The kids last 2010 (Part 2 of 2)

Matteo

Matteo had learned to walk early, even before his 1st birthday. This shows how physically-advanced he is. He has a kiddie basketball ring and, make no buts about it, he has a good pulse for shooting the hoop. I hope the recessive height-gene in the Gaerlan family is in Matteo's DNA coz he has a very good potential in making the UAAP or even the PBA!

He likes his morning pancit canton, macaroni, and of course his dede. His "siksik" build can make the grumpiest guy smile and make him wanna pinch Matteo's nakakagigil thighs.

He says "thank you" or "tenks!" automatically whenever you hand him his dede although the missus has always been his favorite target for "dede pleeeeease!" opportunitues. It may sound irritating, but it never fails to elicit a smile from the missus. Matteo always gets his dede one way or another.

He is a very curious guy, always looking under the cars in our garage if the neighborhood cat is there. If it is, then he picks up two small stones and aims for the poor fella. He runs back to Dad with a mischievous laugh knowing that he has disturbed once again the cat's peaceful siesta.

He idolizes his Kuya Lucas so much so that he copies everything that Lucas says. He also likes Thomas The Train much to the chagrin of Lucas since "Mr Destroyer" remodels the train tracks that Lucas has already setup. But I know that Matteo just wants to help.

His favorite shows are Umizoomi and Dora. You can help but cheer for the poor guy as he yells out to Dora and Umizoomi when they ask the kids watching the shoe a question since Matteo often answers wrongly. He always answers "blue!" with every color question and then "two!" for every number question. Yup, the missus and I have a long way to go in teaching Matteo pre-preschool.

Lastly, Matteo is very friendly. He can walk towards a stranger and make his signature wave and say "hi!" in the cutest way you can imagine. I think this guy will have a good future in politics.

The kids last 2010 (Part 1 of 2)

You may have seen my kids' blog, About Two Boys, which I try to update with pictures and videos as much as I can. Such is the role of a parent, trying to capture every possible "Kodak moment" to serve as keepsakes in case my sons would like to look back at their youth years from now.

But words are limited to blog-titles there so this blog would be a good place to put in my view on how Lucas (4) and Matteo (turning 2 on Jan3) were in 2010.

Lucas

Lucas, at 4, may have finally overcome his terrible-two/three stage. School has helped him a lot, enabling him to socialize with kids his age outside of the house. He's a big fan of Michael Jackson, EXACTLY copying each and every dance move that the late Moonwalker has done as seen in YouTube videos. We haven't told him that Michael has passed away more than a year now, but I think he'll realize it once he matures later on.

He's a DIE HARD fan of Thomas The Tank Engine (and Friends). As of this blog post, he has a total of 15(!) character-trains (excluding 2 duplicates), 2 character-air-vehicles, 7 character-road-vehicles, 3 bridges, 3 tunnels, an airport, a helipad, and countless blue tracks to setup his town. He's very intelligent for a 4-year old since he makes complicated track setups on his own! He also watches a lot of YouTube videos on other Thomas and Friends track setups made by other children around the world. It would be safe to assume that Thomas and Friends is his most favorite past time as of this moment.

The missus and I were glad that he may have finally overcome his "don't wanna eat" stage. It may have started since the inception of Santa-will-only-give-gifts-to-good-boys to him. This should include eating good (nutritious) food so it's been nice to see him finish a plateful of rice and ulam more often than when he was 2 or 3 years old. Since December, he's been extra malambing, hugging and kissing us from time to time.

As they'd say, kids say the funniest things. Yes, Lucas is included. Here are some examples:

While toweling him off after a bath he asked, "Daddy, did you also have a yaya?"

"Yes," I said.

"What was her name?"

"Yaya Flor," I replied.

"What did she look like?"

"She was dark," I said.

"Dark like you?" he said. The missus, overhearing our conversation, laughed out loud.

We were all in the room when Lucas said, "Daddy, I will call you Mister Runner!"

"How about Mommy?" I asked.

"Mmmmm.....she's Ms. Take A Bath!"

Yup, he's a very smart kid.

Next post: Matteo...