22 months

dear calum,

look at you, mr. steady on his feet! all of a sudden, you look like you might actually have a hang of this ambling thing. you still occasionally like to hold a hand (or a finger) when we are out for a stroll, but you don’t always look like you are about to be knocked over by the next butterfly sneeze, either.

i’m ready for kindergarten, grandma!

you’re still a little take-your-time on the vocabulary.  cutely, you will try a new word out from time to time — but then never, ever utter it ever again. this month, although you usually prefer to call papa “MA!” you said, once, “papa!” just as clearly as your big brother. it was a very adorable surprise — that you of course have not repeated since. in fact, you have a very good act going on about how you never, ever said it at all what are you crazy people talking about? you DO say “yeah” a lot in response to questions, which is almost the cutest thing ever. sometimes if you are REALLY excited about something, though, you’ll just do a happy dance instead, which is actually the cutest thing ever.

i’m sure this night had NOTHING to do with the tooth situation

you’ve started to become slightly more interested in books. you still prefer books with flaps or pictures of animals, but you will occasionally sit through a gossie & gertie or spring is here. you still spend more time pulling books off the shelves at the library than reading them, but i am happy to report that we are little by little making a nerd out of you too, little one.

brother giggles

you’ve settled back into an ok nap schedule again. ah, my crazy napper. what am i going to do with you? it’s pretty  much a tossup about whether you’ll transfer from the car or not. or about what time you’ll go down. the only thing for certain is that you’d like to sleep for 3 hours, at least, whenever possible. bedtime, however, is rather less difficult. occasionally you’ll buck the system and go to bed at some crazy hour, but for the most part, you are ready for bed around 7 or 7:30 and take about 15 minutes or so to fall asleep. not too bad.

can you hear me now?

you went to the dentist this month for your poor, sad teeth. you did quite well, actually — i really do love our pediatric dentist. but you hate getting your teeth brushed three times a day. yuck. and we even floss once too. the flossing is just your two sets of front teeth, so you don’t mind that as much. i can’t wait to just pull them all out and get you dentures.

ringing in the new year with annie & ivan

you continue to be enraptured with basketball. your nana and grandpa got you a basketball hoop for christmas and it is MUCH loved. you love to toss the ball in yourself, but you are just as pleased when other folks do too. maybe you will grow up to be the shortest professional point guard ever?

let’s bake some cookies, mama!

because you had a preop eval for your teeth this month, we have a little weight check — 21 lb 1 oz. not too shabby peanut guy! i was reading that it’s pretty common for kids between 1-2 to gain about 5 lbs in a year, and with two months to go, you are almost there! so while you are still a teeny little super guy, you are at least a very healthy one too!

snow!

happy 22 months, baby bear! i can’t believe you are almost two!

love,

mama

sugar-coated

cal started brushing his teeth around 19 months or so. we didn’t bother with gus’ teeth until about 2 1/2, but cal expressed interest, and i thought it is a great thing to encourage. he picked up his own purple sparkly toothbrush and we took turns at night brushing his teeth (cal first, then mama or papa). somewhere around 20 months or so i saw some darkness on one of his bottom molars, and so we started upping the brushing to twice a day. still, i couldn’t get the food off. around 21 months, it seemed like maybe his teeth would bleed when i brushed them — and not because he had a tooth coming in as i originally guessed. we made an appointment for the dentist, and lo and behold, he had not one but four cavities. one on the front tooth, and three on his molars.

oh, it made me feel so very sad. after going over everything we should or could have done, it seems most likely that cal just has bad luck with his baby teeth. he nurses less, eats less junk food, and brushes his teeth more than gus did. but he’s the one with four cavities, poor guy. the only consolation is that it’s not something that jeremy and i did or didn’t do.

cal got an evaluation at a pediatric dental surgeon’s office this morning. our appointment was at 9. they saw us at 9:45. in the meantime, cal got very hungry. i gave him some pretzels. it wasn’t enough. he found some dried strawberries in the bag and wanted them very, very badly please please please mama. i thought if he drank some water afterward his teeth would be fine. oh it was such a mess! they had to brush his teeth and boy was he mad! i felt so dumb. and also annoyed that we had to wait 45 minutes. gus got to watch a lot of sesame street, superwhy, and dinosaur train, though, so he wasn’t too bummed about the wait.

so now we have to get a preop evaluation at his pediatrician’s office on friday afternoon to tell the insurance company that cal is healthy enough for surgery. they are just going to check and make sure he doesn’t have a fever or a cold  and is in general good health. and then, apparently, our insurance usually takes about 3 weeks to give the go-ahead for the surgery. which is ridiculous — how can an evaluation on friday give ANY indication about how snotty calum’s nose will be three weeks from now?

and then once they schedule the surgery, they will have to sedate calum, and then they will do all kinds of business to his mouth — full teeth cleaning, full cavity evaluation, fluoride coat everything, fill the molars, possibly pull the front tooth, seal the last molar. ugh.

which means we will almost definitely put cal’s’ hernia surgery off until he is over 5. which is fine, although it would have been nice to do it when he was small enough not to really know about it. and ugh, which means it’s yet another surgery for us to look forward to. sigh and sigh.

and then on the way home we tried to stop and pick up some birthday toys from calum from another jpmom, but it turns out that i had her number wrong and she ended up not being at home.

and when we got home i couldn’t find my phone for 20 minutes because i had put it in the wrong pocket in the diaper bag.

what a morning. blah.

