Kit's saying plurals now! Kitties ("teetees") and "bears" particularly. He's also been putting final consonants on some words for a week or so. He's been practicing "mouse" a lot the last couple of days (for the mouse in "Goodnight Moon" and Mysti's play mouse) although it's still sounding like "moushe". Toast is "tosh", juice is "joosh", milk is "milp", and cheese is "tzeese". (Uncle Mark is still "Mar".)

He's also been putting words together for a while... "Nigh-nigh.... Moon", "walk, walk, walk, neeeiiiighh! appo" (reporting to Mama on the walk he and Di had just taken, down the road to feed apples and carrots to the horses).

Two firsts today: he picked up the phone on my desk (which I've unplugged from the wall so we don't have calls to Australia on our phone bill!) and said, "Yeh-yo". Such a clever boy. :-) He's been saying bye-bye for a while, although not always before he hangs up, but this is the first time I've heard him say hello. (A comment on the usual chaos around here, he also says, 'uh-oh!' when he hears the phone ring. Wonder where he picked that up?)

Also, today is his first dentist appointment. Toddlers are supposed to have a dentist visit sometime after 12 months, and we're finally getting around to it. I suppose we'll learn how to properly brush his teeth... he loves 'brushing' them, which consists of chewing on the bristles and trying to get away from us so he can run around with the brush in his mouth. Perhaps they have a little dentist's chair we can seat-belt him into for toothbrush sessions? ;-)

And I know I should be posting more pictures... I will get to that! But I have to work on the computer upstairs to select pics and make them the right sizes, etc., and yesterday's daycare time went to putting away all the Christmas stuff that was all over the guest room, including the bed, since Uncle Mark is coming tonight for a couple of days. (Kit, say, "Uncle Mark!")

An example of classic gender differences: today Eva spoke her first sentence (while playing peek-a-boo, "Mommy, where's Daddy?") and Kit today began the baby-language conversations, long phrases in some unknown language that sound very serious and important... and ADORABLE. I hope we manage to record one of Kit's speeches before he moves on to real sentences! Eva's been talking like that for several weeks -- since before Christmas, if I remember right (she's just 2 weeks older). On the other hand, she doesn't try to climb up on everything she can reach. She still needs help getting up onto the sofa, for example, and Kit is up there all the time... unfortunately, since he turns on and off the fan & light from there and also occasionally takes a header over the sofa arm onto the floor.

18-month well-baby. appt. today: 25 lbs 4 oz. and 31 inches tall. He had 2 shots which he seemed to be expecting; he didn't want to come into the exam room and screamed when he was touched by either the nurse or his Nurse Practitioner -- even just to weigh and measure him, or look in his ears. He kept saying 'bye' and waving at them; telling them to go away! We gave him tylenol a while before it was time for shots and although he yelled at both of them, he didn't cry afterwards for more than a minute.

He's got a top&bottom set of molars on the right and a top molar on the left, with its matching bottom one just about ready to pop through the gum. (He actually let the NP look in his mouth -- probably helped that he was yelling and therefore had his mouth open. ;-) I knew he had the right-hand set, since he started chewing this week, on that side only, but didn't know the status of the other side since he won't let us look very often.

This has been a busy week! The first Music Together class of the new term was Tuesday afternoon, Kit's first day at daycare was Wednesday, the last swimming class of the SwimSafe Fundamentals fall/winter term was Thursday afternoon, and the first gym class of the Jan/Feb term was this morning (actually it started last week, but Kit decided to take a nap right before we needed to leave so we missed it.)

We're going to take a break from swimming for a while, although Cory and I will probably take Eva and Kit swimming at a local pool at least once a month, just to keep them from forgetting what they know. So after this week, it'll just be music on Tuesdays, daycare on Wednesdays, and gym on Fridays.

This entry is from Di: Kit and I took a long walk through the fog this morning. He yelled “Down” a lot because, of course, he can walk himself now, you know, and he doesn’t need to be carried on my back! (Oh, the ignominy!) But I distracted him with other things and we made it back home in time for breakfast.

But yesterday was warm, and we went out at lunch time. He pounded all over the yard – happy to be in his new sneakers and able to slide down his slide and poke at dirt piles. Deliciously warm for January.

Kit finally let me see in his mouth tonight and the 4 molars he's been teething FOREVER are finally showing up. Not all the way in by any means, but the 'points' have at least all popped out on at least 2 of them. Soon he'll be able to eat nuts and hard crackers and other non-gummable stuff that we still haven't been giving him, since he hasn't been able to chew 'em up and could choke. He'll be happy... he pouts when we're eating stuff he can't have. :-)

Di's in San Diego for 4 days - she'll be home Thursday night but Kit's missing her already. He keeps asking for Di-Di. :( And he's just not sleepy at all tonight... he's still going strong at 9:15pm, climbing on a drawer of my desk to reach the desktop and messing with my papers... and trying to reach the calculator, etc. I don't know what to do except let him run around until he gets sleepy - sometime before midnight, I hope!! - and try to keep him from dismantling everything until then. Oh well, at least he's in a good mood. :)

He's talking well enough that we can figure out what he's saying most of the time. I have to admit that context helps a LOT and sign language (ASL baby talk!) clarifies some 'words'. For example, "doe" can mean donut, down, go, etc., "jzhoo" means shoe and juice, and "bree" means broom, please, and who knows what else. But dog (and woof-woof), kitty (and mrow), mom-mom (what he calls me), di-di (what he calls Di), baby, hi, bye-bye, duck, and a few others are quite clear. He calls his friend Eva, who's 2 weeks older and his at-least-weekly playmate, "Va" or "Va-va" and we've all picked it up and call her Va-va sometimes now.

I was worried his curls would be gone forever after his haircut on Oct. 24, but they've already come back. So I guess he really has wavy-curly hair.

He still hasn't gotten any molars... or even the rest of the bottom front teeth. Just has the 6 teeth in front (4 top, 2 bottom) that all came in a rush months ago, He's eating just fine without them though... loves toast with jam or cinnamon sugar, or raisin toast with just butter in the mornings with his baby-oatmeal-and-fruit cereal, banana chunks, grapes (cut up), bites of apple, cantaloupe, little chunks of cheese with cheerios or crackers, fruit yogurt, noodles from our spaghetti or Thai noodle dish, ice cream, cookies, cake... and little tastes of whatever we're eating. Except NO veggies! Well, occasionally he'll eat a bit, but mostly this month he's on strike against them. ;-)

He's starting to talk a little more now, too. He's making a difference now occasionally between 'mom-mom' (Shell) and 'mommy' (Di), although he also says 'Di-Di' for Di a lot of the time. He says 'baby' and 'buh-y' (bunny without the n) for his stuffed animals, I can't spell how he says kitty... sort of a cross between a k and a g for both the k and t's... gkigki... hmm, I guess we'll have to try to tape that one! He says moo when you prompt him or point to a cow picture, and he can mimic the trumpet-sound of an elephant (waving his arm up, the way Di does, to be the trunk!).

According to the scale at the gym where his swimming class is this semester, he weighs about 22 lbs now. I'd love to measure him (using my sewing tape measure) but he is so wiggly when you lay him down that I need to remember to try when Di's available to help hold him down! It's quite a battle sometimes now just to get his diaper changed or his clothes on.

He's one year old today! This evening was Kit's usual swimming lesson (it's why we had his birthday party yesterday) so Shell baked a sheet cake to take in to share with all the other children, parents, and the teacher.

 [ S&D Home ] [ Christopher ] [ Dian Schaffhauser ] [ Shelley S Doyle ]