Caden has a slew of new things to talk about from last month.
- Caden’s number one teacher is Miss Kamy. She loves to show him how to do things and he watches her like a hawk. It does not matter what she does, he is almost always right behind her to see what she is up to. Fortunately they play really well together and thrive in each other’s company. For the moment she is definitely in control, but I foresee a time in the near future when he’s going to be inserting his own little opinion on what they should do. Monkey-see monkey-do works in both directions … they each mimic the other constantly. Do you see any mimicing going on in this video? =P
- He is picking up new vocabulary words every day. He is very interested in naming all the different kinds of food that he eats – bread, meat balls, cheese, kiwi, grapes, etc. He is starting to learn 1, 2, and 3 (followed by 6) and we are working on relating the words to actual concepts. If you ask him “Caden, how many eyes do you have” and “Caden how many noses do you have,” you’ll always get “toooo” as your answer. He doesn’t get it yet, but it won’t be long. He is also repeating letters after Kamy and I often hear him say “a, b, c, d, e, g, x, s, s.” Again, there’s no link between saying the word and knowing what it means, but he will say it regardless. He has also picked up “me” from Kamy’s catch phrase of the month “look at me.”
- One of our favorite things he says is diaper. He pronounces it “die – Per,” with a very heavy emphasis on the p part. If it made for a better nickname, I think it would stick around for a while but instead we just call-and-answer it back and forth. Diaper diaper diaper. =P
- Because of his expanding vocabulary, we have officially hit the stage where it is no longer a question of understanding when we ask him to do something. Unfortunately for him, this means he doesn’t get as much slack in following directions. He knows the drill, and he knows what we want him to do. Instead, we are now having to deal with a little willful, persistent boy who wants to do his own thing. He is really bad about ignoring us when we call him and he does not seem to have the built-in pleaser gene that Kamy got where she will usually do what we ask her to. Mr Persistent needs additional encouragement and does entirely too much ignoring for my taste. We are making progress, but since he has his own ideas about how things should be done, it is slow going. “Nope, I’m not listening to you or looking at you Momma, I’m busy!”
- A certain little boy has been spending a lot more time in his room lately. He is still learning how to control his emotions and can get upset about the slightest little thing. Thus far we have been fairly lenient and have been asking him “Do you need to go to your room to fuss?” which seems to help him compose himself. I am being very careful to make sure his fussing is not getting him what he wants. He is rapidly running out of this grace period though, because sometimes fussing turns into his idling noise and is not even tied to a specific action (or inaction like not giving him his milk). We both tell him to “stop being pitiful” several times a day. I have a feeling we will be clamping down on this pretty soon because that is not a habit I want ingrained. Just like with Kamy, you can fuss in your room but I don’t want to hear it!
- In the same vein, he is not a quick learner. Kamy would get hurt once doing something and wouldn’t do it again. Caden will get right back on that horse and do it again. And again. I think he’s pulled his high chair over on him three times already, while Kamy only did it once. He is such a climber that I never quite know where I will find him next. Lately he has been climbing into his high chair — via a regular chair and up and over his tray to sit down. Little monkey! The first time we saw him do it, Keller asked me if we were “going to let Caden bust his face” and see if he’d stop climbing all over it once he fell. We decided yes, we’d let him learn the hard way (since he doesn’t seem to learn any other way) and then waited for him to crash. Which he still hasn’t done three weeks later. Kamy caught him doing it one day and said “Momma, are we going to let Caden bust his face?” It made me laugh to hear her ask it so matter-of-factly. We have two (good) goofy children!
- Our big boy in now facing forward in his car seat. Since we bought him a reversible seat, it can be strapped in either rear facing or front facing. In the process we also switched which side each kid rides in, so Kamy is on the passenger side with more leg room and now Caden is behind the driver’s seat. The arrangement seems to be working out really well, though Caden wasn’t nearly as impressed with the new view as Kamy was when we first moved hers.
- Other than going outside to play, Caden’s favorite thing is “Coh-wa!” He loves to color with crayons or colored pencils and we spend at least a little time every day at the table coloring. They either use coloring books or coloring pages from the internet to amuse themselves, sometimes for quite a while. Of course Caden wants to color of Kamy’s pages, but that just comes with a little brother. He is pretty good about keeping the crayons out of his mouth, but I have confiscated the coh-wa’s several times when I caught him chewing on them. They’re non-toxic, but it’s not great. =/
- Caden loves to play with my phone and will ask for it several times per day. He only gets it while it is turned on “toddler lock,” but he likes pushing all the buttons, drawing lines on the screen, and calling people. His pretend calls are hilarious, because it goes something like this: “heyo, heyo, aii, ow you?, otay, otay, bye!” He has an entire little conversation and is just plain adorable while doing it.
When it is time to leave, Caden showers everyone with “buh bye” and blown kisses. He has such a sweet spirit and I fall in love with him more every day. He is my precious little boy, my cuddler (when he is tired), and gives the BEST hugs. I love my little man and he makes me smile every single day. We have two good chill’uns, for which I am so thankful.
