Friday, October 29, 2010

5 reasons James made me smile this week


5) He learned how to nod his head. He is very proud of this new skill even though he isn't very good at it yet.
4) On Tuesday James was on my bed throwing pillows onto the floor. I said, "James why are you making a mess?". He replied, "mess funny!".
3) James has developed a new laugh. It is very loud and very fake.
2) He likes to line all his trains up into one big train. It fascinates me to watch how he organizes them and reorganizes them. I also appreciate that this new game can entertain him for up to 30 minutes at a time!
1) As I was changing his diaper earlier this week James grabbed his boy parts, giggled, and said "it's a toe!".
OK, one more bonus story for you just because I love to brag about my little boy. :) I was sitting on the floor next to James as he was playing with cars. I gave him a kiss on the cheek and told him how much I loved him. He then turned to me with an adorable little smile and said, "it's a smooch!". His favorite book of all time is The Pout Pout Fish. At the end of the book the main character (The Pout Pout Fish) goes around kissing everyone. It says "smooch, smooch, smooch" as he kisses each character. I guess James figured out that my kiss on his cheek was also called a smooch. Little smartypants!

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

19 months

James is now 19 months old and just as feisty (yet lovable) as ever!

* He says so many words. I can't even begin to count them. He is a little parrot and will try to copy most things we say.

*James has always been really social but I think he gets more friendly every day. He says, "hi Mama, how're you?" several times each day. He is on a first name basis with my Mom (calls her "Jo"). He also makes nicknames for people. Tim is Timmy, Tom and Thomas the Train are both Tommy to him.

* For some reason he has decided that he dislikes clothes. A few weeks ago he would not sleep until we took his pajamas off.

* He does not like to have a dirty diaper. Usually he will immediately come to us and say, "poo poo change". I think that's a good step towards potty training but we aren't quite ready yet.

*James still loves to be active. He thinks it is his right to visit a park at least once a day. He says "park. swing swing. slide." and that's our clue that he wants to go to the park.

* While driving around town he recognizes many of the roads and landmarks. He knows we are almost home when we are 3-4 blocks away. He also recognizes when we are getting close to his cousin's houses, the park, the grocery store and this one particular fruit market that he calls the apple store.

* James knows the names of almost all of his family members and can usually tell you who goes with who (so when he's talking about his cousin, he will usually mention his aunt and uncle too).

* He really likes animals and doesn't seem to be afraid of them no matter how big they are! We have gone to the fair and a couple of petting zoos recently and James marches right in with no fear.

* He has mastered all of his toys so he gets bored pretty quickly at home. Within 15 minutes of getting in the door he starts asking for some of his favorite movies, "fishies" or a Thomas movie.

All these quirks add up to make our precious little boy. :)

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

12 on the 12th - October

I try to do this every month but only remember once every 6-7 months. The idea is that you take 12 pictures of your "everyday life" on the 12th of each month. In October, the 12th happened to fall on a Tuesday. Since I was off work, it was a little easier for me to take 12 pictures. So, here you go...this is my average Tuesday with James.

Right after he woke up, James was pretty whiny. I was still tired and longed for a little more sleep. I brought him into bed with me and he watched a whole episode of Curious George while I rested.


After we got dressed and ate breakfast, we headed out to run some errands. Before we left, I took this picture of my pathetic pumpkin that's taken over the front of our house.


The first place we stopped was Dunkin Donuts. I got their delicious pumpkin coffee. Yum!


James read his new train book (thanks Dad and Linda - he loves it!) while waiting for me to get my coffee.


Next stop - the park! We are so lucky to have 10+ parks within 10 miles. James really needs to go somewhere to get his energy out everyday so most Tuesdays include a trip to the park. This was the first time in 5-6 months that we've been to this particular park, so he was really excited to explore it.




I took this one of myself to show off how pretty the view is from this park. Isn't that farm fabulous?


After he got all of his energy out, we went to the grocery store. I didn't take any pictures in the store but you can imagine a whiny, crying, screaming toddler trying desperately to climb out of the cart all the way through the store. LOL! He knows there is a mechanical train outside the store and he thinks that the quickest way to get to the train is to scream the whole way through the store. Next time I might let him go to the train before we go into the store and see how that works.


He ate lunch while I put the groceries away. James is a picky eater but when he finds something he likes he gets very focused. In typical fashion, he eats with one hand while holding a dirty fork against his head with the other hand.


After lunch, James took his nap. I cleaned the bathroom, did some laundry and made some phone calls. Nothing worth taking pictures of there! I did make this cottage cheese loaf, though. It was delicious, too! (Thankfully this picture doesn't showcase the eggshells that fell in the casserole.)

Rod left for work at 6:20AM and arrived home at 8:20PM. He had to pack for his trip (a school trip to Williamsburg) so we barely saw him at all. Beasley tried to sneak into Rod's bag.
Thanks for looking!

Monday, October 4, 2010

Waiter...I'll have some normalcy, please.

The past few weeks have been busy around here. James is adjusting pretty well with the exception of his sleep schedule. Several nights this week he woke up at 3:30 and was up until 5:30 or 6 then went back to bed until 9. This morning he was up for the day at 5:30. Hopefully he is easing back into his typical schedule of sleeping from 9PM-7:30AM.

The first odd thing that happened about 3 weeks ago was our cat got sick. He spent 3 days at the vet's office then came home with a bunch of pills. At first we were able to trick him into taking the pills but then he figured out what was happening so we had to force the pills into him. James would go into hysterical crying fits every time he saw us wrap the cat in a towel and give him the pills (even though the cat didn't make any noise or even struggle much). So, every morning and evening we would have to hide from James and give the cat pills for almost two weeks.

Two weeks ago our house got broken into. It was crazy for one day while we made police reports, had detectives doing fingerprints, etc. But, everything turned out just fine.

The weekend before last we stayed in a cabin for the weekend. It was fun and relaxing but that is when James got his sleep schedule all mixed up.

Then last week I got sick with Pleurisy. I was off work Tuesday-Friday and home with James. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to lift him or spend much quality time with him for the first few days. Although James was well taken care of, I think it threw him off a bit to be so off schedule.

I'm really hoping that things will start to get back to normal this week!

In the midst of all the craziness, James went to the doctor and he was 35 1/2" tall (97th percentile) and 26.14 lbs (62nd percentile). He also got the flu shot and MMR.

James has also picked up a lot of new words this week: chair, work, today, home, giraffe (he doesn't call it a tractor anymore!).

He has also introduced some phrases like, "Hi train! How are you, train?". Pretty complex for an 18 month old, I think! He also asks what people are doing by saying, "wa doooing?". Grandma Jo taught him the Hokey Pokey recently and he loves to show off this new skill.

Well, it's time to finish getting ready for work. I just wanted to take the few extra minutes I had this morning (thanks to my early riser) to remember some of the craziness of the past few weeks.