My little man is getting so big!
- He is learning words at such an incredible pace, sometimes I am hard pressed to keep up with what he is talking about. Now when I hear him say something I don’t understand, it’s less likely to be jibberish and more likely that he is actually trying to tell me something. Phrases are becoming more popular, like “bye house” when we pull out of the driveway, or “guh girr” to Kamy when she uses the potty. “Yes sir” is getting clearer and no longer sounds identical to “no sir,” but the finer points of sir and ma’am are a bit further down the road. =P My favorite thing he says is “kee kou” for thank you. It is soo cute and makes me smile every time he says it. He belabors the “kee” part a bit, but his manners are definitely improving. When Kamy give him something, she’ll get down in his face and say “What do you say, little buddy” until he says “Kee kou” to her too. Sweet chilluns.
- Caden’s new game is identification. When you point to someone, he’ll tell you who (or what) it is. While Caden has been interested in identifying people for a while, he is just now saying “Caden” when you point to him. Initially when we were trying to teach him how to say his name, his reply to “Kay …” was “ME!” Well, not quite what we were going for, but yes, Kamy works too. He still calls her “Kee” most of the time but he definitely knows her full name. Caden also has learned possessives and will positively identify whose clothes are whose when doing laundry.
- Our new battle this month is over protestations and tempers. Somehow Caden has decided that the best way to tell us that he doesn’t want to do something is to say “nonononono.” We have been working with him to use “no please” or “no sir” instead, but we haven’t kicked the habit yet. Caden is allowed to tell us that he doesn’t want something, but he has to learn how to do it respectfully. He’s pretty good about not using it to Momma or Daddy, but he says it constantly to Kamy (who promptly comes to us to say “Caden said no no no to me!”). He has a tendency to get frustrated easily and a bit over dramatic when he doesn’t get what he wants. He has also tried running away from me when it’s nap time or quiet time, but we squashed that one pretty quickly — you don’t just run away from Momma when you’re supposed to be listening. Once again, we are trying to kick bad habits early.
- If Caden is particularly fussy, I give him a choice — “Do you need to go to your room and fuss, or are you a big boy?” He’ll usually pull himself together (with a few shutters and deep breaths) and say “bih boy.” Occasionally he still gets sent on to his room, but most of the time he stops fussing instead.
- When he does get sent to his room for breaking the rules, he’ll fuss for just a few moments and then happily amuse himself by pulling all his clothes and jammies out of his cabinet. For a while Miss Kamy would volunteer to help him pick everything up when it was time to come out. Unfortunately for him, we know that he is fully capable of putting it all away (correctly!) so now he is on his own. He’ll even stay in his room with the door open until everything is picked up. Good boy — self control is hard, but I know you can do it!
- Caden has memorized more numbers this month. Saying that he can count to 10 would be a stretch though, since he doesn’t understand the correlation between the number of an item and the word. But he will happily recite 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 10 … with a few of the middle numbers thrown in for good measure.
- Caden loves to be spun around! To be fair, the funniest part is not the spinning, but the dizziness that results from it. If you spin him around, he tries to stand up but falls over onto the carpet. It takes a few moments for him to try to stand … totter around, and falls again. He laughs and laughs. Silly dizzy boy.
- Ever mimicking his sister, Caden tries his best to jump. He lacks the coordination necessary to do it, but he’ll flail his arms around and spin in a circle to “ump.” Taking it down a tangent, he has now turned jumping into a game. He climbs up onto the couch, stands on the edge, says “‘eady … ump!” and steps off the couch, falling on the floor. Caden thinks it is just so funny! He hasn’t gotten hurt yet since we have a pier and beam house, but I can say with fairly high confidence that Caden will be breaking a bone before his sister will. Goofy boy!
- Keller has a new iPhone for work that we’ve been using in the evenings to call family. Most of Keller’s family have iPhones or iPads, so we can call with Facetime and video chat. The kids think it is so cool and love talking to Min, Granpops, and Pay.
- We had two big rainstorms that passed through last month, leaving the ground saturated and puddles in the yard. Both kids love to splash in the water, especially if they’ve been cooped up inside for a day or two. After one storm, we went outside to check on the garden and play in the water. The kids had a blast running through the largest puddle, probably 6-8″ deep. Caden found a june bug in the water and thought it was a lot of fun to watch it swim around or crawl on his shirt. He tried to give it to Kamy to play with, but she immediately shrieked and ran away. I guess that’s just ingrained with brothers and sisters. =P When it was time to go in, I just put both kids in the tub — clothes, boots and all. They had a great time!
I am so proud of Mister Caden. We have high expectations for our kids but they have really risen to the bar and are doing great. I am proud to be their Momma and we love them so much!
