early morning 'round the house

in the mornings, while jamie does the dishes or i get breakfast going, cole often plays his own little games. i love watching what he does when left to his own devices - building lego masterpieces, creating a hamburger using himself between the ottoman cushions, dancing to music or just playing with whatever captures his interest at the moment. often lately it's the $1 mini keyboard we found at a yard sale - it has a demo feature that plays five songs - three of them christmas tunes! (i've come to realize how threat-filled santa claus is coming to town really is! holy heavy-handed, st. nick) it amazes me what he gets up to on his own - intricate games and conversations and also, any of these are preferable to the alternative, which may be trying to climb the dishwasher, pushing me aside to access the cereal cupboard (we've worked on "excuse me" for that) or flinging around the empty yet crumb-filled pizza boxes waiting at the front door!

another favourite pre-breakfast activity of his is to climb onto my desk chair (formerly out-of-bounds territory) and ask me to turn his music on on my computer. he has quite specific requests and he tells me which songs he wants and points out their associated album covers. and then he just sits there - listening without saying anything and sometimes singing along. if a new one comes on he says "don't know it" and cocks his head, listens intently and asks to hear it again.

after breakfast the light takes on a different tone in our living room. they day has started, things are warming up. after about 8am the east light streams through our patio door and hits the floor, the couch, the wall. sometimes cole likes to dance around in the light, or do handstands. this is often about the time we try the potty, hence the pantless exercise. ;-)