moving, he loved hanging onto these rings. It reminded me of the train we rode at the Beijing airport when we were wedged in between people and I was holding Louis and a carry-on bag. Louis saw everyone else grabbing the rings, so he did too. That's one of the moments not captured on film but preserved in my mind.

Louis continues to be a big fan of yogurt smoothies. Today I think he may have had six. Or seven. Or eight. I no longer worry about meeting his dairy requirement. I just worry about having enough smoothies on hand.


And here is Louis at the playground, one of his favorite spots. He loves being home, but he does love the playground!

This is a video, which I cannot figure out how to turn vertically, where Louis makes his train noise.