Lincoln's words

Lincoln has been a little bit late on learning words because of at least one ear infection that he had. Since that's cleared up, his repertoire of words has been growing quickly!

Most of his words are basics like "Mommy" "Daddy" "Levi" "Cecil" uh-oh, whoa, etc.

Two of my favorites are "please" (peas) and "excuse me" ("me-me" and it's adorable). It warms my mommy heart to think of him already learning polite habits. Even though sometimes it seems like they may be misused. One of his favorite things to do is to move the kitchen rugs to the hall (which is what I do when I sweep), but I like having them in the kitchen to stand on, of course! When I first heard him say "excuse me" it was because I was standing on one of the rugs, working in the kitchen. I felt a little tug at my feet and heard a tiny "me-me." I had to let him take it; it was just too cute! He also has said it at church, while walking along the pew to get from one end to the other.

He's also learned a lot of body parts, especially on the face. He's pretty good at volunteering "nose," "mouth" and "eye" and will repeat "ears" and "toes."

His food words include "choc-choc" (chocolate), banana, and cracker. He will also say "more," "please," or "another one" if he wants more food.

Lincoln's most used word is probably "light." He loves turning on and off the lights around the house. Recently, he said a sentence! "Turn on the light." He also says a lot of other things that I don't understand when talking about lights. If the sun is in his face while we're driving around, he'll whine, "liiight;" if he's excited about the furnace being on in the garage when we come home, he'll say with interest, "the light!" One time, our back door neighbor's outdoor light was on during the day, and he said, "light," pointing at their house. He talks about "the light" all the time, and sometimes I don't even know which one he's talking about!

It has been fun getting a small glimpse into what he thinks about and enjoys.

The rainbow is from a crack on my phone's screen...gotta get a new one!

Happy birthday, Lincoln!

We had a small at-home birthday celebration for Lincoln. He LOVED the dairy free cake and his fun Buggly Wuggly toy. He'd never used a ride-on toy before, but he got the hang of it pretty quickly!

He loved the cake, of course!

Levi helped Lincoln with his special birthday toy. Lincoln was in heaven!

Another clip of Levi helping Lincoln:

And one more video, because Cecil wanted to be like Levi and it was super cute!

"You'll miss this"

I've been thinking about that thing that people always tell young mothers: "When they get older, you'll miss when they were (babies, toddlers, etc)." or, "When they're teenagers, you'll miss this," meaning constant cries for mom, constant touching, questions out the wazoo, or any of the myriad of things little people do that drive us nuts.

I find that kind of unsolicited advice annoying. I think I do a fairly decent job of savoring the cute and fun things my kids do and say now, and I'm pretty sure that they'll like me just as much when they're older (as long as I keep the relationship strong). I love cuddling with my adorable, precious little baby, but when he's an energetic toddler running around on those adorably chubby little legs, a preschooler asking "why this" and "why that" and really thinking about my answers, a grade schooler learning about the world around him and becoming more independent, a teenager trying to figure out who he is in a complex and sometimes baffling world, or even a young adult leaving for college and trying out his wings, making mistakes as he learns how to live without mom and dad, I hope that I appreciate and love him just as much and more than I do now.

I think that we need to plan for the future and remember the past, but the best thing we can do for our kids in this regard is to focus on the present. They will remember that we like them as they are, not as they were or as they will be.

I also contend that this method is best for the parent. This way we are not constantly hoping for something we don't have, which is a surefire way to guarantee that we will be unhappy.

Two year old pretending

Today, Cecil has been doing a lot of new things, specifically pretending more than usual. He pretended to make dough in the bread maker (long story as to why it was in his reach and why I let him play with it...), pretended to give candy to a toy, and pretended to clean with a mop. 

He also has been putting words and concepts together. I love how he uses "no" to tell me something is the opposite of the other word he uses. For example, he and Levi like to squish balloons from Levi's birthday party so they are pear-shaped. He would squish one to look like a pear, say "Pear!" get a reaction from me, and then squish the pear-shaped part down to make it shaped like a normal balloon again and say, "Pear. No." It was soooooo cute!

