Skip to main content

Happy New Year!

By Jess
It's hard to remember last New Year's, when Leo could not yet walk. I do remember, as late as August (my last post, in fact), wondering if he would ever stop making that TV-static-noise.

What a different boy he is as 2012 begins! His vocabulary is growing by leaps and bounds on a daily basis. There are still some quaint Leo-isms, like "la-lahp" to mean "water", but most of his words are spot-on and he strings them together to tell great stories. A few examples:

Two weeks ago, I was pulling cookies out of the oven when Leo came around the corner. I told him it was hot, but he was already backing up and saying "Hot. Hot." Then he surveyed the scene, and looked up to where the cookies were cooling. "Cookies! Cookies. Eat. Those. Please. Happy."

"Check" is one of his words, and I want to laugh almost every time my little investigator wants to follow-up on something unknown, whether it's a beep outside ("Beep! Truck! Check.) or to see if we have more pears (Leo: [more] Pear. Me: I'm not sure we have more pear. Leo: Check.).

The Tuesday before Christmas, we spent an overnight in downtown Indianapolis on a mini family vacation. The hotel was dead, so we had the pool to ourselves the next morning. I don't think a day has passed since then when Leo doesn't reminisce about the fun we had. "Swim. Mommy Daddy lap. Splash! [Chicken-talk hands to mean shadow puppets.] Ack (Alex) too. Fun."

He's also started "singing". The other day he was singing Rock-a-Bye Baby to himself. "Rock. Baby. Blow [actual blowing]. Fall." One night shortly after I gave the boys Christmas songs to listen to (John Denver and the Muppets), Leo was up very late and when I went to check on him, he was contentedly lying in his crib singing a stream-of-consciousness Christmas song. (He says "Christmas" sort of like "Mistmas".) "Mistmas Tree. Pretty. Christmas. Snow. 'Na [Santa]. Lights." He also knows several of the 12 Days of Christmas, and some of his ABCs.

He is sweet and affectionate, offering spontaneous hugs "Hug," with little arms outstretched.

"Lap!" is self-explanatory.

"Pretzels" and "Bless you" sound very much alike.

He used to cry and scream at tooth-brushing time, but now he asks to brush his teeth (I think toothpaste was a great motivator). He can reach the toothbrush and cup by himself, and can turn the water on and off upstairs. He always wets his toothbrush, then asks for toothpaste. After chewing on it a while -- now he's started spitting, like he's seen his big brother do! -- he'll rinse the brush again. Then Mom fights for her turn, and I count to six (for the six parts I need to brush), and he helps count some of the numbers. He always nails "six". Then I rinse his brush and put it away and he helps himself to a glass of water.

He's very interested in counting, but the numbers are hit and miss. He usually starts with two, goes back to one, and then two, three. When we count the arms on the starfish in one of his magazines, he counts, "one, two, arm, arm, arm."

And now, I think I hear the boys hollering upstairs.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Masterful Manipulations: Short Story Homeschool Co-op Class

By Jess
I taught a class on iconic short stories this spring at our homeschool co-op. I don't know how many of my former English teachers may have passed since, but any that have are rolling in their graves at this news. I find teaching especially stressful but this class exceeded my expectations in basically every way and that might have made it worthwhile. We read 20 short stories, which I was free to choose primarily on the basis of how much I liked them. I organized them based on loose associations. Table of Contents (We never officially read this, but it was so short, I included it in case I needed to read it aloud during that first class.) One Summer Night , by Ambrose Bierce Short Story Elements To Build a Fire , by Jack London Irony The Necklace , by Guy de Maupassant The Gift of the Magi , by O. Henry The Ransom of Red Chief , by O. Henry Irony - American The Veldt , by Ray Bradbury The Lottery , by Shirley Jackson Setting - Irony - Foreign The Sniper , by Liam O'Flah...
Post a Comment
Read more

Lazy Saturday

By Jess
I took a three-hour nap this afternoon (no fooling) to make up for my restless sleep last night. It put a big hole in the day, but I'm feeling much better now and I'll be better prepared to lose another hour of sleep tonight. Tomorrow will be the first ever observation of Eastern Daylight Savings Time in Indiana. They've been warning residents of the imminent clock-setting for roughly three weeks on the radio -- and I only listen to the radio while I'm driving around town. Although we'll miss the convenience of Central Time's TV schedule, we're glad we won't have to play "What time is it in Indiana?" with our families for another summer. Come to think of it, we don't have cable anymore, anyway, so the TV schedule will hardly affect us. It seemed the local broadcast channels were on "Indiana time" last year. The day didn't go quite as planned. We had been invited to our yoga instructor's home for an afternoon of "jammi...
4 comments
Read more

Another month passes me by

By Jess
To quickly recap: We enjoyed a late-October weekend in St. Louis, accidentally arriving during the 8th inning of the Cardinals' World Series Winning Game. At the Ballpark Hilton. One block from the stadium. It was a night -- and very early morning -- to remember. We visited the zoo, Union Station, the Arch, the Botanical Gardens (to see the Chihuly exhibit), and I don't remember where else. Great city, good times. The furnace installation was completed on November 4th, and we've been toasty warm ever since. On November 15th, I hosted (with the immense help of three friends) 20 at the Ladies' Gourmet dinner. "Cranberries" were the theme ingredient. Everything was delicious. I was exhausted. The afternoon before leaving for St. Louis, I taped three half-hour shows for the Health Department, which I then had to scramble to assemble and deliver by November 17th. Of course, nothing ever goes smoothly over at the studio, so it took three times as long as planned ...
Post a Comment
Read more