Wesley Neil Swanson

It's happened gradually over recent weeks, but Wesley now speaks in long sentences, not just phrases and fragments. He's growing up. Of course, as I type this I hear him shouting "Go to Down Town Mall!"

The pedestrian street in Charlottesville, the Down Town Mall, is Wesley's favorite place in the world. He simply can't get enough of going there and running around. When will America learn that every town should have a square?

Whenever we stay at Gram and Gramps' house we wander over to a playground and football field nearby. There's a big blocking sled sitting out there with yellow pads on it. Wesley calls it the yellow thing, and he's been excited about it ever since his daddy first showed him how to slam into it. Wesley pretends that things at home are the yellow thing and runs and blocks them. Tonight he declared that daddy was the yellow thing and ran headfirst into me. Does this mean Wesley is going to be a football player?

Wesley played with his cousins Hallie and Travis, his Mommy and Daddy, his Aunt Kelly, and his Gum and Gup this weekend. He sang songs for everyone, songs he's learned at preschool, which he now goes to twice a week for three hours.

Wesley joined hundreds of animals, monsters, princesses, vikings, astronauts, and even two other octopuses at the University of Virginia for trick or treating tonight. Click the photos for large versions. Wesley went last year as a stomposaurus, and the year before he was a lion.

This year Wesley wanted to be an octopus, and he was a great one. He saw some of his friends: one was a football player and another a cheerleader. Wesley understood how to trick or treat this time and was not afraid to crowd in there and do it (there was an endless crowd of little creatures and parents around every door).

We came home and read about Curious George and Halloween. Wesley will remember exactly what it's all about next year, including how to carve the pumpkins, which he has also helped with three years in a row. I wonder what he'll want to dress as next time.

Featuring: "The Wheels on the Bus" and "Fly Like a Bird".

Wesley is growing up very very fast, which is also the speed at which he likes to drive, run, be carried, swim, fly, boat, etc. (Although physically he's stopped growing a half-inch a month and hasn't gotten taller for the past couple of months at all). Wesley can do pretty much everything in the house on his own. He's never been allowed to play with the DVD player (or watch TV), but if you turn your back, he'll go open it, stick in a Mozart CD and start it playing. Wesley's favorite song continues to be Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and he asks for that and Baa Baa Black Sheep to be sung to him every night and nap time. He often sings a medly that runs through those and ABCDEFG, and several other songs (Frere Jacques, Old MacDonald, She'll Be Coming Around the Mountain, etc.). Often he rewrites the words. He recently asked a violinist on the Downtown Mall to play Twinkle Twinkle. The more Wesley sings, the better the songs get.

We got a trailer for Wesley to ride in that attaches to the back of my bicycle. From behind me I hear the expected requests from Wes: "Fast, Daddy!" and "Very Fast, Daddy!" One time, and one time only, Wesley said "Not Fast, Daddy." I realized he's never bothered to learn the word "Slow."

Wesley's Gram and Gramps and Unle Matt visited for the weekend and he had a ton of fun with them.

Well, Wes says Nammy or Nanny, but he means Mommy. And according to his Mommy, as they were leaving a park this morning and she was walking ahead of him, and a woman waved at Wesley, he pointed ahead to his Mommy and told her "That's my Mommy!" and grinned his big grin. His Mommy liked that.