Stories about Gus

Jon and I took Gus to the "tiny park" near our house the other day. We call it the tiny park because it only has two swings, a slide, and a little monkey bars / climbing thing. But that is perfectly fine for our Gus, as he usually spends most of our time there on the swing. We were pushing Gus in the swing, Jon in front and myself in back, as per Gus's instructions, while he shouts out "Gus go high. Gus go bigger high. Gus go SUPER HIGH!"  By this time, I already had to lift my arms above my head to push him, so I think any higher and he would have been over the crossbar ;)

We were in the US visiting family for 3 wonderful weeks in July. We all had a great time seeing everyone, and Gus especially loved playing with his cousins. He of course had a special fondness / adoration for his cousin Ben, who is 3 years old. One night, he chased Ben for ages, round and round and round the house, trying to give him hugs. And, of course, knocking him over and falling right on top of him when he did manage to catch him!

We were lucky enough to be able to take Gus to the Olympics this month. We saw the women's trampolining qualification round and finals. We had told him ahead of time what we were going to do, so he kept talking about going to the 'Lympics to, in his words, "see people". An accurate description, to be sure, although maybe not as detailed as one might expect.

He did seem to enjoy it, though. Once there, he realised that the people were "jumping up and down and spinning!!" (He always said it in a very excited fashion--probably it would be more accurate to add a few more exclamation marks, actually.) We were very high up in the arena, though, so I was getting pretty nervous as he tried to run around in front of the empty seats next to us. I wasn't too disappointed when Gus fell asleep in my lap after the first round and slept through the whole finals! That way, he got to experience it, and then I got to actually see some of the competition, rather than just worrying about him the whole time!

And of course, the best part of his whole day was that we got to ride on "big green bus! And big choo choo train! And little choo choo train!"

We also watched a lot of Olympics on the television. I figured I can justify having the TV on for hours each day for two weeks every 4 years. We taught him to say both Go GB! and U-S-A! and now when we turn the TV on, Gus asks "Watch GB?"  He especially liked watching "Tom [Daley] jump in water." And the horses, but I couldn't keep the dressage on for more than a few minutes, even for Gus.  

We also spent a week in France with Jon's family. The house we were staying in had grape vines on the back patio, and we were allowed to eat any of the fruit there. Gus loved it. He got quite good at only picking the purple ones, although he did also enjoy picking unripe ones to throw to the birds. Oh well, I'm sure they appreciated it.

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  As you can see, we have been pretty busy these last couple of months. Glad to be getting back into the swing of our normal routine, though, and hope that will extend to the blog as well!