Who is this little boy?

Can someone tell me who this little boy is? Where did my chunky little baby go? 

We are full swing into communication territory - this dude talks nonstop! He's constantly surprising us with things he knows. Example: I was telling him about our upcoming vacation to the beach and he said "are we going to make sandcastles?!" How does he know about sandcastles? Maybe the TV watching he does isn't so bad. Ha ha!  He also asks a lot of questions about things - what's that? Where are we going?  What does that mean? The other day I said "almost" and he asked me to tell him what that meant. Since then he's been using that word and then following up with the definition I gave him.  As in "I almost got it Mama, that means got close."

This weekend he really wanted to help with cleaning, so I showed him how to do a few things. He really like folding clothes and putting them away. 

These days we learn or teach something new every day and/or crack up at something he's said. It's a really awesome and fun time in his development.

It has its challenges though - he repeats EVERYTHING, not just words but tone and attitude. There's a lot of pushback and "no!" when we ask him to do something and he definitely doesn't understand the concept of patience just yet.  

He's a pretty cool little dude though and my favorite little buddy. We'll have some beach pictures in a couple of weeks - he's so excited about that trip and his upcoming birthday party in July.

Vacation Week

Well this post is a few days late.  I had great intentions and planned on posting a few blogs while I was home with the kiddo, but obviously that didn't work out.  So this will be a little catch up/recap with pictures. 

I was excited to spend the week with little man last week and planned some fun stuff as well as some not so fun stuff.  We spent most of Monday at home, cleaning any laying around.  I will tell you that I took a nap almost every day at the same time Gage did - it was glorious.  Mimi came over Tuesday and I got to have a lunch with a friend and run some errands myself.  Wednesday is really when the fun started for the kiddo.  I took him to Jump Mania in Plano, which he loves.  Jason came with us and we had a lot of fun watching him run around and act crazy.  The have toddler mania there on Wednesday and Thursday mornings, so it's all kiddos from 0-3 and they get to run the place.  We all had lunch on the way home and then it was nap time - for all of us. 

On Thursday, GiGi came over and we had plans for a big morning out at Fair Park.  I packed us a lunch and the plan was to hit up the Children's Aquarium and then have lunch at the Discovery Gardens.  The Children's Aquarium in Fair Park is pretty cool!  Now, it's small - but so is Gage, so I really though it was great for him.  The price was very reasonable and they have some awesome stuff there.  We thought the albino alligator and 75 year old turtle were both way worth the trip.  The octopus was sleeping when we were there, but Gage had fun playing with the display.  The employees there were so nice and we were the only ones there for about 30 minutes, so Gage got some one on one attention. They helped him climb up and touch some of the animals and stuff in the entrance tank - there was a weird lobster and I thought it was pretty cool.  Gage had a blast running from one side to the other and checking out all of the creatures.  We got there just in time for snake feeding time and got to watch the keeper feed him a fish.  It's the most active snake he's ever gotten to see - when we've seen them at the zoo, they are always sleeping or hiding.  After all of that, we headed out back and got to pet the stingrays!  I've never done that before, and I was blown away about how much they are like puppy dogs.  They were all clamoring over to us so that we would pet them and rubbing up against our hands.  That was awesome.  Gage thought they were cool and he pet them a couple of times, but I think he didn't like the slimy feel of them.  They are by the big shark tank, so we settled in to look at the scary guys while we were out there.  Gage really like them - he kept yelling, "Mama, shark!".  It's so cute because we've really started to notice that when he's upset, he comes to me, but if he's scared or nervous, he'll go to Jason.  So he always wanted Jason to come with him to see the sharks and to pet the stingrays.

