Every night, my husband or I place Ari’s all but one of his stuffed animals in the four corners of his crib. [Muttsy (aka: Upstairs Puppy)] has been tucked under his arm for months now!] For the past week, Ari has been rearranging his animals as soon as I lay him down in his crib. It starts out like a roll call:
“Puppy? Baby? London?”
Then it evolves into Ari scurrying to the four corners of his crib to gather all of the animals. Initially, he tried to place them all under his arms. After a night or two of being unsuccessful at that, Ari placed the crib crew in a heap and collapsed on top of them like a concert-goer jumping into a mosh pit.
Tonight, after Ari took the initial roll call, he started saying, “Everybody! Everybody! Come here!”
I laughed. “May I turn on the light and take a picture of you with your animals?”
“Every-BODY!” he corrected.
“May I take a picture of you and everybody?” I replied.
He grinned a goofy-baby grin at me which implied his consent. I turned on the light and snapped a few pics.
“Light off!” he commanded.
I walked across the room, shut off the light switch, walked over to the crib, closed the gate, and said, “good night.”
“G’night, g’night, g’night!” he replied. “I luh-ooo.”
“I love you too,” I said.
Raising Literate Humans 
Ari seems like he’s at a delightful stage right now. Makes me grin to read about it. Just FYI, my 8-year-old, a former stuffed animal gatherer himself, is upstairs asleep in a bunk bed, surrounded by stuffed animals. 🙂
He’s mostly delightful. However, at 30 pounds and 2-years-old, he is physically exhausting! That said, there’s so much more good stuff than frustrating stuff, so I’ll take it.
And if I don’t write about things like him throwing himself down on the floor at synagogue when there was no more apple juice left in his cup, then it didn’t happen, right? 😉
hahaha – I only remember the good things. Works out better that way…
Do you know the book Blue Kangaroo? This post reminds me of it’s childhood splendor.
I haven’t, but I’m going to check it out!
Thanks for that Ari moment. Which one is London? I’m curious.
London is his way of saying lion.
Ari steals my heart every time I read about him.
How sweet is that! And what a little personality!! My son is just 3 months old and I am loving watching his little personality shine through slowly! I can’t wait for funny experiences like this. I think my heart might burst!! Thank you for sharing a smile!
Three months is when life starts getting fun!
I agree!! He is starting to do a lot of fun things! We are loving every minute of watching him grow!
My 37 year old son still sleeps with his green felt dragon when he comes home to visit! (He’d kill me if he knew I wrote that.) . I love the image of Ari diving into the stuffed animals as though it were a most pit. LOL! Love the small moments and the pix to go with them!
That’s sweet!
Your secret is safe with me.
This is so sweet! What a perfect, adorable little slice! ❤
Oh how I love Muttsy. Ari snuggled with all of his animals reminds me of myself when I was his age. It’s so great that he’s engaging in pretend play as well!
His pretend play skills are quite adorable. Remind me to Vox you the stories about Quincy’s roar.
Hahaha, so cute! We limited my daughter to 2 animals allowed in bed to make sure she wouldn’t try to add more every day, and switching them out is a big production sometimes. (She has never really gotten attached to any 1 special animal, which is both disappointing and nice!) I loved the little snippets of his talking!
I try to capture his words exactly as they come out. I feel like doing so is a great snapshot of how he speaks right now.