Cecil knows so many words now, I don't even count them. He is constantly using new ones. This morning, he put some blocks together and said, "Build!" -- one more new word.

He and Levi are also playing together really well lately. Cecil knows the drill that if he accepts something that Levi offers him, it means that he needs to give up whatever toy he has in trade. He also has learned (mostly from observation!) that he doesn't want me to get to 3 if he's doing something that I've told him not to do.

My baby is turning into a little boy, and oh! it's exhilarating to watch these little people learn, grow, and discover.

Levi's creations

 At various times throughout the past two days, Levi's called my attention to various trucks that he's made out of his blocks. I'm pretty sure these are in chronological order, except the fuel tanker, since he first made that one yesterday and I didn't get my camera out until today. The only one I'm missing right now is the snow plow, which is a pretty complicated contraption. I'll have to get a picture of that to share sometime if he makes it again.

Truck

Camera (not a truck, but this way we got to take pictures of each other!)

Fuel tanker

Fuel tanker

Train (version 1)

Close-up of train, version 1

Train (version 2!)

Train (version 2). Isn't Levi such a cutie??? He's so proud of his creations!

I'm impressed by his creativeness with all of this. And I didn't show him how to make any of these things--he just said, "Mama, fuel tanker!" or, "Mama, choo-choo train!" to let me know that he made something. The only thing we've done with blocks before is make towers.

Atlanta!

We are loving being in our new home. There are several things we have here that we haven't had (or haven't had for long) in the other places we've lived. First, we have a master bathroom. I had no idea how much difference this would make until we actually experienced it. There are so many things that go in (or it's convenient when they go in) a bathroom that toddlers just shouldn't have access to. We can keep cleaning supplies, medicines, razors, and other things in the bathroom without worrying that Levi will get into them. What a relief, and I didn't even know it would be a relief!

Second, an automatic dishwasher (not the manual dishwasher that's typing up this post) has made a HUGE difference! It's so nice to be able to just scrape off the food and stick things in the dishwasher. Levi likes it as well ("Mama! Wheels!" ... Oh yeah, dishwashers do have wheels on the racks). He really loves to "help" me get the dishwasher ready to run, and sometimes it actually does help!

A washer and dryer in the apartment are also fantastic. Levi wanted me to watch him on the potty the other day, and I was able to fold clothes right out of the dryer as I was validating the learning he was doing. Also, laundry doesn't have to be a big deal once a week anymore. Woohoo!

It's also so nice not to be living like college students anymore--Austin has so much more free time, especially on the weekends. We've also been able to get several necessaries that we've been holding off on until we had more financial freedom.

Gratuitous picture of Levi perching on my back and having me in almost a choke hold.
We have a lot of fun like this, but we're still working on the whole choke hold thing.

And of course, let's not overlook the advantages to the location. We are thousands (literally thousands - two thousand, to be exact) of miles closer to my family and several hundred miles closer to Austin's. Fresh and juicy peaches are to be had in abundance, and the mild winter only lasts two or three months here. The beach isn't far, either.

We're happy to be here!

Water and ice fun for toddlers

 So I found this activity on Pinterest a few weeks ago, but didn't pin it because it was with a whole bunch of other activities that didn't seem as appealing. Now I can't find the place I copied it from to give them credit!

Anyway, the basic idea is to put down a towel, get out a few bowls, and put ice and water in them, and give the toddler some spoons to transfer the ice. I learned to make sure there's only enough water and ice for the smallest bowl. Levi doesn't care if a bowl's already full; he just pours it all in, letting the excess spill onto the towel. That's the reason the towel's there, but it's better not to have more water than the towel can hold.

I think Levi would enjoy it more with more bowls of a greater variety, but I didn't have enough big bowls.

The first time Levi played with the water and ice, he was entertained for at least a whole hour! Subsequent times were not as interesting for him, but he still enjoyed playing for a while.

Sing, sing, sing!

Levi has started singing!

