A fun summer day

I love these two pictures of Caden playing outside in the water hose at Neice and Papa’s house. What a perfect way to spend a hot afternoon, attacking their dog, Maggie, with water. Obviously she didn’t mind! If you look closely you can practically hear the giggles and screams

 

Keep checking back for more posts!  I’m on a roll!!!  After no blogs for months I am going through and putting up all the great pictures from over the summer

The pantry thief

Here is a cute pic of Caden helping himself to a snack. I keep a childproof doorknob on my pantry door which deters him for about 15 seconds. I may have to resort to buying a regular locking doorknob, turning it around, and using a bobby pin to unlock it (thats what I do in my office). We’ll see…I strategically place all the healthy snacks down low but often he uses other objects (boxes, ride-on toys, his high chair, etc…) to climb up and reach the good stuff. He always shuts the door behind him and perches himself on that box I’ve yet to unpack. Its his secret spot

Caden’s First Day of School

Well Mothers Day Out but he was really excited.  We went last week and he met his teachers and got to play for a little while in his classroom.  Other than the church nursery he has never had to stay with any strangers.  Amazingly we have so much family that I have yet to pay a babysitter to watch him and I get out plenty!  We are so blessed.  Anyway he looked a little unsure when Adam and I dropped him off this morning.  I thought he might start crying but then he saw a toy bus and a box full of rocks with a shovel and everything was okay.  Of course despite my best efforts to adjust his schedule so he would nap later he woke up before the crack of dawn this morning and was so tired he fell asleep at school.  The teacher said it will take a few weeks to adjust especially since he is the youngest in the class.  He told me he played with a bus, cool car, cool truck, and cho-cho so it must have been a good day

 

Here are a few pics of him.  Yes we are dorks and realize Mother’s Day Out isn’t normally a monumental event, but our baby is just growing up so fast…tear (no I didn’t actually cry)

 

Five, Two, FLY

A few weeks ago we were playing in the playroom when I heard Caden start counting which is always concerning. I look over and see him belly flop off his trampoline while yelling five, two, FLY. Me being the great parent I am after seeing that he wasn’t hurt ran to get the video camera just in case he was crazy enough to do it again. Oh course he was The video I got was probably on his 5th flight or so and was less enthusiastic than the first. I think the pain was starting to set in. Nevertheless it shows the craziness of my little guy. At the end you see him walk over and go down the stairs. I didn’t catch it on video but he went to the fridge, took out an entire bag of shredded cheese and brought it back up to me and clear as a bell said “I’ve got cheese.” He didn’t eat it just brought it to me. Super random.  I wish I understood how his brain worked!

I don’t know what the fascination with jumping is but today he jumped off the back of a parked trailer (at least 30″ high) directly into a bush. Luckily he went feet first. Of course he counted but we were too far to stop him. Adam ran over and pulled him out of the bush and he was covered in leaves and little pink flowers. Adam claims it is the stupidest thing he has ever seen him do. I pray that is as bad as it gets but I’m sure we have much more craziness to come. On a slightly more positive note he started jumping off the diving board today with Adam catching him. All the big kids were doing it and he was so proud of himself

My Little Man is 2!!!

Just a few weeks late

 

It is impossible to believe we have a two year old!!!  It doesn’t feel all that long ago that Adam and I were dreaming about getting married (we just celebrated 7 years!).  To soften the blow I’ve been saying he’s almost 2 for the last few months.  When people asked how old he was it just didn’t make sense anymore to say he was one.  Why yes, my one year old scales bookshelves and climbs to the very very top of the swing set.  I realize these may not be normal for a 2 year old either

 

Caden’s stats… Caden is in the words of our pediatrician a bean pole.  He is 35 1/2 inches tall which puts him in the 87th percentile but only weighs 25.6 lbs putting him in the 17th percentile for weight.  He has only gained half a pound in the last 6 months but many inches in height!  After I described Caden’s activity level (constant craziness) the doctor said he is not concerned.   At 2 they predicted his adult height to be between 6′ and 6’2”!!!  I am 5’8” and Adam is 5’10” so it looks like he will be taller than both of us which for a boy is great news!  Just 3 months ago my friends little boy turned 2 and they predicted he would be 5’8”-5’10”.  At the time Caden was atleast 3 inches shorter so I was worried he would be 5’2”  Obviously he had a growth spurt!

