Gustav has started saying "yes!" I thought I heard him saying a few days ago while he was downstairs and I was in my room, but since no one else said anything about it, I figured I had to be wrong. But he definitely said it today, because when I thought I heard it and I asked him to repeat what he had said, he responded with "yes." He seems to be using more to express excitement than to agree with something. Today, for example, I was opening a package containing a toy car for him (it was a small Shelby Cobra that, within less than 2 minutes, he had broken by shoving it off the table and onto the stone floor), and when I finally got it open, he said, "Yesss!" It was really cute and really exciting.

This evening after dinner Gustav fairly willingly came upstairs with me to get ready for bed. He was a little reluctant, but when I explained that we needed to hurry so that he could come back downstairs and watch his show there were no more problems. He came running over to me asking me to pick him up, and then jumped into my arms. As I was carrying him up the stairs he said, "Meine Amanda." Freaking cute. This is the second time he's said something like this, too. A little while ago Pauline had said the same thing and Gustav argued that I wasn't her Amanda, I was their Amanda. He also cuddled in my arms while we sat on the sofa watching the show that they watch every night (it's only about 10 minutes long) and Pauline was laying with her head in his lap. It was the cutest thing ever, and I wish I had a picture of it.

Amelie scared the shit out of some poor kid this afternoon. I say "kid" but he was really only a few years younger than me, probably about 20. Anyway, while Amelie and I were walking toward the field, there was this woman walking toward us with a miniture collie, and when this dog saw Amelie she simply turned around and took off in the other direction. This woman went chasing her dog down the street, and Amelie, who otherwise could've cared less, got all riled up. It was wierd, though, because this dog wasn't running for its life, it was just trotting away. When Amelie and I got to the field I let her off her leash so that she could let out some of the energy and excitement that she had because of this other dog. She went running down the path and then all of a sudden she started barking. It turns out there was a utility van just around the corner that we hadn't seen, and this guy was working on some sort of utility box or something behind this one house. Amelie got excited when she saw him because he's someone to play with, so she started barking. Now this poor guy has been startled by a charging, barking boxer and it scared the crap out of him. The van was only a couple of steps away, and he just stood up and ran, jumped into the passenger seat, and slammed the door. Amelie lost interest because he was gone, so she came back and went trotting down the path again. This kid was sitting in the van laughing his ass off. The driver rolled down his window and I appologized to them. I explained that the small dog had Amelie all excited and she was being frisky and playful but never had any intention of hurting him. They were both laughing because the situation was a little rediculous, like something you see in a movie. They could see that Amelie was happy and friendly and didn't mean any harm, so there were no hard feelings. I felt bad for the poor kid, though.