It was getting close to lunch time, so we headed across the street to the Texas Discovery Gardens, which have a butterfly house.  At this point, we could tell that our time out with the kiddo was skidding to the end, so we went outside for a few minutes and decided that maybe it would be best to just check out the butterfly house (I wanted to see the release at noon) and then go home to eat our lunch.  The butterfly house there is pretty awesome.  Gage loved chasing the butterflies around, but every time he would get close to one, he totally knew that he needed to be gentle and quiet.  There was one that just hung out the entire time we were there and he kept pointed and yelling, "Fly butterfly, fly!"   We stayed to watch the butterfly release at noon and had fun at the mini learning session.  After that, we headed to the car and had lunch back at our house.  We all had a lot of fun and it's always a great time getting to watch him learning and seeing new things. 

Friday was a day of doctors appointments for him - we had to do a follow up with the allergist to see if he still has his food allergies.  Hopefully the news next week will be that he's one of the 20% that outgrows a peanut allergy - everyone say a prayer!

The weekend was a lot of our normal routine - I had a race Saturday, so Grangingy and Uncle James came over to spend some time with him, which he always enjoys.  Then he and I did our usual grocery store trip and hanging out.  I took him back to Jump Mania on Sunday and we met a friend of mine and her grandkids.  He really loves her grandkids and he had so much fun playing with them.  They even encouraged him to climb a big inflatable slide and then slide down all by himself!  Then he followed them through the obstacle course to another slide - another thing he has never done without me.  He really had a great time. When we got home, Jason was talking to him about how much fun he had and he said, "Dada, I need to go night night".  It was so funny.  He went right to sleep, without a fight. 

We had a really great time last week and I have missed him being back at work this week.  Luckily I'm off again this week for the holiday - so it's been a nice time with a lot of Gage fun to be had.  I noticed a few things over the last week or so:

- He's getting SO big.  I was just saying something tonight about how big his hands are.  When we go out and see other kids, he's almost the size of the 4 year olds.  He's like a little dude now.
- His vocabulary is out of control.  We are pretty much just having normal conversations at this point.  Now, if you didn't know him very well, it wouldn't be easy to make out everything he is saying - but Jason and I are pretty fluent in "Gage".
- This kid is ridiculously sweet.  He loves to give out hugs and kisses and he's always concerned about crying babies. 
- He's more interested in helping now.  He likes to help me put up the groceries and clean the house.  He's gotten really good at helping with the groceries - it's pretty cute.
- He's currently addicted to yogurt..and fruit snacks.
- He's now singing along with everything.  He can sing along with Muse, TV show theme songs, whatever.  If he's heard it, he can sing it. 

Here are some pictures from the fun last week:

Happy Halloween!

This was the kiddo's first big trick or treating experience. We went out for a minute last year, but he was only a couple of days out of the hospital, so it was a short trip. Gage picked out his own costume about a month ago (see my previous post about superheroes) and I've had it hidden. When I pulled it out tonight, he was super excited! I didn't think he'd roll with the mask the whole time, but he did! He LOVED being Spider-Man. He walked on his own and insisted on carrying his own pumpkin (to hold candy). It got pretty heavy, but he would not let us carry it. He was still going strong after almost an hour, but J and I were worn out, so we steered him back toward the house. He loved seeing all the kids, totally knew how to say "trick or treat" and just had a great time. He got a lot of compliments on his costume, but I think it's because he was just so cute and outgoing. We really had fun and Monkey did great!

State Fair!

