The House Search Continues; Gabe Finally Calls Me Mama

We looked at 5 more houses on Sunday and really liked 2 of them. My favorite, of course, is the most expensive one and the one we probably shouldn't realistically put an offer on because our goal is to save money while I'm not working. There is another house we really liked though that is a more reasonable financial choice as well. We should put an offer on it when Matt gets back Wednesday after we look at it one more time and check out just a couple more houses to be sure. This means that maybe things will start to fall into place and I can stop freaking out about not having somewhere to live after our house closes. The good thing about having to do these repairs is that we will have to push our closing date back a couple of weeks to get everything done which actually helps us have less of a gap between the two closing dates. If things work out, we'll close on one house early in the week and the new house later in the week - that is the week before baby girl arrives. And yes, she is still unnamed because I can't make a decision on that either! We may have one name that has risen to the top, but we're not sure we like the meaning when you look it up - should that be a reason not to use it? I mean really, who puts much stock into what names mean?

In other news, Gabe spontaneously called me "mama" after months of referring to me as "dada!" He's always been able to differentiate when asked who mama or dada is, but has insisted on using the term dada for both of us until today. He also tried and pretty accurately said "Gabe." So now his list of words includes: baba (bottle), bebe (blanket), baby (someone's belly since there is a baby in mommy's tummy), k (Luke), up, buberry (blueberry), b with wild hand gestures (bread), ssss (shoe), diapa (diaper), ball (in a deep growly voice), and dog (also in a deep growly voice). We're not sure why those two words are spoken in the growly voice, but they were also 2 of the first words he mastered. The rest of his communication relies on a handful of signs that he's learned (more, please, thank you, all done) and a lot of nodding, shaking, and pointing. He's also pretty good at pointing to body parts when asked (nose, ear, mouth, eye, finger, hair, toe).

Luke continues to amaze me with his development. He is so well mannered and able to understand concepts well beyond his years. Don't get me wrong, he has his moments where you can tell he's four and he breaks down (usually if he's really tired). But for the most part, he does what he's asked without arguing, though it's almost guaranteed that he'll ask why. He is very interested in reading and making books right now. He also likes to sit down and write lists (made up of random letters) and complete mazes. His ability to complete mazes in under 10 seconds amazes me - I'm not sure I could finish them that quickly! Luke pays attention to the details in everything we do, especially in books. TV shows or movies with a villain have never bothered him, but I read him a Junie B. Jones book about monsters under the bed the other night and it took more than an hour to convince him to sleep in his own bed and there there are NO monsters under it. DO NOT joke with him about monsters being real or I will send him to sleep with you for the night! I had to read the entire chapter book so that he could see everything was fine in the end and Junie B. wasn't scared anymore.