20 months

Dear Leo,

Today you are 20 months old (!!!!!).

You are the epitome of a toddler--busy, busy, busy; interested in things that "go;" interested in making noise (mostly animal sounds); interested in getting your own way...etc.

You can concentrate very intently on something (a book, an episode of SigningTime, a sticker) when you want to. You will now sit quietly in my lap for extended periods of time if it involves reading books or watching ST (which you call "A-Leah" for Alex and Leah, the two stars). We wonder if Secret Seahorse will have you wanting a fish tank when you get older.

We don't have too many mealtime or bedtime battles--there are a few, but usually we work them out. Usually you'll eat what we give you (or choose not to eat) and go to bed when we put you down. Bedtime has shifted to 8-8:30ish. I preferred it when bedtime was 7pm--I could get a lot more done in the evenings then!

You are gaining lots of vocabulary every day and especially like names for animals. You are starting to string words together in two-word phrases with more frequency. Grandpa Bill recently taught you how to make sounds by moving your lips with your fingers. You are also learning more ASL signs, although we don't push those too hard.

You like to climb, with alarming skill for a little boy who lives in a 1-story house. You like to help--throw things in the garbage, put laundry in the washer, bring a kleenex when someone sneezes. You like to play in the water--your wading pool, the swimming pool, the bathtub.

We're working (slowly) on your manners. You'll say "thank you" most of the time, although it usually takes a little reminding. You're even starting to learn "please," although that one is a whole lot more inconsistent. You'll get there, though.

You are sweet, friendly, outgoing, brave, stubborn (wonder where you get that from?), giggly, silly, adorable, smart, and yummy.

We love you so much!

Mama and Papa

FYI....

... news on the grown-ups, as written by me, can now be found here. Henceforth, this will serve only as Leo's baby book, and the other will contain any and all ramblings I wish to write that are not directly about the toddler.

9 years ago today...

Jeff and I got married.

Happy anniversary my love!

Fun

Yesterday was Emma's birthday--we think Leo had fun at the party. Here he is on the slide at the park where the party was held.

We are going to a Durham Bulls game later. Luckily they have a big play area--I imagine that's where Leo and I will be spending most of our time. :-) Later: He seemed to think the ballpark was just a big place to run around, and didn't want to cooperate at all. We had to leave halfway through the 5th inning. Fortunately, I said I wanted to go to the game, not to watch the game. :)

Here is a picture of Leo dressing up like Papa for Father's Day.

He's been begging to watch the taped Signing Time episode for the last many days, and so we finally broke down and ordered this.

Bzzzzzzz!

We are busy as bees around here. I'm busy job hunting, Jeff's busy finishing up the school year, and Leo is busy being busy.

This weekend we are going to attend Emma's birthday party on Saturday and try to go to a Durham Bulls baseball game for Father's Day. Somewhen we also need to clean, do yardwork, go grocery shopping, etc.

Leo has gotten so used to my traveling recently that he didn't even bat an eye when I got home Tuesday--in fact he practically ignored me and decided that he wanted his Papa to read all the stories, etc. Oh well--I'm glad he adjusted well, but a little bit of "I'm so glad you're home Mama, and you can't believe how rough it was without you" would have been nice.

A few boy pics

We're adding some here just because we haven't in a while. I'll update the Flickr stream in a day or so, when I'm next back at a high-speed connection. It's been a real chore keeping up with him recently, so we haven't had the camera out as often as used to be the case.











Playing peek-a-boo behind the cabinet door.











"Climbing is one of my new favorite sports." (Fortunately, he hasn't discovered climbing the bookshelves yet.)

Verbiage

Leo is just full of words lately. In the morning, when he gets up, he has to make sure you've been introduced to all of the other crib occupants before he gets out--El-fan, gog (puppy), bunny, and chicken (which he can't say yet).

Yesterday while reading I am the Music Man he pointed at the person playing the saxophone and kept saying "el-fan!" He also has been referring to his "puhpull ball" and saying "again".

You might also think that we are living an episode of Mork and Mindy, as Leo calls his pacifier and yogurt--two of his favorite things-- "nanoo". We can't figure out why, except maybe "my nuk (what we call the pacifier)" = "nanoo".

It's really hot and humid here this week--yuck.

New title

You'll notice we've got a new title for the blog. We saw this saying somewhere and thought it was the perfect description for a boy toddler. And now that we have one, we know it's perfect. Leo is often noisy and dirty--but those aren't always bad things. However, I was not thrilled to find a small pile of sand on my side of the bed last night where Leo must have been practicing taking off his shoes...