 

cal’s eval

like everything else, cal is doing this talking thing in his own sweet time. like everything else, he is cutting things rather close to the wire with his “i’ll do it when i’m damn good and ready” attitude. so for fun/real interest, auntie m gave calum a speech evaluation over christmas. considering there was a small, but significant, number of questions/activities that he refused to answer/participate in, the fact that he was evaluated at being right smack in the middle of where a 20 month old should be is pretty excellent (he had just turned 21 months old two days before).

still. it’s a bit frustrating. auntie m suggested we do some baby sign with him, as he is only going to get bigger and smarter and want to talk more soon, and sign language would be an excellent way to help forestall any tantrums resulting from his inability to communicate. well, you would think we were asking him to share his chocolate or something. but no. he stubbornly refused to do any of the signs we asked. he still refuses. he refused to make any of the first syllables/sounds of words that we asked. he still refuses. what a punk!

the thing that is so crazy-making is that we have no idea at all how much he really knows — although it’s clear he understands just about everything. when megan was trying to see if he knew a handful of names for clothes, he completely ignored us for quite some time. i said, “well, i know he knows shoes, and probably socks, but maybe he doesn’t know pants or shirt yet.” a few minutes later he impatiently grabbed a pair of pants and then a shirt and handed them to her at her request. oh.

i have a baby signs dvd on reserve at the library, so perhaps he will be interested in learning signs made my babies on the coveted tv. yes of course i know that *theoretically* i could teach him the signs myself, but i feel like i have already explained how he quite frankly is not remotely interested in learning anything that i am teaching thankyouverymuch.

i think he just started saying ba(ll) yesterday. i was putting his gear on to go out and play in the snow (!) and he wanted to pick up a ping pong ball but couldn’t with his mittens on. ba! he said. sorry, i said. we are going outside. he tugged on his mittens. ba! he insisted. ba, ba, BA! and then he pulled his mitten all the way off and picked up the ball.

sigh.

what am i going to do with this guy?

21 months

 

dear baby bear,

you now hate brushing your teeth. or rather, you now figured out that mama always needs to take a turn every time and i think THAT is the part you really hate. you still love eating off all the toothpaste and you love walking around chewing on the bristles. your gums have been bleeding this month and i am no longer sure if you have teeth breaking through or if there is something else going on. i hope it’s just the former, poor baby.

sunshine pancakes are delicious!

you’re more stubborn about feeding yourself these days. honestly this is fine by me, although, of course, it makes things considerably messier. still, you are quite a big eater when you are in the mood, and there really is nothing cuter or more satisfying than watching you eat.

can i open this package?

i keep forgetting to post this — but another super adorable thing you do is that you gasp (!) when you are surprised. it seems like such an older person thing to do, and it makes me laugh every time.

holiday tree!

although you are still not the steadiest guy on the block walking-wise, you still love to do  physical things. you still always want to play basketball or to put all the soccer balls into the net and just recently you have become rather bitter about the fact that gus gets to take swim lessons but you do not. there was a swim class for wee babes your age starting on saturdays, but our weekend plans didn’t quite work out and so you haven’t gotten a turn in the water yet after all. it’s a nice change from this summer, though, when you were not particularly pleased to be in the swimming pool, despite the fact that you loved (and still love) taking baths.

solstice swag!

you have about 25 (!) words! although we’d love you to have 50 already (you should have about 50 by about 2), you are right at about 20 months, vocabwise, which is not too shabby at all. a little over half of them are signs and they are pretty cute. some of our favorite things that you say are  ”EYAYYAY!” and  ”BWOWWOW!” for when you are happy and/or excited about things. you even invented a word for grandma when we visited, which was cute, but also annoying. so you can obviously make up new words when you WANT to, you stubborn little peanut. you also seem to be refusing to pick up any more signs, apparently simply because we want you to. i am getting a baby sign dvd for you to watch to see if the extremely coveted tv can motivate you. considering that you already make yourself pretty well understood with the series or verbal and manual words you’ve already come up with, i am not too surprised that you are not necessarily very interested in anything new we have been trying to teach you.

chocolate!!!

your second set of winter holidays was quite fun. you enjoyed opening presents, but you didn’t mind leaving them wrapped either. and you seemed to prefer to play with things once they were opened and didn’t feel the need to keep unwrapping. woe unto he who brought an amazon box into the house without letting you peek inside, however. for some reason brown cardboard boxes are where it’s at in your mind for the good times. you got a lot of lovely gifts and just really were sweet and wonderful with all the guests and traveling and visiting.

ornament fund manager

the only thing missing from this last month of 2011 was snow! i thought we might get to play in some winter weather before the new year came, but it does not seem to be. so far this  winter has been rather mild, and i have to admit that i don’t have any complaints about that!

