TAG- I'm it

Barb tagged me last week on her blog and I've finally had a chance to reply. Little man is sleeping, Randy is at work and the chores are all done, so here is my chance.

I'm supposed to divulge 6 random facts about myself, but I have something coming up in 15 days that will take care of that so I'm going to break the rules a bit and list 6 favorite things about Artem. These are in no particular order:

* I love how affectionate Artem is. When he sits in my lap for me to read to him, he keeps one hand on my arm and softly rubs or scratches my arm. When I hold him on my chest, he'll slide a hand up my sleeve and gently scratch me on the shoulder. It's one of my favorite things that he does.

* I love listening to Artem sing. It never makes sense and is off key 99% of the time, but he bobs his head up and down singing his little heart out and he does it with such enthusiasm that it makes my heart happy.

* I love the way Artem takes time to figure things out. He's not content to just play with a toy, he has to really study it and see how it works and see if he can get it to work another way. He used to get really frustrated with things but the past few months, he's slowed down and will stay on task for a long time with one toy.

* I love the sound effects Artem makes when he plays with his toys. He makes the beeping noise when he's playing with his trucks and makes airplane noises when he plays with toys that fly. He's got this tongue roll thing he can do to make noises that I can't duplicate so I know I didn't teach him. Randy's really good at making noises too, must be a guy thing, something they pick up in their genetic coding.

* I love how Artem stops to smell flowers and bushes when we go out for walks. He doesn't bend over to smell them, he has this little squat that he does when he smells the flowers. He always wrinkles his nose and says, "mmmm" after he smells them no matter if it's a weed or a rose. Sometimes it makes for a long walk but I'm happy to do it if it helps make him the kind of person that stops in life to appreciate things.

* I love how Artem says, "ninny" for "naked" and I love when he runs "ninny" through the house. He's got these great rolls on his thighs and little dimples on his butt and when he runs he yells, "ninny" at the top of his lungs. He's had diaper rash lately from switching to the different diapers over here and we've let him run "ninny" the past few nights so he can air out. He's such a little beefcake, there's definitely some sort of sports in his future.

Thanks Barb for tagging me and now I'm tagging:
Dana
Marie
Tiffany