 

Everyone says he looks just like his Daddy.  He hardly looks like a baby anymore.  He is really muscular and strong but still very wirey.  He is starting to outgrow some of his 18 month shirts (they are too short) but he can still easily wear 12-18 month shorts.  He is so tall though he needs 2T jeans.  I have to always make sure he gets the kind with the hidden adjustable elastic in the waist or else they just fall off.  He is even starting to lose his chubby little cheeks.  He has a full mouth of teeth.  I absolutely love his toothy grin.  He hasn’t cut his 2 year molars yet although it seems like he has been working on them for months.  He has been much much healthier his second year than his first which is a relief.  I no longer am fearful at the church nursery or other public places.  He has had a few little things but nothing serious.  His ear tubes fell out by 16 months and we haven’t had any ear infections since.  His biggest medical treatment was the two stitches he got by his eye at 22 months which wasn’t even a huge deal.  He is a tough little guy.  He still loves band-aids though and often scours his body for a scratch or other band-aid-worthy injury.  Often times they are completely healed and he still wants band-aids  The problem is that if I give him one he then acts all pitiful and moans and whines that his pretend injury hurts.  What a man!

 

Ways Caden plays… We love to watch Caden play!  He is so full of life and creativity.  I wish I felt even a tiny fraction of his excitement (or had a fraction of his energy!)  He is all boy.  He runs and jumps and throws things pretty much all day.  His favorite toys are things that go..planes, trains, trucks, cars… Anything can be a plane and fly or a truck and drive as long as it makes the right noise.  He enjoys building things with his big legos.  Lately the game is to see how tall he can stack them but he also builds garages and tunnels for his cars.  Of course every activity ends with destroying whatever he just created while yelling loudly.  He is a little monkey and climbs all over everything.  He can now reach just about anything he wants by pushing furniture around.  I pretty regularly find him sitting on my kitchen counter eating fresh fruit out of my basket or sitting in the sink playing in the water.  Other than bolting all furniture to the ground I’m not quite sure how to keep him out of things anymore.  Luckily he tends to be cautious in his dangerous ventures and has yet to get hurt.  (The time he got stitches he just tripped.)  He loves to play outside and doesn’t seem to notice that the heat index is well over a 100!  He is Mr. Independent.  He wants to drive his cozy coupe or ride on cars all the way to the mailbox and back.  It takes us at least 30 min.  We can do it in 20 minutes if he pushes his shopping cart which is a really cute site to see.  While we walk he babbles and points out everything he knows the name of- grass, sky, squirrels, dogs, bikes, and of course every car or truck we pass.  At least there is some shade at our new house but at 7 months pregnant playing outside in July is excruciating.  He is really starting to pretend play at lot.  He “cooks” us all kinds of concoctions and sweeps the house.  He uses his tools to fix things and works on his computer just like Daddy.  He is definitely watching us imitating everything we do (scary!). Lastly he has a key and lock fetish.  The kid can lock/unlock just about anything.  That includes removing baby proofing doorknobs.  We had to turn his lock around on the door to his room because he kept taking off the baby-proof doorknob and trying to throw it away.  Yes I lock Caden in his room anytime he is asleep- judge if you must.  He is ridiculously fast and will leave the house unsupervised.  When we moved to the new house a few weeks ago we only had a normal doorknob lock and a deadbolt and I literally could not keep him in the house.  I would go to the bathroom only to come out and find the door open and Caden and the dogs outside on the drive way.  Adam installed for us a third keyed lock.  I have to keep the keys hidden though.  For a while I was keeping the keys on the kitchen counter until I found Caden with a handful of keys going from door to door trying to figure out which ones unlocked which doors.  Crazy kid!  Apparently Adam was the same way.  His mom started locking him in his room after she found him riding his tricycle up and down the street in the wee hours of morning. The apple didn’t fall far from the tree.  I’m not sure what I did to deserve this though since I was a perfect angel

 

Things Caden watches… He is obsessed with Thomas the Train!  Much to my frustration he always asks to watch the cho-cho.  I wouldn’t mind except there appears to be no moral to the story at all.  Thomas never obeys, he makes terrible decisions, bad things happen, Sir Topham Hatt gets cross, and then everything is okay again only to repeat the same bad behavior next time.  Oh well, he is probably a little young to be picking up the story line anyway.  We also watch Blue’s Clues where he yells “A CUE, A CUE” every time a clue pops up on the screen.  It is absolutely adorable and makes me smile everytime.  He even goes and finds his notebook and a crayon and draws (scribbles) the clues like Steve does.  Most recently we watch Word World and Caden tries to read the letters he sees.  Really his alphabet sounds like a foreign language and consists almost entirely of vowels but at least he is interested!  Adam bought me an iPad for Mother’s Day and Caden is incredibly proficient at it.  He has a whole page of kid apps and I’ve loaded on a bunch of movies and shows.  It has really helped with entertaining him long enough to get ready or grocery shop or wait at the doctors office.  There are some really great educational apps out there so I only feel so guilty  We have a great interactive alphabet one that he loves.  Lots of things to touch and crazy movement tends to keep his attention.  He will also pull up flashcard apps and I hear him yelling out the words when he finds one he knows.  Adam and I marvel that a not even 2 year old can learn to operate an iPad.  He picks out his shows and sometimes I catch his restarting them when they end- little stinker.  He knows how to get to the page of kids stuff and how to change from one app to another.  He can even open Netflix and pick out a show to stream.  And we thought we were proficient with computers!  Caden will probably pass Adam up in grade school

