New Thomas moments

Thomas is changing every day, and never more evident than with his vocabulary. He is saying new words every day, and is quite the one word chatter box in the car these days. He loves to point out the Christmas lights, frosty, icy, snow, smooth, splash, mo-mo (Elmo), Jay-Jay, rain, mulk (milk) choo-choos, andy (candy), Santa, baa (bath), la la (salad), juice, drink, nak (snack) go-go (yogurt) Yesh (yes, which is said with a lot of vigor and was taught to him by his grandma while I worked!) Jesha (Jesus), coffee, and our favorite "wah-poo", which we believe is his Native American word for both fire and pretzel. Grandpa is bubba and Grandma Lil is mah-mah. Grandpa Darrell is Papa and Grandma Marion is Nana. I'm Mommy and John is Dad-deeeee, usually said with much enthusiasm. He loves to read in his crib, and we've had a lot of nights where we've put him to bed, only to have him sitting up in his crib half hour to an hour later "reading" his books and making tractor noises. John and I took him for a late walk through the neighborhood and up to the Pohlmans last night, and when we came back we visited the shop and Grandpa. While in there I noticed that Thomas has a block of wood with different sizes of screws and holes in it, and watched in amazement as Thomas picked out a screwdriver, fit it into the correct screw and then began screwing it into the wood. Call me ignorant, but they're selling huge wooden play toys for kids Thomas's age and here Thomas has the fine motor skills to work it out on his own with the real thing. When I asked Lil about it, she said that he didn't know how to do it last week, but has worked hard at it each time they go up to visit, and now this week he has it mastered. I'll bet money he'll be working the table saw next week at the rate they're going.