2011 Wrap-up

This post is going to be a bit of a hodge podge, but there are some LO stats and stories from 2011 that I'm just not ready to leave behind.  You are welcome to come along for the ride, but I'm writing some of these things just for my own sake.  No hard feelings if you want to skip right on over.

Without further ado, here's a "snapshot" of LO now, some listed "superlative-style".  I can't remember when he started some of these things, but they are definitely with us as we start 2012.

• weight and height- holding steady at 30 lbs, and just under 3 ft tall
• toddler vocab of note- 
• "gotta be ba-set, das-right" (gotta be patient, that's right)- his response to us telling him "no."  I guess he'd like to think we're still thinking about saying "yes", but we aren't.  Now we say "yes, be patient loooong time" if it is something that will happen eventually.
• "driver man on break" or "digger/roller/front loader not moving" if the construction vehicles are still when we drive through "digger country."
• "dat's svag, diffent ____ peas" (that's schwag, different song/shirt/book please)
• "flipp-buh" (football)- no idea why when he says "foot" just fine.  While out friend Sam has been into all things football for what seems like an eternity, LO is just catching on.  Over Thanksgiving a Dad who was visiting our down the street neighbors was tossing the football with his big boys.  At some point, the man tossed one to our little guy and you'd think he'd hung the moon.  Flippbuh has been picking up steam around our house ever since.
• "soom" (spoon)- you know, like the one LO holds in his left hand as a place holder while he eats like a cave man with his right.  If we're really lucky, he eats with both...that's when the boy really means business!
• "peye-luh" (pile)- most commonly used in the sentence "Mommy make a peyeluh" who LO wants me to scoop dirt/toys/leaves into a pile so driver man can "soop" (scoop) it with his digger.
• "gerler/skerler" (girl/squirrel)- think it's weird to pair these up?  Maybe.  LO has about the same awareness/use for both, and they are the only words he adds the "-er" to for no apparent reason.  Actually, he might notice squirrels more now that I think about it. He thinks all people are "man" or "boy".  I am a boy, girls in pictures are boys.  No biggie to me, gender awareness or awareness of other kids in general is not a big thing until closer to three years.  It does get a little dicey though when we have a super nice female painter downstairs with short hair, tattoos, and a deep voice and LO says "man talking down there."
• "sool"(school)- he seems to like it most days.  Just like anything else, some days drop off is easier than others.  
• "tay-doo" (thank you)- says it most of the time when I want to hear it.  I hear that he says it a lot around strangers and school.  I guess the kiddo is getting the message on manners and that makes me do a little jig on the inside.
• doobie- the nickname for a favorite cousin he first met in May.  Lately it is interchangeable with his baby brother whom we call "newbie," but apparently LO doesn't hear the difference.
• Best buddies- La-la/Lovie, Pooh, and Bob the mega bloks driverman

• Names he calls himself- "driver man" (most often), "monkey", "buddy"

• Nicknames we call him- all of the above, plus "J.D./Johnny Drama" when appropriate, "H.M./high maintenance" usually interchangeable with J.D., "punkin/pumpkin," "little man," "Big boy," "staller," "stinker"
• Friends at school or just the names he rattles off all the time- Callahan, Alex, Connor/Connor's Dad, Mason

• Personality- still pretty cautious, easily overwhelmed.  He likes the playground, but if there are more than a few kids, he'd rather watch than join them. Loud greetings (if friendly and well intended) are poorly received (When the MDO director cheerily says "good morning, so glad to see you again" = melt down LO until we get down the hall).  Sweet/gentle soul...does every mama think that?  Compliments my food (just today "Driver man loves this" about ants on a log, and "I like to eat" as the understatement of the year), asks to snuggle sometimes, offers "love you mama" without being prompted, and said "I like your hair" months after DH taught him to when I got a hair cut.  Sensitive, easily upset.
• Stall tactic that works- every kid has them, I tried not to respond to them.  His most obvious is "read books with mama/dada."  He uses this most often to delay having his diaper changed in the morning.  At an age when there is little snuggle/still time, and he prefers to not be in my lap for other book reading times, how can I not respond to a request to cuddle and read first thing in the morning.  Nope, couldn't handle it.  I caved, and I'm not sorry.

