Grandpa Hyrum

Recently, our little Hyrum has changed his name. Admittedly, he's never really said his name very clearly. Few people can understand his answer to "What's your name?" In recent weeks, this has all changed. Now when anyone asks Hyrum, "What's your name?" he immediately responds in a clear, happy voice, "Grandpa!" Imagine that, a grandpa at the ripe old age of 2. He of course does it because he gets a reaction, but it's hard not to react to a very small two year old boy telling you that his name is Grandpa.

Hyrum has recently had a language explosion. He pointed out a chimney on the top of a building to me yesterday and is often asking, "What's that?" He is constantly telling us things that he's going to do or that we should do. Some of it is still kind of hard to understand, but some of it is very clear as well. He loves making people laugh and will often say or do things that he knows will get a reaction, especially from his two older brothers. He is also our best jumper that we've had. He loves to jump around the house, and especially loves to jump off things. He prefers us to catch him, but if we're busy, he'll often leap off things that he knows he shouldn't. He's a regular monkey.

Recently anytime he gets hurt in order for even the most minor boo boos to be made well, he must have them kissed. Keep in mind that Hyrum jumps off furniture for fun and is somewhat accident proned. He is constantly coming up to me saying, "Ouch, Ouch." All he needs is one little kiss, and he's fine. Perhaps the most comical was the other day when he had a sore throat and wanted me to kiss his tongue.

He's also become quite the packrat. He lugs big armfuls of stuff all over the house and often falls to sleep next to it (as evidenced by the picture). You'll often see him trying to carry 8 to 10 cars up the stairs and often into his bed. He loves to line the cars up in a straight line. He loves letters right now and loves singing the ABCs. We have a Leap Frog Word Whammer on our fridge. He loves taking all the letters off the fridge and carrying them around for awhile. I swear he'd play with that for hours if Thobe didn't distract him. He'll sing the ABC song while he carries around and plays with his letters. His favorite thing to lug around the house are his stuffed animals. He has a Mickey Mouse that he calls "E. I.," a Curious George monkey that he calls "Gunkey," a frog that he calls "That," a bear that surprisingly he calls "Bear," and a Woody doll from Toy Story that he calls "Oody." He often carries around his "Hello" or telephone with this group too. He carries these things everywhere along with a blanket. If he wakes up in the night and we pick him up, we have to pick up Hyrum and all his gang in order to leave the room where he is. Watching him carry five, fairly large stuffed animals and a blanket up the stairs is somewhat comical, and seeing him get excited to fall to sleep with all his "friends" close to him is very sweet.

I'm happy to have Grandpa Hyrum around to keep us smiling.