 

Things Caden loves… Caden loves popsicles and suckers.  He calls them pops and sucks.  We have been doing an intense swim course to teach him to rescue himself if he ever falls in the pool and as a reward he gets a sucker at the end of every lesson.  Actually he gets two.  One he opens and eats and the other he keeps in his pocket for later.  He loves his pockets!  He hates swim lessons and we go 5 days a week for 6 weeks!  He screams like he is being tortured but at least I know he won’t drown.  He has already crawled out the doggy door at Grandpa’s house and gotten in the pool (on my watch!)  Caden also loves cupcakes.  We have started baking cupcakes as an activity.  He sits on the counter and dumps in the ingredients and turns on the mixer.  He also gets to pick out the paper liners and put them in the tin.  When our first batch came out of the oven he yelled “Cupcake, cupcake, oh boy, oh boy” over and over again.  Then he gave one to everyone that came over for a few days.  I quickly realized that we couldn’t eat cupcakes as often as Caden requests them so we started making mini muffins which are just as fun and much healthier.  He still loves the dogs and calls them by name- Syn and Ab.  He repeats just about every command we give them.  Our new house doesn’t have a complete back fence yet so the dogs are always getting out.  He runs out of the house yelling “syn, ab, stop, come.”  He also uses all those commands on us and his stuffed animals.  He tells them (and us) to “sit” places and do things  Caden also is obsessed with tractors!  Grandma and Grandpa have several tractors so he get to go for rides.  He will tell me he wants to go visit, then when we get there immediately goes to find the keys (among literally 20 other sets of keys!) in my Dad’s office, and then drags one of them to the door to take him on a a ride.  Again a very hot summer activity but I don’t think they mind  He got a ride-on John Deer toy for his birthday from them and we literally couldn’t get him off of it so he opened all his presents sitting on the tractor.

Things Caden says… He has finally started using words.  I think around 20 months he expanded beyond mama, dada, more, etc… and it has exploded from there.  He knows the name of most things we use daily although they can be incredibly difficult to understand without context clues.  He often omits the last syllable which leaves you guessing at what he means.  Many words he says are clear as day.  I would guess he knows several hundred words.  I stopped keeping track because there were so many!  He is just starting to make little sentences and put together phrases.  He says “I know”, “I’ll get it”, “go outside”, “more please”, and “help please”.  He is also putting adjectives in front of words.  He says “good” and “big big” to describe things.  When we were traveling he called all the planes at the airport big big planes, and the ferry boat a big big boat.  It is almost as if something in real life gets the big big description and things he sees in books or at a distance are regular planes, boats, tucks, etc. He will repeat phrases after us and repeat things he hears in movies or on the radio (again scary!).  He is also learning to count.  He often misses numbers and puts them in a different order everyday.  The one thing we do know is that when he starts counting we need to be ready because he is about to jump off something.  His favorite combinations right now are (holding up one finger) “two, three, two, three, GO!” and “three, five, JUMP!”.  Oh boy!  He also reads letters he sees on signs and shirts by making up crazy combinations usually e-i-m-o-e-i.  I take it as a positive sign that he recognizes letters and is trying to read them.  Maybe one day soon he will sit still long enough the actually learn the real alphabet.  Everyday he is getting easier to understand and saying more.  I’m hoping in  another few months he’ll be able to tell us what he thinks of his baby sister.  I know he is frustrated that he can’t explain himself which leads to lots of screaming.  I am constantly trying to help him learn to use his words to express himself which makes communication easier.  He seems to understand almost all of what we say to him though.  He can follow multi-step directions and complicated commands. Don’t be fooled though he is most definitely still not rational  (It took me 3 weeks to get this posted from the time I wrote it and the difference in his verbal skills in just that short time is amazing!  He is now putting together lots of sentences and almost always using phrases instead of just single words.  His words have gotten much clearer and he knows even more of them.  The only word we have regressed on is Firetruck.  He used to say it just fine and now he has started saying “F*** up” instead.  Unfortunately he LOVES firetrucks and even pretend plays with firetrucks so I hear this word a lot!  The other day I swear he yelled it at the top of his lungs in Target for 5 minutes.  People were giving me nasty looks.  Hopefully we can learn the correct pronunciation soon!!!)