It's exciting :) He has accompanied the congregation a few times while we're singing hymns, but every time either Austin or I started singing something at home, Levi would say, "No!" and if we kept singing, he'd say, "No! No. Nooooo." It was kinda funny and kinda sad at the same time.

Anyway, he's started singing!

I sang "Once there Was a Snowman" to him, and he liked it so much that he just kept asking for me to sing "man!" I sang it over and over again. Once, just to shake things up a bit, I changed key by a whole step each time I sang it. I started out low and went up as high as I was comfortable, then came back down. The first time I changed key to a lower key, Levi giggled. He giggled the next few times, too. It was so cute!

Finally, I persuaded him to let me sing a different song. I told Levi that I was done singing the snowman song, and I was going to sing something else. I named a couple, and he just kept saying what sounded like "Sun." I eventually sang, "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam," but he said "Jesus" for that one when he wanted me to sing it again, so I must have guessed the wrong song. The other day I sang "Popcorn Popping" to him, and now that's all he wants to hear! He calls it "Pop."

Hearing all this singing must have prepared him to sing himself, because the other day, Levi started singing "Bum bum bum bum" with us to the song we were listening to. He kept doing it after Austin and I stopped, too! He could work a little more on staying on key, but we'll worry about that later. If we worry about it at all, that is. What a fun kid!

Quack, quack!

Too adorable to not share!

My son the duck :)

Toddler Literacy: recent developments

Levi has started saying ending consonants regularly!

He used to say "ha" for ham, hat, and heart. He still says it for hat and heart, but now he says "ham" for ham! Yay :) Also, it's super cute to hear him say "ha...mm."

The first word he put an ending consonant on was "house." He says it pretty much perfectly. I'm impressed that he says the diphthong as well as the ending syllable.

Levi now also has two formula sentences: "I want" and "It's." It took a while to figure out what he meant by "it's" because it sounded like "es," but we did eventually.

He also *finally* will listen to a story in a book as it was written. He's a far cry from the 10-month-old that would rip up any book he got his hands on, or be fascinated with the mechanism of turning pages just to ignore the beautifully illustrated pictures. To encourage his now budding interest in books, Austin and I have decided to drop everything when he asks for us to read a book to him (unless of course, there's an emergency with something else).

The other day, Levi suddenly got very quiet. He usually talks to himself as he plays in addition to moving his toys around, so I was worried that he'd gotten into something he wasn't supposed to have gotten into. I peered around the couch to see that he was looking very intently at the pictures in one of his books. I smiled and resumed what I had been doing. A couple of minutes later, Levi said, "Ha(t)!" I said, "Do you see a hat?" and with his reply "Mmm-hmm," I looked over to see a picture of a party hat in his book.

I've caught him examining the pictures in his books on other occasions, too. It makes this bookworm of a momma happy!

Levi's latest

So, Levi is very cute all the time. I've been telling him stories about my family's pets at bedtime, which he LOVES. Today before his nap I asked him if he wanted to hear a story about a dog, and instead of saying, "No," he said, "Meow," meaning, of course, that he wanted a story about a cat instead. So cute! 

Also, today he helped me wash dishes! He did a really good job, and got the whole pan when I pointed out the spots he'd missed. He also helped me rinse.

Levi's help

So, Levi is my favorite toddler in the whole wide world. Big surprise, right? Haha, well, I have good reason (besides the fact that he's my child)!

Levi is a very helpful kid. Before I get used to the particular way in which he helps me, sometimes it seems like he's just getting in the way, but in the end he's very helpful. For example, when we come home with groceries, he always wants to carry a bag even if it drags on the ground. "That's nice," you may think, but it gets better! Once we come inside and I set the groceries down, Levi starts taking groceries out of the bag--and puts them away! The cans and things go in a cabinet that he can reach, so he's most excited about those. If the food goes somewhere else, he gives it to me after taking it out of the bag. Then when at least one bag is empty, he balls up the bag and puts it under the sink with the rest of the plastic bags. I encourage him as much as I can and make sure that he knows how much I love that he is so helpful. I want this to last!