Silly

N is getting to be a very silly little boy. He thinks it's hilarious to shake his head back and forth and make himself dizzy (or at least I think that's what he's doing it for). He's started to spin around as well. Really more like a slow walk in a circle at this point.

He also likes belly-flopping on the bed. He stands up, yells and babbles away, and then let's himself fall. Often onto my stomach. Laughs and laughs. He'll let himself fall backwards too. I'm always nervous he'll get too close to the end of the bed when he let's himself fall, so I'm always moving him to the middle. I suppose I should be discouraging this, but he has so much fun. Until he knocks out a tooth or something I suppose.

This weekend, he's also been trying to wink (squints both eyes) and snap his fingers (opens and closes his hands).

Hiding

There's a song in Kindermusik where you shake these clackers (not to be confused with clackers from my youth). Then you hide them (behind your back) sing asking where they are and then again when your child finds them. N loves this song, and likes to hide his clacker under my legs while I sit on the floor. I make the where sign while singing the song.

This week, he took an empty package from his dried fruit, stuffed it way in the paper tray of the printer, and made the where sign! His first sign that isn't an object (milk, dog, cat etc.).

Swimming lessons

We started swimming lessons again. N loves the water, but during the first class, he wanted nothing but to sit on the edge of the pool. Crying every time I took him to the middle, or tried to get him to float on his stomach. or back.

Fast forward 2 weeks. He now laughs and screams (happily) through the whole class. When the kids stand on the side of the pool and jump in after a count of three (with parent's help), he bounces at each count and screams "Weeeeeee" when I finally pick him up to "jump" in the water. He's even blowing bubbles in the water. Really, he's blowing raspberries in the water, but same result. R needs to get off work early enough one night to film it.

Beautiful night for a walk

R was at the chiropractor's last night. We all went since his appointment was right after work. Dr is a friend of ours, so after the appointment, we all decided to go for a walk (Dr is married and has 2 kids - youngest is about 6 months older than N). N was determined to walk, and ended up walking for about half a mile all by himself! After that, N finally let me pick him up. It's by far the longest walk he's ever done.

We all slept well last night.

Look, animals!

Oh dear but N loves animals. Real ones, pictures, cartoon images, anything! Now, anytime we're out, he points and yells at every cat, dog, bird, animal logo (giant tiger, dunn rite chicken), any card with animals on it, etc. When we go grocery shopping, we now have to spend some time looking at all the dog and cat foods bags.

And speaking of birds, he's got that sign down too! He's starting to learn some body parts as well. He can find his head, and loves to honk my nose and poke me in the eye when you ask him to point them out.

More signs and words and teeth!

N has some new words and signs. He signs "book" and finally has "dog" right, says "stop", "yes" (more like "yup") and "that".

Two more teeth in! Another molar and one canine.

He has also become a very, um, determined little boy. If you try to stop him from doing something (or better yet, move him away from something) he throws a little fit. Terrible twos coming a bit early?

Babka

N's Great-Grandmother passed away last weekend (hubby's Baba), two days after her 101st birthday. She was a really wonderful woman who loved her family to bits. Other than her bad knees and trouble hearing, she was in great form up until a few weeks ago.

I thought I'd add some advice from her that she gave us the first time we visited with N:

"Don't put his diaper on too tight! When my kids were little, I always put on the diapers tight. Now, I'm wearing them, and some of those nurses put them on really tight and it's just not comfortable. When my kids were little, I didn't know. Now I know."

I'll miss her.