Awesome

Every day, new words pop out of Riley's mouth as if they'd always been there. One day, he'll casually say "arm," "star" and "sock" and then next day he'll bust out with "barn" and "silo." I find his use of silo, in particular, to be hilarious. If a kid living in one of the biggest urban areas in America is only going to have a couple hundred words, who would have guessed that one of them would describe a grain storage facility? A kid who loves farms, that's who. The boy is head over heads for all things agricultural, especially farm animals. He has never once uttered his own name, but he can say "donkey" and "farmer."

Riley specializes in nouns, but he also gleefully shouts out certain verbs while he's engaging in them. "Jump," "scoop," "dump" and "honk" are all favorites.

He's cuckoo for colors, especially his absolute favorite color, yellow. He delights whenever he encounters something yellow and can shout out his favorite word. In true San Francisco style, he likes to differentiate among garbage, recycling and compost cans. "Where does the mail go, Riley?" "Blue!!!" 

For a boy who loves both waste bins and large trucks, yesterday provided a real treat. On our way to daycare we encountered a compost truck. We trailed the truck for an entire block watching it dump a dozen compost cans into it's mid-section. The driver shook Riley's hand and put on a big show for him which included sound effects. When the driver first approached, Riley's eyes widened until he looked like he'd just met the President. He was star struck! 

As the compost truck pulled away, I exclaimed, "That was awesome!" Riley agreed and, for the first time, said, "Awesome!" Throughout the day, he walked around trying on his new word on for size. Later (with a little kibitzing) we captured it here.