Philip is now two years old (well, a week shy of 28 months). He celebrated his birthday quietly at home, and thanks everyone for the gifts he received.

Philip adds Nevada to his “states visited” list. Over the summer, he took a quick trip to Las Vegas, staying at the Rio and enjoying his own seat on the airplane. Mom and Dad went along, enjoying the thrill of paying for an extra seat on the airplane and keeping the boy away from the windows on the 20th floor. Phil got his first taste of Del Taco and the casino buffet “experience.” As far as he knows, Philip has been to Rio, Paris, Venice, the desert of North Africa/Middle East (whichever The Aladdin is), the circus, Ancient Rome, and wherever The Bellagio is supposed to be. Next trip he’ll get to go to the south end of The Strip and visit Luxor, New York, Camelot and MGM (although he’s already been to the “studio lot” in Orlando, so it might be a bit of “been there, done that”). Also in Vegas, Phil took his first cab ride and began using the word “bus” to reflect his familiarity with the shuttle bus traveling between the hotel and The Strip.

In addition to “bus,” Phil is also saying

• bird (he says this when he sees Big Bird or a real bird)
• box
• candy (fortunately yogurt-covered raisins count as candy).
• chair
• clues (when he sees the dog from “Blue’s Clues,” Phil also recognizes Ernie, Bert, Elmo, Zoe, Maisy, Bear (from the Big Blue House), Pooh, Tigger, Bob (the Tomato), Builder (Bob the Builder), Oobi and Keiko.)
• cookie (he says this when he sees Cookie Monster or a real cookie)
• door
• foot
• fries & Coke (he usually says this when he sees the Golden Arches)
• hot
• house
• juice
• monster (includes muppets as well as ambiguous things that scare him)
• night night
• outside
• pirate (usually said in conjunction with a hearty “aaargh!!!”)
• shirt
• shoes
• Simpsons (lesson in diversity: daddy makes sure Philip is not sheltered from yellow, four-fingered dysfunctional-Americans)
• sky (frequently sounds like “guy,” so we look around wondering which guy)
• socks
• songs
and
• water
as well as the phrases
• diaper change
and
• I did it!!!

At the end of summer, Phil and family also spent a bit of time trailer camping with Grammy and Poppa in Northern California. Phil enjoyed excursions to Ferndale, Eureka and a car tour of several Big Tree groves. On the way home, he got a new friend: Biscuit (aka “Bigkiss” in Philspeak) the Wiener Retriever. Biscuit hasn’t actually retrieved a wiener yet, that’s just as close to a breed as we can come for her.

Sometimes Phil will lay down in his bed and pretend to snore (a daddy trick); when this happens we leave the room immediately … occasionally he really will fall asleep, more frequently it takes him five minutes or so to figure we’ve left and then we have to go get him. Oh well, it’s nice while it lasts. Philip has his figured out how to manipulate his folks: he has gone through the phase of asking for a “hug” when we pass by his playpen. Eventually we figured out that “hug” is baby code for “pick me up and let me out of here.” Since we've stopped falling for it, he’s moved on to announcing “Baby scared.” That was less successful, since clearly the monsters on TV are pretend, how can he actually be afraid of them?! Phil also uses “Baby scared” in the middle of the night and in the morning, and it frequently seems that it’s not a ruse. The Sunday School chorus “Jesus Loves Me” (cleverly re-worded to “Jesus Loves You”) calms him down and he frequently requests it as a bedtime lullaby (by saying “Jesus” and sometimes “Jesus Bible”).

Phil continues to be a happy kid (go figure). He seems to have enjoyed the extra attention during camp, and is socializing more with kids his age in the nursery at church (church is named “Kyle,” presumably after one of his playfriends there). He continues to enjoy his VeggieTales, Sesame Street and Muppets videos, especially the musical segments. We have already worn through a Blue’s Clues video and are looking to update it with a DVD. He will sometimes sing along with songs, usually singing the last word of each line. Phil also has the attention span to sit through having a (short) book read to him. He recognizes numbers and letters, getting them right more often than not (“X” for some reason is named “fox,” which is distinct from Fox the network, a name he also knows (see Simpsons, above)).

Previous photos:
Newborn Phil
Phil at about 5 weeks
Phil at about 8 weeks
Phil at about 10 weeks
Phil at about 14 weeks
Phil at about 17 weeks
Phil at about 22 weeks
Phil at about 27 weeks
Phil at about 33 weeks
Phil at about 36 weeks
Phil at about 43 weeks
Phil at about 50 weeks
Phil at about 1 year
Phil at about 15 months
Phil at about 19 months
Phil at about 22 months