When Time Flies By

I just realized the other day that we're nearing the 5 month mark. Almost halfway through a deployment, and so far, so good. Things could be better, but they're not bad. I feel like we're doing okay, rather than barely keeping our heads above water. (Or mostly, MY head.) (Clarification - it's not that I'm keeping my own head above water but holding the kids under. Rather, the kids swim along just find, but for once, even with him gone for an extended time, I feel like I'm swimming pretty well too. I re-read and thought that sounded way too creepy, with the our heads vs just my own head thing!)
So it's time for some kid updates. I'll start at the bottom and work my way up.
Gabriel
I just looked over at the sidebar at his quote. "Mama, I hi Da!" How quickly toddlers change! Five months later, it's more like, "Mama, I talk Daddy on pone?" He's also realized that other people do call me too, and asks to talk to Gamma and Nana, too. He's using more full sentences than sentence fragments full of partial unrecognizable words. And I think that other people can understand him too, at least sometimes. His names for the family are: "Dah" for Xander, "Deedee" for Mikayla, "Ahk" for Aaric, and Daddy and Mama/Mommy/Mom (MOM!? Already!?) for the obvious. He also says some of our friends' names pretty well. In short, the language explosion has hit.
Also, Mikayla decided to potty train him. To sum up, I'll share something she asked me the other day: "Mom, I don't mean to be rude about Xander, but... well, why is Gabriel so much easier!?" I taught her about how sometimes big changes can affect it, and so can personalities. Xander was this age when Gabriel was born, so it's not too surprising that he wasn't into it at that time. Back to Gabriel. At home, he often remembers to run to the bathroom all on his own. I rarely remind him, and Mikayla doesn't much either. When we're out, I sometimes put him in undies, and ask him pretty obsessively if he has to go. I'm all about the no-pressure potty training, but I think he'll be done by the end of summer, and we could probably get him to wrap it up faster if I was obsessive enough about it at home.
He's obsessed with cookies. He likes playing with his toy trains. When Xander is doing school, he requires a writing utensil and paper (usually, a copy of exactly what Xander is doing) so that he can do "pee-cool." Preschool. I never told him to do preschool, he's just decided that he should be doing it. He loves to dance and sing and be silly. He's learned to push himself along the road on Xander's old scooter. He's picky about his shoes (just like Xander was) and hates overalls (just like Xander now does), and constantly uses the phrase "too beeeeeeeg!" to describe them. New shoes, overalls that I want him to wear, they're all too big. As the youngest of four, or perhaps more importantly - as the younger brother of Xander - he's also learned the skill of throwing a good punch.