trash

This past weekend while we were finishing dinner Drew took a piece of paper, walked over to the trash can, lifted the lid, and put it in the trash. He must have picked it up from watching us because we have never taught him to do that. We decided to start working with him on the concept of trash, so we handed him bits of trash (paper) to get him used to the idea that trash goes into the trash can, but does not come back out. Drew likes to grab whatever he puts in the trash back out again so he can repeat the process. Here is a video of Drew in action putting the trash into the trash can. As you can hear, we try to reinforce Drew whenever he does something we like. It's no wonder he's so well behaved when he gets a response like this whenever he does something well!

I saw these stuffed mice at the Endocrine Society meeting and I couldn't resist getting one for Drew. They fit perfectly with my science nerd sense of humor! For those of you who don't get the meaning of "knock-out mouse," it refers to mice that have been genetically altered so that a specific gene is not expressed. Scientists use knock-out mice all the time to study the function of a gene by determining what happens when its product is absent (the gene is not expressed).

We did a lot of this over the weekend: playing on the floor with Drew!

Drew makes the weirdest noises sometimes. Here he is playing with his John Deere tractor and I think his tractor is having some brake problems or something because it is making quite the screeching noise. I couldn't stop giggling while taking this video, so you can also hear that in the background (at times it sounds like heavy breathing!).

Drew loves to play in the backyard and to climb all over our deck. In this picture you can see him in his new shoes, which are a children's size 6! Drew has big feet!

Drew and I did a little watering in the garden together this weekend. I poured the water and the Drew played with it as it came out of the spout.

It was so much fun to have Drew follow me around and help me. Wherever I went in the backyard he would follow along and watch what I was doing.

In this last video Drew is "mowing" the driveway with his lawn mower. The sound is a little suspect on this video because our air conditioner was going in the background, but you can still hear Drew when he stops, lifts his arm, and makes his elephant noise! He usually does this in response to Jana making an elephant noise and raising her arm like a trunk, but this time Drew initiated it with Jana (she's off to the right).