"Hi, my name is Lincoln, and THIS is my spot."

Lincoln’s favorite spot—a wooden stool placed at the corner cabinet so he can “supervise” mom with all the sharp objects on her limited counter space.  Today’s supervision requires a cheese grater, and a giant Costco-size brick of cheese.   He struggles to lift the brick to the goal destination of the grater.  After much effort (and grunting), he lifts the cheese into the vicinity of the grater.  He thumps the brick on the counter, and takes a deep breath as he prepares for his reward of grated cheese.  Up goes the grater…hmmm no cheese? Repeat the steps again and again.  Still no cheese.  One more time just to be sure.  Then he sees the plate of already grated cheese…now it’s time to problem solve.  He takes a handful of the cheese, and secretively places it under the grater.  Lift the brick, thunk it down, and look underneath.  “THERE IT IS!”

We just celebrated Linc's second birthday, so I decided to make a list things he’s problem solved

• ·         Mom will change your bum a lot faster if you pull at your pants and say, “poopy.” (Just don’t confuse this word with “puppy.”)

• ·         If mom takes your candy away, don’t cry, just ask for “Wendy.”

• ·         Purposely lose the red heart that goes to the ball with different shaped holes.  The heart is a pain--Dad says it only has one axis of symmetry.  However, if you push hard enough most the shapes will fit in the hexagon hole…

• ·         If you want mom to rerun the scene with the train from Toy Story, find the remote and take it to her.  Things go faster that way.

• ·         You can hold multiple balloons at the same time if you grab them by their belly button.

• ·         Just because Nemo is on your Little Swimmer diaper, does not mean that it will play Nemo on the TV once placed in the DVD player

• ·         Getting toys out the crib is a monkey trap

• ·         Screaming “MOM” does not get Mom’s attention…”UH-OH” works much better. ( As a result Linc uses “uh-oh” similar to how teenagers use “like.”)

• ·         If you see an arrow, make your finger follow it…especially if it’s a button on an ipod because that unlocks all kinds of possibities.

• ·         If you want to go “Bye, bye” walk around the house: look for your hat with your hands on your head, find your shoes, find a coat, wear a belt on the outside of the coat, and turn off all the lights.  Then get impatient when your parents aren’t ready.

• ·         It is impossible to get your feet “unstuck” from the feetsie jammies

• Story time in mom and dad's bed is the best time of the day.