"I don't want to go to the beach, I want to go to Home Depot"

...were actual words spoken by Luke on Friday. Which was followed up by an actual trip to Home Depot on Sunday, which was followed up by a few painting projects, which was followed up by me making the shocking discovery that Luke KNOWS HOW TO OPEN A CAN OF PAINT. Yes, with the actual paint can opener thingy. He's quite proficient at it. On the one hand this thrilled me a little bit (a painting prodigy!) but it scared me in equal measure. I can't just leave him alone in a room for a minute without fearing that some sort of unwanted project (painting? sawing? hammering?) might be launched.

(Side note: When he paints, for some unexplained reason, he insists on having us call him Smoke. I arrived home in the middle of the paint project to have him tell me, "My name is Smoke. This is Smoke's friend," with a nod over in Dave's direction.)

Again, he continues to be fascinated by all things Daddy. If you want to paint, hammer some stray nails, or if you just plain feel like spackling something, Daddy's the go-to guy. Last night Dave had some work to do on the computer so I took Luke in the hot tub with me. But Dave sat just inside the door, close enough that he could hear our conversation and chime in occasionally. That drove Luke to distraction: "What's Daddy doing?" "Daddy, will you come play in the pool?" etc.

I read somewhere that it's very typical of kids this age to develop some sort of passion bordering on obsession. Think birds, or presidents, or...well, those are two good examples. These toddlers want to read and learn and collect and do everything relating to their favorite pastime. I think they also want to mimic. When they see Bob the Builder jackhammering, they want to jackhammer. When they see the man in the Home Depot paint department mixing paint, they want to mix paint. So at least I know where it's coming from.

This afternoon I bought Luke an adorable red kid-sized chaise lounge (or should I say longue) to go out on the back patio. When I asked him if he liked it, he tossed his head back and threw his arms open wide: "Mommy, I LOVE it!!!" And who did he look most like when he made that unabashed expression of joy? Dave, of course.