A day with the girls

As a favor to my sister, I kept her two cute girls for a sleepover last night. I'd been craving some girl time (does anybody else ever get tired of living with boys?!) and they were the perfect fix. We did a craft (glass magnets for their mom), ran through the sprinklers, played a board game, watched "Coraline," went to the park, colored, and listened to Hannah Montana. Little Man loves the girls and wanted to be right in the middle of everything we were doing. The girls were mostly patient with him and tried to include them in their play when they were sure he wouldn't mess anything up. Here's my favorite Kodak moment from this morning: all the kids brushing their teeth.

Where We Are

I found a cheap copy of "What to Expect: The Toddler Years" yesterday. I have a love/hate relationship with these books. Sometimes, when Little Man is surpassing even the "might even be able to" things I love the book; other times, like when he hasn't even attempted the "should be doing" things, I hate them and vow to not look at them anymore. So, mostly for my own remembrance, here are the things Little Man is achieving these days:

• He can say Dad, hi, bye, shoes, cheese, hot, and Jesus.
• He can make the sound a duck, a cow, a sheep, a rooster, and a monkey make.
• While looking through books, he can find and point to lots of objects. Some that he knows especially well are grapes, ball, guitar, and fish.
• He is showing some early signs of potty training-readiness. When you ask him if he pooped, he will look down at his diaper, then shake his head or nod.
  
• He has mad dance skills. When he hears music, he starts bouncing up and down. Sometimes he will grab my hand so that we can dance together. And my favorite move is the turning-in-circles move. He giggles the whole time he's spinning, then falls down with dizziness.
  
• He's getting good at scribbling. We try to keep him away from crayons (he eats them) but he does very well with colored pencils.
  
• When we say that it's time to have a prayer, he folds his arms (for about 5 seconds).
• He's very close to running. He has perfected prancing, however.
  
• He's very good at building with his blocks. The book says he should be able to stack two blocks, but he's been building towers for awhile now.
  
• He knows several "commands." When asked, he will throw something in the garbage, shut a door, go get his shoes, hold hands, give kisses, go to his highchair, and go into the bathroom when it's time to brush teeth. We're still working on "Come here" and "Stop that".
  
• He will drink his milk cold. Since we switched him to cow's milk, the only way we've been able to get him to drink it is by warming it up. Finally, just in the last few weeks, we've been able to get him to drink it straight out of the fridge. (In a related story from the week, the other morning, James got him a cup of milk when he got up. Little Man handed it back to him and said, "Hot." So maybe we haven't completely broken him of the habit.)
• He had a molar break through. He's still missing the two teeth in between the front one and the molar, so hopefully those don't end up crooked. The molar seems to have stopped moving down, but there is a tiny sliver of sharpness back there.
  

Although it is not an achievement by any means, he is still enjoying his baby food. He is such a picky eater! Mostly, he's unwilling to try anything new. Last week, while having dinner at my mom's, he tried bread (in the form of a roll) for the first time. We can usually get him to eat noodles, corn, beans (as in dried beans), tomatoes, and graham crackers. And don't even mention the word "yogurt" unless you plan on giving him a bowl-full.

Making mischief.

Playing guitar with Daddy. We tried to go camping a few weeks ago, and ended up packing up and coming home at 11:30 because Little Man had been crying for about two hours. He doesn't like to sleep anywhere except in his crib.

Every night after his bath, Little Man enjoys running around the house with his cape. It is one of my favorite parts of the day.

Brown Thumb

Several of my blogging friends have posted pictures from their gardens this week, so I thought I'd join in. We have a HUGE (to me) garden space (it's about 30 feet long, and about 6 feet deep) and we spent two straight days getting it ready to plant. Everything was coming up so well and growing fast. This is what is looks like now:




I refuse to believe that this carnage is my fault. There is a very old tree that is next to the garden and I think it has a disease. Trees aren't supposed to ooze, right? That tree is definitely sick, and I think it's contagious. All of my plants were beautiful and the tomatoes were getting blossoms, and then, one by one, they started dying. The things that are doing ok are the things that are at the ends of the garden, away from the gross tree.

There's corn,
and pumpkin,
and watermelon,
and green beans.
I guess there is something to be hopeful about, but I'm really, really sad about my dead tomatoes. I mean, that's the whole reason to plant a garden, right? So, when your tomato plants are weighed down with more fruit than you can possibly use, remember me and my sad garden. I promise to be your friend for life if you let me taste one.

Magical Clown

Last week, my best friend from forever was in town (for her wedding). I went to visit her and we took Little Man down to the toy closet to look for something to keep him entertained. While we were down there, I found some of my old toys! I didn't even know they were missing and it was a very happy reunion. Among the treasure was "Cown," a wind-up musical clown I got when I was one year old. Little Man immediately took a liking to him. I've gotten into the habit of putting him to bed with Cown. Whenever I wind him up, Little Man's eyes light up, he hold out his hands, then he gives Cown a big hug. I'm so happy that my old toy makes him so happy. I was thinking about it the other day, and I realized that since he's been introduced to Cown, Little Man has not given me any trouble about going to sleep, whether for a nap or at night. That's no ordinary clown; that's a magical clown.

Little Man News

So much has been going on around here. We're all settled into our new place, and loving it! Little Man is growing up so fast! His fifth tooth broke through today (hallelujah!) and he's been saying lots of new words. His favorite word is "Hi" but in the last few days, we've heard him say "doggie," and "Jesus." He even said "Hi, Dad" yesterday. Does that count as his first sentence? He knows most of his body parts (he always gets a kick out of sticking his fingers in his ears) and just learned to "moo" like a cow. He's stilling quacking, too. Every time he sees water or a bird or a place he remembers seeing a duck, he quacks. The quack has evolved into more of a clearing-the-throat noise, but it's hilarious. Part of our night-time routine at our new house is to water the garden. Over the last few days, Little Man has been fascinated with sticking different body parts in the stream of water coming from the hose. He'll stick his hands, his torso, and his head in, and laughs his head off every time. And we had a Little Man first tonight: he pooped in the bath for the first time! Aren't kids awesome?






And for your viewing pleasure, here's a video of Little Man enjoying his first-ever ice cream cone. See if you notice another new skill: sighing.