Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Leo’s been here 14 months













Leo was very cooperative during his 14 month chair photo session. My secret? I took the pictures first thing in the morning, hence the bed head.


These days Leo’s more about talkin’ the talk than walkin’ the walk:

On the move:
He takes a few steps at a time but is still content to do his “proposal” crawl where he scoots around on his left knee…always his left!

Chattin' it up:
Now onto talking: I’m going to make the word list cumulative so some might be repeats from past blogs: mama, dada, ball, hat, backpack, lion, hi, bye-bye, cup, pool, dog, car, eyes, duck, tar (as in guitar), Elmo, hug, Claire (John’s mom, although he says “Cuh”), egg, cheese, nana (as in banana), cado (as in Avocado), boo-buh (which is his word for the rubber spatula in the kitchen).


And misc. cute stuff:

When we say “brush teeth” he puts his finger over his mouth and does the teeth-brushing motion. In fact, he does this whenever we go into a bathroom.

He goes to music class where the teacher sings, “Bah bah bah” and when Leo hears this on the music class CD or if I do it, he sings it back—“Bah bah bah.”

He can point to his eyes, head, feet and belly button but still gets mixed up with ears, nose and mouth.

He loves to come around a corner or around a door and say, “Hi!”

He’s STILL a sucker for peek-a-boo!

When he throws his sippy cup or food on the floor he shakes his finger and says “No-no” but it sounds more like “nuh nuh.”

He’s really good at the “Where is so and so?” game. He can point at Mama, Dada, his friend John and Claire. He can also point out people in pictures—everyone but himself:

Leo, who is this? (pointing at me): “Mama”
Leo, who is this? (pointing at Frank): “Dada”
Leo, who is this? (pointing at him): Giggles.

He gives kisses by coming right at us with his mouth open and his eyes wide…I need to get a video of this; it’s too hard to explain!

He doesn’t have stranger anxiety. In fact, sometimes I think he has stranger preference!

When I’m doing core exercises, he jumps all over me. And when I hold the plank, he climbs up on my back and sits on me like he’s riding a horse.

His favorite "toy" right now is his bucket of books. He takes all the books out and scatters them around and then acts like he's reading them. I just need to teach him how to put the books back in the bucket.

He's into his stuffed animals and he brings them on the chair with him when we read him stories. His favorites are Huggy Bear, the lion and the chicken.

He’s pretty good at puzzles…well, the one puzzle he has. It has shapes that you have to put in the right spot. When I show him how to do it I’ll hold up the circle, put it on the place for the square and say, “Does it go here? Nooooo” and so on until I get to the place for the circle. So he does his own version of this, holding each shape over a place, shaking his head and saying, “Nuuuuuh” until he gets to the right place. But when he gets to the right place, he puts it in there and then picks it back up and bangs it together with another shape, saying “Yea!”

Yea for Leo who is 14 months old today! And a special yea for dada who’s been here 384 months today!


















Thursday, June 25, 2009

I'll hug when I want to

Leo loves to give hugs...he hugs me, Frank, his friend John and his bear...only he doesn't always do it on command:

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Dada's Day


Leo LOVES his dada. He talks about him all the time. And when I say "talks about him," I mean that he says "dada" periodically throughout the day while Frank is at work. And when I come in to get him in the morning, he always points out the door and says, "Dada" as if he expects Frank to walk in right behind me.


This morning, as a Father's Day present to Frank, I took Leo out right when he woke up and took him on a stroll (brought his breakfast to-go). Frank got to sleep until 9:15am! Woo hoo!


Then we took Frank to lunch at a BBQ place--Leo's treat. But Leo ended up eating most of Frank's mac and cheese:





Thursday, June 18, 2009

More mysterious injuries

On Monday I went in to Leo's room after a nap to find him standing in his crib, perfectly happy...with blood on the top of his head, all over his chin, neck, onesie, sleep sack and sheet!

I was in such shock that instead of picking him up, I did the normal routine of singing his wake-up song and opening the curtains (but my voice was shaking): "Naptime is over, naptime is over, now it's time to play..." And then I thought, what am I doing? He's covered in blood!

I called my mom who helped me figure out that he had bitten his lip. Oh, and by the way, we had playgroup coming over in 15 minutes...and there was Leo, covered in blood. And did I mention that he was perfectly happy?

Here's a picture I took of the happy, bloody boy. But this is after I cleaned his face and neck. So imagine him with way more blood. But just as happy.


And believe it or not, the blood did come out of his clothes! Go Dreft Spray!

Monday, June 15, 2009

Leo Channeling George Costanza

When Frank put Leo's hat on backwards he said, "Hey, Leo, what are you doing manana?"



Now we just have to teach Leo to say, "Manana I'm doing nada."






Thursday, June 11, 2009

Storyless Scar

Leo has a mysterious scratch on his head:



I don't know how it got there which puts us in a pickle: If it leaves a permament scar, what will the story be? He needs some sort of exciting tale to impress the ladies when he's older. For now, we're going with "lion" since that's one of the words Leo can say. Plus, it's way more believable than "ball," "backpack," or "duck."




Thursday, June 4, 2009

Postcard from Boogerland



Hi! Wish you were here! I know I vowed never to take any child of mine to the soft play area at the mall after my mall-based eye doctor's receptionist told me disgusting tales and dubbed the place boogerland.



But it was too hot to go outside and I needed a diet lemonade from Chick Fila and that all added up to this trip to Boogerland.



We didn't stay long since there were several children in violation of the "you can't be taller than this hand" policy. That, and my own kid was contributing way too many boogers of his own. So grateful for the hand sanitizer pump they had at the exit.



Bye bye from Boogerland!