23 Months

I missed the 22 month update last month! Oh, well. Wasn't the end of the world. Just gives me more stuff to put here!

X-man continues to be the sweetest little boy (with the occasional tantrum).

He is so enamored with the moon these days! He'll point to the sky and say, "moo?" Yep, that's where the moon is. And we're working on his understanding of star. He'll see one in a book or on his bib and he'll say "stoh" (which is just adorable, by the way). But outside, he points to the starts, the airplanes (we live close to a little airport...not a commercial one), the street lights and calls all of them the moon. He didn't see the moon last night because it was a very thin fingernail moon...I don't think he believed us when we told him that was the moon!

His words are coming fast and furious now! He says "dark", which sounds a little like door. He also says sock and shoe. These two words crack me up because he's trying really hard to make the "sh" sound...don't know why he does that on sock, but I guess it's artistic license!

He's also started saying "kii kii" which is Aunt Chickie (my sister) and grandma and grandaddy. He says "wa wa" which is water, but can also be applied to juice or milk.

Speaking of juice, he drank his first glass of juice this week. No, I'm not trying to deny him the joy of white grape juice, it's just that every other time I've tried to give him juice, he either choked on it or just didn't want it. But this time? Oh, you'd have thought I'd given him a milk shake! He loved it!! Still, he only gets one glass of juice a day...and with a meal. Otherwise, he's completely content with milk at the other meals and water in between times.

He's started to say his name, which doesn't exactly sound like his name, but he's got the ZZZ sound going. And when you ask him what's in mommy's tummy, he says, "bee bee." And the bee bee's name? He say's, "A-vee." Now, when you ask him what my name is or daddy's name or his own name, he still answers with "A-vee" so he's a little confused with that, but he's young yet. He'll know everyone's name before he moves out to college.

And he's really practicing to be 2. We've experienced many a fit with no really obvious trigger. Last night after daddy got home he had a Code Red Meltdown. He was screaming and crying and all sorts of hysterics and we could not figure out what was wrong with him! He just wanted to sit in daddy's lap and holler. At several points, daddy put him on the floor and said, "When you are calm, you can sit in my lap." This led to more screaming and more crying and the a few moments of calm.

And then more screaming.

Finally he calmed down and he just sniffled and did the little breath-catch thing you do when you've been crying sooooooo much. We never did figure out what his problem was. Daddy just keeps telling him that yes, it's hard to deal with all these emotions that are running around, but we have to learn! Too cute!

He knows to get his "jah-kee" when it's time to go outside and he wants to make sure that everyone else is wearing their jacket. He's got a little knit hat that we put on him when it's really cold and daddy has a knit hat, too. X-man likes to pat each of their heads when they're wearing their hats. Then he'll point to my head and say "hat?" and shake his head no. Yep. Mommy doesn't wear hats. It messes up her hair.

He's still a great helper, though he does know how to get right under your feet when you're doing something. Usually when I'm fixing dinner, daddy can keep him occupied in the living room while I'm in the kitchen. Sometimes, though, that doesn't work out. X-man is right in the kitchen and he wiggles his little self right between me and the cabinet I'm standing in front of. Where to little kids learn this trick? I know that he's not the first one to do this!

There are the times when he'll stand right where I want him; like when I open the oven door. He knows that when I'm in the oven, it's hot and he needs to stand in front of this one particular cabinet with his bottom right against the door. When he stands there, he looks at me like a little puppy waiting to be praised for doing a good job. And of course, I tell him what a good boy he is! He also has a special standing place when I'm loading/unloading the dishwasher. He puts his little bottom on the fridge and stands there while I deal with the dishes. This particular standing place doesn't have the same "sticking power" as the oven standing place because he'll usually leave his fridge post to try to pick up a dish I've just put in the machine or to help me push in the drawers or close the dishwasher door.

One of his new tricks is to pretend to go "nigh-nigh." He likes me to pretend night-night because I make snoring noises. But he likes to pretend to close his eyes. He clamps them shut so tight that his whole face twitches. And then he puts his little hands up to his face and feels his eyelids. I guess he's checking to see if his eyes are shut? Goober!

There are so many other things he says and does (like saying "tah dah" when he pulls his hands out of his long-sleeved shirts) that I'm having a hard time keeping up with it all. Yesterday as we pulled into the OB's office, he said "doc-toh." TC and I looked at each other and were both really impressed! We hadn't mentioned the doctor in the last few minutes, so obviously X-man is paying attention...and retaining that information! He even does a pretty good job of repeating words that we say to him. The other day, TC and I were talking about a word we heard on NPR - apoplectic. I had to go look it up and TC and I were using it in our conversation about what was happening with our city's public school superintendent (there's a big hooplah with some of his inappropriate expenses). Anyway, the news showed the school board special session on TV and there were people hollering over other people and yelling and basically making fools of themselves defending this superintendent (I can't say if he's guilty or not, but being reimbursed for alcohol and first-class plane tickets is not what I pay taxes for...if he really did get reimbursed for that). So, TC and I talked about the crowd being apoplectic and we asked X-man to say, "apoplectic." He let out some 4-syllable gibberish which was pretty cute...and he looked so proud of himself!

And I'm excited about having a tiny baby around again, but Mr. X-man is going to be the best big brother and a great helper. I can't wait to see how this turns out!