21 months

happy holidays and happy new year, little one!

love,

mama

happy new year!

run run rudolph

i don’t know which was more awesome: watching the original performance, or watching the kids crack up watching the video of themselves after.

20 months

dear (honey) bear,

what a busy bear you have been! so much to see, so much to do, always.

you’ve decided you like to eat apples this month — you want to bite your own bites out of whole apples. or eat slices with gus in the car. or use apples to scoop up peanut butter. it’s a good sign — all those nasty incisors coming in have finally broken through your gums, so your poor little mouth must be feeling a little better. i feel like i am just getting used to you having teeth, and now you’re nearly finished with all the big ones — only your 2 yr molars left (well, for now, anyway).

uncle birdlegs was trying to get HIS shoes on and you backed right up into his lap and handed him your shoes, all, put these shoes on ME, uncle!

you’ve really gotten into gus’ stuffed cats. gus loves bella cat and silver cat. you love ALL the cats. as is, thank you for trading me teeny tiny cat for bella cat big brother. also, please give bella cat back now. and silver cat and fluffy cat and golden cat now too please. just kidding. for some reason, no one ever wants fluffy cat. this drives gus crazy, but mama and papa think it’s very cute.

you’re into trains and planes all of a sudden. you are constantly searching the sky for planes or are dragging me over to the fence over the orange line to watch the trains go by. you came to this a little later than gus did (and he was late to it compared to his buddies), so for a time i wondered if you were going to escape this toddler bug. not so. i had forgotten how much fun it is to watch the trains, though, and the look of delight on your face each time is, of course, quite priceless.

we got our first snow of the season this month. you were quite intrigued by all that crazy white stuff.

you’re walking less drunkenly and with more confidence, although you still often prefer to hold a hand or two. you’re quite the climber when you have a mind. one afternoon i wasn’t watching you very closely — you were playing around a chain ladder so i wasn’t paying too much attention. i happened to look up, though, and you were 3/4 the way up! oh! i didn’t know you could DO that! you’re also quite bold about going down very steep slides. you are such a brave little stinker!

you seem to be more into babbling than you were a few weeks ago, as if you have suddenly decided that being noisy is fun after all. you’ve started saying amamama for me and abababa for papa, although like gus, you often call papa amama too. you use the sign for water more often, and have become quite versatile with the “more” sign, using it as a general action verb. or, like the other night, to mean “DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT EATING THAT PECAN PIE WITHOUT ME ABABA!” you also have a way with pointing. you use it to say “hey you! i see you! good morning” or “sit right here and play with me” and, of course, “i want that!” it will be great when you start using more words, but watching you sign to get your point across is so very cute, and i will miss it for sure.

how are you big enough to wear these pj’s already??

you love playing with your big brother — light sabers, blocks, wrestling. you love to play zombie tag with us (everyone stumbles around the backyard mumbling “brains! brains” and then tackles each other). since you can growl and tackle, you feel very proud to be able to fully participate. you’re particularly interested in your brother’s playmobil toys. they are perhaps your very favorite thing to play with at the moment, when you are not painting with dot paints or glitter glue or drawing with chalk, that is.

you’re quite the helpful little bear. you enjoy putting dishes in the dishwasher (and you get quite miffed if someone tries to put a plate away without offering you the task first!), taking off your own shoes and putting them in the closet, collecting garbage at the playground and throwing it away. you’ll help put toys away, help put clothes away, help brush your teeth, and help brush my hair. it’s so very adorable that your papa and i can hardly stand it.

you point to the cabinet, then you sign “more” (one finger tapping into the open palm of the other hand). then you point to yourself if i’m STILL not getting the fact that you WANT MOAR VEGGIE BOOTIE DAMNIT 

you also are quite the lover. if gus gets hurt, you rush over to kiss him. if you hit once of us and we say “ouch!” or “no hit!” you immediately stop hitting and use gentle hands and give the victim a kiss. it doesn’t stop you from hitting in the first place, but it’s pretty sweet. i’m curious to see how this pans out in a few more years, but for now it’s quite a lovely little habit you have, little one.

oh fella! a warm halloween and a warm thanksgiving this month! and more holidays to come! we are so looking forward to spending the rest of your second holiday season with you!

love,

mama