Every year since Jason and I started dating, we've talked about going to the state fair and every year it would pass us by. I really wanted to go this year with Gage, so I recruited our friends, the Cannon family, and we made a family date of it. Now I won't tell you how much money we spent in 2.5 hours, but it was a large sum, and the only tangible item we came home with was a 2 foot inflatable Spider-Man. I don't care though, we had a great time. We started at the auto show, which was tough because Gage loves to "drive" cars. we had to drag him out of there with some kicking and crying. The grown ups tried some of the food (shout out to Jason and Daniel for standing in the Fletcher's line for everyone) and we rode the kiddie rides for about 45 minutes. When we first got to the Midway, we walked past a huge ride that was spinning people WAY up in the air and Monkey was really into that. He got so excited when it would go up in the air. This kid is a daredevil, I tell ya. He and I rode the jumping dumbos ride, which an elephant ride that goes up and down while going in circles. Then we rode the whale ride, which splashed up and down and blew bubbles - we also ran into the Lee family there - EVERYONE we know with kids was at the fair today. Sidenote: the weather was awesome. Gage rode the whales again with Jacob, while I bit my nails on the sidelines. He loved it though, didn't need any grown ups. He rode a car ride with Jason that looked cool, but ended up being kinda lame - only one time around, really? We stepped into the shade and he and I rode the haunted house ride with Daniel and Jacob. We both thought "meh" on that one. Jacob and Ella shared some rings with us on the ring toss game and then Gage and I rode the animal kiddie coaster. By the time we got back to the group, Gage was fading fast. We decided to head out and spend the rest of our tickets on food on the way out - funnel cake (me), Reuben sandwich (Jason), iced tea (me), orange push up pop (Gage) and frozen lemonade (me). We got home just in time for nap time and Gage and I both crashed. It wasn't perfect, there were some minor wiggly meltdowns over not getting his way, but distraction usually worked quickly and he was able to walk around on his own a lot, which helped. I really had fun and Gage did too. Jason and I were saying it would be cool to go back at night for an adult outing to see some music and just walk around. It was worth it just for the inflatable Spider-Man, which he's been playing with all day.

Fall is here...

I was off today, so we made some plans with GiGi to go and check out the Blase Family Farm in Rockwall. Of course we started the day with homemade pumpkin pancakes to get in the mood. Gage loves him some "ca-cakes". We got to the farm around 11a and stayed for about an hour. We got to feed and pet goats, cows and a sheep. Monkey kept running over to the cows and yelling "moo!" Trying to communicate with them in their own language, of course. The area is pretty heavily wooded with a little valley that was more treacherous, so of course that's where Gage wanted to go. We did a lot of redirecting and he caught on to us pretty quickly. After running through the pumpkins, feeding the animals an picking up every stick he could find, we jumped on the hay ride. We were worried he'd get bored, but by then he was slowing down and he really liked the tractor, so it was great. He got to pick out his own pumpkin to bring home and then we all stopped for a little lunch together. Monkey and I both ended up taking a 3 hour nap. Now THAT'S how you spend a nice, crisp fall day.

Conversations with a 2 year old

Lately we have noticed a BIG jump in Gage's vocabulary. Specifically, he speaks using more complex sentences and ideas. Now the sentences usually go something like..."airplanes fly in the sky" or "watch Super Grover with the chicken, cluck cluck?", but its still fun to have actual conversations. Animals are always referenced by their name AND the sound they make - except for cows, which he will still only reference as "moos". I was commenting to someone at work about how much talking he's doing and how great it is that he can usually tell me what he needs and that I can even reason with him sometimes when he gets upset. Now it doesn't always work, of course, but it helps me stay calm. Anyway, during that conversation I realized that some of the increase is probably a result of ME being able to interpret toddler speak just as much as it is him learning more vocabulary. Who knew I'd be learning a new language too?

Superheroes

A couple of months ago, I bought Gage a Superman shirt at Walmart. I bought it because I thought it was cool, not really because he was into it. Well since then, he's been totally into superheroes. Now, no matter what superhero it is, they are all called "superman". We try to tell him the right names, Spiderman, Batman, etc., but it doesn't matter, they are all "Superman!". Recently, it's become more Superman-specific. He picked out Spiderman for his Halloween costume, but I think that Superman is definitely his favorite. We have tried to find some shows to TiVo, but they are all borderline too violent. I need to try and find some toddler-friendly Superman videos for him. He loves to tell us how "Superman flies in the sky!" and point to his shirt and show me Superman. I figure this was inevitable, as the mom of a boy - superheroes are part of the drill. It's just been so funny how all of a sudden in the 6 months he has become ALL boy. Dinosaurs, superheroes, football, airplanes, guitars....he's into all of it. So I ordered him a bunch of new PJ sets that showed up today and I covered it all - Superman set, aliens set, guitar set and dinosaur set. His little toddler mind was blown - it was like Christmas in September. He wanted to take his bath and put on pjs at 6p.