• Good morning?- Most mornings I enter LO's room with a bowl of cereal in my hand.  I think this started because I was trying to multi-task and LO likes to play around in his crib for a good 15-30 minutes before getting out (before he started asking to read books).  Somehow LO got into the habit of asking me for a slice of banana out of my bowl every morning.  Now, instead of a proper greeting, I say "good morning" or sing "good morning to you," and he says "banana! banana peas!"  We are really trying to work on this now, but I feel a bit like I'm training a monkey.  I say "what do you say to mama?" "good morning mama" and he gets a banana slice.  hmmmm.
• Toughest thing about LO right now- This is a three-way tie.  Fortunately we don't usually experience all three at the same time. 1) "Fighting" him to do something, especially when that something is to be nice/have fun with him.  (e.g. having repeated fits and time-out over 45 minutes so we can just get out the door to go to the park) 2) Racing him to eat our own food.  I think eating meals as a family is pretty important.  DH and I realized the other day that we are doing less and less of that because we feel like we have to race LO to eat.  If he finishes his food before us, it's open season on our plates! 3) Melt downs at bath time.  Like most things toddler, there seems to be no rhyme or reason to these.  Sure, they are more common if he hasn't napped well, but otherwise we just can't predict which nights will be the ones that he suddenly stands up in the tub (5 secs after getting in) and screams "get out" while we rush through bathing him.  This is +/- screaming through getting dressed in PJs. Glad this one is relatively rare, because it leaves us fried!
• Skills that impress us- 
• singing ABCs for a couple of months, but now know nearly every letter by sight.  He sometimes mixes up "M" and "W",  "U" and "W",or "Y" and "X" for obvious reasons.  Every letter has a word with it, and when he mixes up the letter name, he still gets the word correct.  He might say "W for undies" when the letter is "U".  I think it is super-cute that he has words he can relate to for each letter rather than the ones in his books.  "B" for Bob, "C" is his name, "D for Dada", "K" for Nanny K, "L" for Lovie, "M" for mama, "P" for Pooh, "S" for Sam, "T" for truck, "U" for undies. 
• reciting numbers 1-15, still working on the concept of how many.  He understands concepts of one and two things.  Working on showing us numbers on his fingers.
• reciting the entire first page of "The Potty Book" over a week after it was last read. 
• has known colors and shapes for months now...still some question about whether he can see red.  This was going to be a separate post, but there really isn't much to say.  I try very hard not to examine or analyze him, but in late summer there was a day when I finally realized that he very consistently confuses red and yellow.  He doesn't seem to be joking (we can tell when he says something that he thinks is funny), and they are the only two colors he mixes up.  As far as I know there aren't any color-blindnesses that are only red/yellow.  He definitely and very consistently gets all the other colors correct, including pinks, purples, blues, and greens of different shades.  Sometimes he'll correctly call something he's never seen before "red", but just as often it is "yellow" and we say "what color?" and he'll correct himself.  It makes me sad to wonder what his world might look like without red, but it will be years before we can test him.  Maybe by then we will have convinced ourselves otherwise and I'll just laugh at how much we paid attention to it.
• Favorite music- "Goatherd" from Sound of Music, "Heigh Ho" from Snow White, "Billy Joe McGuffrey" (aka "fers grade" by LO) from Veggie Tales Jonah movie.  By the way, he has seen none of the movies, just likes the songs. He likes most things with brass/horns, acoustic guitar, or a good beat.  He seems to really dislike country music.  Yesterday he had a melt down when a children's country sounding song came on Pandora's toddler station.
• What should we name newbie?- We have asked LO this several times.  Initially he responded "David" or "Jessica" who happened to be workers we had recently had in the house (see comment about man talking down there).  Later LO responded "baby Kristen" (an 18 mo old-ish little girl Nanny K keeps when not with us.  Sometimes she keeps both if we are in a pinch.) and "pee" because lately everything has to do with "pee-pee" except when there's actually a potty involved.
• Which leaves us with parting comments on just what is going on with potty training.  (Inquiring minds want to know, right?) Well, not much officially.  We have two potties and LO was very interested in them at first, but lacked the other skills he needed to really start working on it. He even went on them numerous times.   Then he lost interest and we didn't push it.  Frankly I think trying too hard and too soon is the most common mistake parents make in this arena.  So...we've waited.  I don't really have a plan here, but I do fantasize about having LO out of diapers before newbie gets here.  I don't really think that is going to happen, though, and that's ok. Lots of older siblings regress when their newbies are born anyway, so what's the rush? (oh yeah, laundry...lots of laundry)  In the meantime, LO has a little renewed interest in sitting on the potties, and a lot of interest in getting undies.  He loves to read the couple of potty books we have, and some of his friends from school are starting to learn.  Maybe we'll have a little positive peer influence there.  
• ok, I just have to leave you with this photo comparison.  When I posted this pic of LO from this Christmas, I immediately recalled a pic of DH from last year.  Perhaps the similarities are most obvious to me.  Who's your Daddy, little guy?

So that's where we are in this new year that promises a whole lot of change for all three of us.  I'm sure some of that will be hard, but we're looking forward to all of it.  Bring it on 2012!