Tor Tales: A Sprinkling of Tor

In the past few weeks, Tor has surprised me several times. The first time was when we were sorting shapes (for the uninitiated, that means pushing squares, triangles, and so on through appropriately shaped holes in a little box). As I picked up each shape, Tor pointed to the correct hole--every time. In the past, I'd only seen him nail the circle consistently.

I was impressed, all right, but more ground remained to be broken: when I asked him to put the star through the star-shaped hole, Tor said, "No, MA-ma," and pointed to the hole, as in, "YOU put it in the hole." He'd never strung together two words before in my hearing, and since then he's repeated the formulation often, along with its "Dada" variation (and I don't mean the post-war art movement). Then this morning, he said, "Bye-bye, Mama," at day care.

Third surprise: Tor repeated his hole-finding precision with a wooden "modes of transportation" puzzle. This is not the kind of puzzle with interlocking pieces (he won't get those under his belt for another several months at least); rather, it consists of a board with discrete holes to accommodate each car/truck/plane. ("No, MA-ma" was heavily deployed during this activity.)

Fourth surprise: last Monday, Tor and I were hanging out in his room (he's staying home Mondays and Wednesdays now), when he ran to the closet to hide. The usual chain of events this kicks off is me asking, "Where's Tor?" and calling, "To-or! To-or!" until he jumps out, at which point I mock-scream and he giggles madly. Instead, this time he stopped at the closet door, turned around, and said, "Doo! Doo! Doo!" in the same rhythmic way you might count, "One! Two! Three!" Then he charged over and tackled me. (Fortunately, I caught him with my ninja-like maternal reflexes.) He repeated this game about ten times before collapsing for a nap.

On to the photos. We've had summery weather here and Tor's been practicing running, climbing, and generally stretching his outdoor wings. It's hard to keep him inside with the amount of steam he's got to blow off!

Your toddler: now with tool-using capability

Hansensanity!

How many Tors can you bench? Add him to your unit conversion list today!

"So, y'all are obviously putting these things IN your ears, right?"

After breaking the spray nozzle showing Tor some high-pressure agua, we busted out the sprinkler and stripped down the toddler.

Nary a fig leaf to be found in our yard

Regrouping for another charge

You can almost hear the giggles

Waiting for me to yell, "RUN! RUN!" before the spray overtakes him

This photo inspired me to take him for his second haircut

Over Memorial Day weekend, we went to Madeline Island, one of the Apostle Islands in Lake Superior, with our friends Lindsay and Dave, Aaron and Allison, and their kids Owen and Madeline (respectively). It was a blast. We took the ferry out, escaped the stiflingly hot Minneapolis weather, watched a crazy thunderstorm rage for hours, fished from shore and boat, ate good food, drank from morning till night, and got lots of sand in Tor's diaper.