Colin has finally started talking - don't get me wrong, he has always been a babbler but now we can actually understand things coming out of this mouth.
- "More", "milk", and "mine" sound very similar. Mike even asked me tonite how I could tell what he was saying... it's hard and it usually has to do with the context.
- "More" actually means just that he wants something. He hasn't quite put together that more usually applies to something he already has or has recently finished.
- "Choo choo" is a very popular word and he can pick out trains on our cups (what can I say, my husband works for the railroad so we have cups with trains on them) and in books.
- Something that is very different but sounds very similar is "shoo shoo" - I'm not convinced he isn't saying the same thing. Funny enough, he does know the difference between his tennis shoes, "shoo", and his rain boots, "boots". He does, in fact, tend to say the word twice for some reason.
- On the note of shoes, to Colin, socks are also called "shoo". No matter how many times I help by reminding him that they are socks, not shoes, he still calls them "shoo".
- And on the note of saying things twice, when he's hungry he says "eat eat" and walks to his chair at the table.
- While Mom and Mike were visiting he picked up on the word "plane" and looks up at the sky any time he hears them wherever we are.
- Because we still live in a construction area, there are lots of trucks. He tries to say the word truck and does OK, but it's not the most recognizable.
- Whenever he hears the trucks in the neighborhood backing up with their beeping signal going, he says "beep beep" followed quickly by "bye bye". The only thing I can think that makes him connect the two is that Mike's work truck has the signal whenever he goes in to reverse, but otherwise I have no idea why the reverse signal means "bye bye".
- His newest word that just came about of the weekend is "outside".
- He says "baby" and points out babies that he sees.
- I think that he has learned "Elmo". We don't watch much Sesame Street but somehow he has learned Elmo. We do watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse more often and I noticed today that he pointed to Minnie and said "Elmo" this afternoon so maybe it's just that it's the character he has seen on TV?
The energy that this boy has is absolutely never ending. Colin would live outside if he were allowed to. The cooler weather isn't any deterrent at all. He also climbs on everything. For Christmas he is hopefully getting an outside play set that will be big enough for him to get some good climbing energy out on. The poor animals are the newest target of his energy, specifically the tails of the cats. We are working hard on redirecting and encouraging gentle touch but doesn't always help. Oliver in particular gets the brunt of Colin's energy. Also, because Oliver tends to jump on the kitchen counter a lot, Colin hears us tell him to get down quite frequently so he has now started yelling "down" out of nowhere. More often than not, there is actually no cat on the counter, just a toddler yelling "down". He also likes to tell Trucker to "go" anytime that we do during dinner (since Trucker normally is as close to Colin's feet during any meal or snack).
He climbed out of his bed a few weeks ago so we changed his crib to a toddler bed. The first night he cried as we left his room and ended up sleeping on the floor. The next day was better both at nap time and at bed time. The following day, however, he was up and about for the entire hour and a half of nap time. I checked on him once and saw he wasn't in bed but it took me probably half a minute to see his shadow from behind the curtains. He didn't see me so I quietly closed the door. About 45 minutes later I went back and he still wasn't in bed but this time he did see me checking on him so all bets were off about going to sleep at all. It seems that if you are a 21 month old boy then watching trucks and bulldozers is much more fun than napping.
He makes us laugh every day and is always picking up on something new. For instance, today I found him attempting to put deodorant on (first, I'm not sure why it was somewhere he could get to it and second, the cap was on so he wasn't actually putting it on). He loves to hear himself talk, scream, or sing. Usually we love to hear it too but I must admit the screaming is a little bit much sometimes - it's seriously high pitched!
Most of our pictures are on my phone but here's a recent one to tide everyone over until I can get more uploaded:
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| In the woods in the backyard - almost 2 months ago |