 

Silly things he does… He is a silly little guy.  He loves to make silly faces where he scrunches his nose up and snorts.  He also plays with his food, mostly by leaving things hanging out of his mouth, which he thinks is funny. We try not to laugh but he can be such a ham especially if he has an audience.  He loves to run away from you and dive into a nearby couch, bed or stuffed animal giggling.  The more you chase him the harder he laughs.  Everyday he greets Adam by running as fast as he can in the opposite direction as soon as the door opens.  He learned to spit water from watching Madagascar (thanks Aunt Liz) and unfortunately does it often.  He also learned he can use his spoon to fling food.  Uhoh.  He likes to be tickled.  We will tickle him and he laughs and pushes us away and then pulls us back in to tickle him more when we stop.  He really likes to wear hats and shoes.  His, ours, makeshift ones.  Just about anything can be a shoe or hat.  He really likes to put boxes on his head (or blankets) and run around aimlessly yelling.  He has a little pair of sunglasses that he wears on his head just like his Daddy.  Caden really dislikes it when the wind blows his hair.  He wants to come inside and find a hat on windy days.  Odd but I’m just glad he will wear hats now.  There are so few boy accessories

 

Getting ready to be big brother… Caden now knows there is a baby in Mommy’s tummy.  He also thinks he has one in his and so does Daddy.  So don’t be offended if my son tells you you are pregnant  We have set up the nursery at the new house and he knows that the crib is where the new baby is going to sleep.  We decided to name her Kennedy and he tries to say Baby Kennedy but it is a mouthful.  A few days ago I caught him rocking this little blue boy doll he has, then walking into the nursery with it and putting it in the crib.  He then leaned over the rail and talked to it saying night-night and rubbed its back.  I ask him if we should turn out the lights and he said yes.  He then got the doll out and put it on his shoulder and patted its back walking around the room talking to it.  It was so sweet I wanted to cry. He left it in the crib and as he left the nursery tried to lock the doll in just like we do for him  He assumes that everyone needs to be locked in their room at night… Later he came and got me and told me the doll had poop and asked for a wipe.  So I think he is starting to get it.  He very well may think that the baby doll is baby Kennedy though in which case he is in for a big surprise in a few months.  I hope he is a good big brother and I REALLY hope that I can protect her from her brother’s good intentions.  They will be the same age gap as Adam and Liz were.  I’ve heard terrifying stories of how much Adam loved to help with Liz.  They found him vigorously shaking her cradle as a newborn saying “rock rock baby”.  I know it was in love… luckily Liz appears to have survived.  I’m praying for a big chunky baby this time not a little 5 pounder like Caden.  A friend gave me some preemie and newborn sleepers and I about lost when I saw how tiny they were.  How quickly you forget.  Having a tiny baby was fun when there were no shall I say “helpers” trying to injure the baby.

 

We had his second birthday party on Saturday with 40 or so of our closest friends and family.  That was really only very close friends and family which I know is ridiculous.  It is a really good problem to have so many wonderful people in our lives.  We had it at our new house and it functioned wonderfully despite the lack of places to sit .  At first we were worried the house was too big, but it comfortably accommodated our big group and I’m loving the huge kitchen.  We set up a slip’n'slide and kiddy pool in the shade in the back yard and the kids ran amuck.  Caden was in heaven with all his favorite people everywhere and cupcakes and presents just for him! At one point at the beginning of the party he was handing his gifts out the the guests  It took forever for him to open his presents because he kept wanting to play with everything and because he wouldn’t get off his new tractor!  Luckily his friends were more than happy to help him along in the process.  He freely gave kisses and thank yous to everyone he could find.  After he opened everything I told him to tell everyone thank you and he yelled thank you really loud.  It was really cute.  He also knew just what to do blowing out his candles.  I was really surprised since we haven’t been to any parties recently.  Adam got an awesome video of it you can see below.

Caden seemed to have had a great time and I know Adam and I enjoyed ourselves.  Seeing your kids excited and happy has got to be one of the best things in life.  Combine that with catching up with friends and family and it was a wonderful day

And a few more videos: