Play on, Playa

Leo has invented a game. 


Leo prefers to play this game with Papa but if Papa is not around, Mama will suffice. He tells us he wants to play it by grunting "Eh! Mm! Eh! Mm!" loudly, staccato,  insistently, over and over until we play.

To play the game, upon hearing the grunting, the Parent must drop to all fours and crawl around the living room until Leo picks up his volleyball and throws it onto the Parent's back.  The Parent must immediately drop onto his/her belly as if s/he has been wounded.

If the Mama is playing, Leo then laughs hysterically and crawls onto her back.  Many variations including wrestling or piggyback rides follow, but when Leo says "Eh! Mm!" again, the game starts over.

If the Papa is playing, after dropping onto his belly, Papa immediately pretends to be asleep, and Leo puts on a face of exaggerated mock concern, punctuated with an "Uh oh!" or an "Oh doh" ("oh no").  Sometimes he will pretend to cry or even say "cry."  Then he will squat down next to Papa and gently stroke his back.  After a moment, Papa suddenly makes a robot noise, goes back up to all fours and starts crawling again.  Leo laughs hysterically and prepares to attack again.

The game is super cute.  I love how there are rules, and how it differs for different parents.  I love that there is an act that goes along with it.  I love that he made it up himself; I love his imagination.  And I love that he even has a code grunt that means it's time to play.  So clever.

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Some new-ish cute words and phrases that I want to remember:

"Papa day!" - not sure what it means exactly, but maybe "Papa's home" or "Papa's here" or "Papa's home today" or something, although I think I say it now more than Leo does

"Deess!" - cheese, which he asks for every time we walk by the cheese sample station at Whole Foods

The other day, when we got on Skype with my parents, he immediately pointed up to the sky and said "Ah-pane" because Grandma always reminds him that he's coming on an airplane to visit her in a few weeks :)

Love how he says different people's names in different tones - Ah Why (Uncle Ryan), Nana, Granddaddy, Grandma, and my personal favorite, Grandpa - "Gap-paaaa!"

He says "no" fervently and insistently - it's still cute (for now)

Sometimes he sneaks into the bathroom and steals one of my makeup brushes out of the drawer, then runs around the house stroking his face with it.  The other day he stole my eyelash curler and held it up to his eye.  Ummm, whoopsie.

He knows so many of his body parts, I can't believe it.  Eye, nose, ear, mouth, lips, teeth, tongue, head, hair, tummy, belly button, back, butt, leg, foot, toes...