Sawyer's being raised by animals

So I wish I had a picture to update with Sawyer, but of course as soon as I get the camera or anything he stops doing what he was doing and wants me to hold him. Oh well. At least I can tell the stories!

So, I'm pretty sure Sawyer thinks he is some kind of animal other than human. Jake and I had the flu for a couple weeks so we both lived on the couch and Sawyer fended for himself. We had Nat Geo Wild or Animal Planet on the TV almost constantly. Sawyer loved it. When he wasn't chasing the 3 (we were watching Jake's parents' dog for a bit) dogs and the cat, he cuddled me most of the time on the couch, watching the TV and eating food. (We've had to adjust that habit now.) Well, the shows were either about big cats hunting, bears hunting (humans mostly), alligators, and dogs. He has picked up a few tricks. He growls and rawrrrs ALL the time. He growls and attacks the dogs (wrestling and pretend biting.) He growls and chomps his meals and he barks at the window. He also has a great big stuffed animal alligator in his room that he wrestles. He also will put it on his head or my head and scream like it is eating us. He takes his dinosaur puppet and also pretends that it eats us. He also rawrrs at his dino sippy cup.

The funniest thing that Sawyer has been doing lately though is pretending he is one of the dogs. (Maybe that is why he doesn't walk yet...he thinks he's a dog.) Anyway, aside from chewing on the dogs' toys, bones, and eating their food (gross I know, but I try and stop it as much as possible) he wants to go on walks like them. We had Sawyer's cousin come over for a play date the other day and just to help Basil feel a little more comfy I put her on a leash until she trusted the cousin. Well, I hadn't put the leash away and Sawyer happened to find it out on the coffee table later in the afternoon. He kept trying to hook it to his jammies and so I decided to humor him and clipped it to him. He was ecstatic! He puffed up his chest, stuck up his little chin and clomped down the hall on his hands and knees. He crawled into Jake's office and showed it to him. Jake, in turn, picked up the leash and "walked" Sawyer around the house. He loved it SO much! He refused to let me take that silly leash of him for more than an hour. It was so funny!