Talking!

Andrew has finally decided the use the crayons to color on paper.. but I figured out the reason he liked putting them in his mouth is he liked breaking them. Sure he ate a couple of small pieces, but he usually was biting them and spitting the pieces out. I guess he was interested in how it felt. But I also tried to stop reacting to his putting the crayons in his mouth. He enjoyed me telling him no when they were in his mouth and yes when they were on the paper. I figured if I didn't give him a reaction, he would lose interest in that little game. I was right.

Grandma came for another visit. We celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary on the 26th and I planned a party and invited her to come. Andrew was already in bed when she arrived at the door, but the next morning when I got him up, I told him that grandma was here. He went out, saw her, and then came running back down the hallway and pointed to the picture of her on the wall! I thought it was interesting that he made that association.

I was trimming Ted's hair (shaving his head was more like it) outside on the deck and hair blew everywhere! I made the comment, "it almost looks like we need to vacuum outside!" I was kidding of course. But Andrew runs to the door wanting in. I go in with him to get him a towel since he was wet. He goes straight for the closet and gets the vacuum cleaner! We really need to watch what we say around here! He thought I was serious and wanted to vacuum the back deck!

Just in the past two weeks, he has fallen in love with teddy bears. I think its special that his favorite bear is a bear that Ted gave to me when we were dating. Andrew says 'hi' to the bear, gives it high fives, knuckle bumps, hugs, and even kisses. He plays with the bear in his ball pit, takes him on wagon rides (then sits on him in the wagon to get his own ride), and even has bounced on his zebra jumper with the bear on too. He has also discovered two other bears. One with a shirt and vest that he can zip, and another is the bear that plays music, a mother's heart beat, and nature sounds that we used to set to the heartbeat setting when he was a newborn sleeping. He likes pressing the button to make the music play.

He is using the potty a lot more. He still wont tell us when he needs to go, but when we encourage him to go potty before going outside to play, or before snacks or anything else he wants - he is pretty good at cooperatively sitting on his potty and trying to go.

He is a pretty good negotiator too at meal times. If there is something he doesn't like on his plate, but there is something else he wants more of, I can negotiate with him. One bite of what he doesn't like, to get an extra bite of what he does like. Also when he's eaten pretty well and says he wants down, we can ask him to eat one or two more bites of something and he will.

He can identify all of his letters, the sounds of several letters, the numbers 1 to 10, and a lot of colors. Green was the first color he started saying the word for, but I've heard yellow and purple too. He knows some odd shapes too like the trapezoid. He learns so fast! He is starting to actually say more and more letters, and their sounds. He is starting to be interested in counting. He knows 10, 9, 8 going backwards... but he can't say seven yet. Yesterday we were counting and he shouted "TWO!" after we said one!

One morning, he was sitting on the potty and picked up the Farm book. He said, "Farm." then flipped to the back of the book and said some form of "chicken" as he pointed to the picture of a hen. Then he pointed to the picture of the egg and said, "Agg." Then pointed to the workd 'crack' and said, "cack". All on his own! The next day he picked up the book again and pointed to the F in farm and said the letter and then started making the sound of an F. I think he says around 3 new words a day and I'm sure he's learning more new words that he hasn't tried to say yet. He talks a lot.

Oh, and he's started singing! I actually recognized Twinkle Twinkle Little Star a week or so ago. He wasn't singing the words but that was the tune. He sings at other times but I dont know if he's making them up or trying to imitate familiar ones. He's so adorable. And he loves to dance and prance around. And jump and hop. And spin.

Andrew seems to know the difference between a reading page, and a page for music. He had torn out a page from our songbook and whenever he stumbles across it again, he holds it in front of him with both hands and sings and sways from side to side.

Katara was over for a couple of hours with Nana one afternoon. She actually taught Andrew how to play hide and seek within a few minutes! I walked in the living room at one point, and Kat had just told him to go count while she hides. I see him go to the stairs, sit down on the ledge, and he started mumbling like he was counting. She had run into the back of the house and when she yelled, "Okay! I'm ready!" he got up and ran back to find her! It never occurred to me that he could understand the concept of that game already!

It seems like he actually says about three new words every day or two. I can't even keep up - I just know that I'm always surprised to hear him say new words. Several new ones in one day even. I'm loving it!

I was reading the Row Your Boat book with him a few days ago. He pointed to the oar in the book so we discussed what it was and how it was used. I used my arm to pretend like I was rowing and the floor around the rug was the 'water.' That discussion apparently stuck with him. Thursday afternoon he was in the pool with daddy. Daddy asked him if he wanted to swim ( "yeah" ) and then turned him over on his belly. Ted was telling him to kick his feet, and then said something about moving his arms. I shouted out to him to "row" his arms - and he did!! He was properly moving his arms and kicking his feet to try and swim! *wow*

There was one day that Nana and Andrew were looking at pictures or something. I guess there was one of Andrew sitting in a laundry basket. Andrew got up and ran to our bedroom and got into the laundry basket to read his book. What a cutie.

He is climbing a lot now. Putting his toes on the ledges of cabinets to see into the bathroom mirror or shop from whats on the counter, to see what we're doing in the kitchen. He even pushes the chair to the sink in his bathroom so he can wash his hands all by himself. Sometimes I'll even catch him trying to climb into his bed:

Yesterday, Andrew started taking off his diapers himself. At least three times that I can recall. Once I was replying to an email on the computer and he came running in saying "uh oh, uh oh, uh oh" and I smelled poo. Then I realized he had no diaper on, and poo on his bottom. Great! So I got up and said, "show me the uh oh!" He took me to the living room and pointed to a poopy diaper sitting open on the floor. lol. Thankfully there was no poo anywhere other than in the diaper and i just put him in the shower and hosed him off. Another time he was running around and I realized he was naked again.. his diaper was by the front door but I didn't see any puddles anywhere. Later I discovered my pajama pants by my bed were soaked as was a little spot on my side pillow. So he must have peed on them. The third time, I caught him trying to take his diaper off and was able to stop him. I guess I should have invested in the cloth diapers with snaps instead of the velcro!

We finally broke down and bought Andrew a toy vacuum. He's a little too tall for it but has played with it nearly nonstop. It makes sounds like's it's really vacuuming and picking up stuff. It also sings the alphabet and some numbers too I think.

Andrew is scared of bugs now! I'm not sure if it was the cicadas or those huge mosquito eater bugs - but he is scared of the common household fly now too. He apparently observed someone deliberately stepping on bugs recently because he tries to step on the cicadas even if they're already dead.

I just love this little boy! He wants to type something. (while he was typing he saw the F1 key says 'Help' on it and he pressed it then said and signed 'help'.)

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