John's 23-month birthday

In honor of John's 23-month birthday, which was December 8th, I've compiled a list of things John started doing in the last month. In no particular order, John started.....

.....Saying "Happen?" (meaning "What happened?") when he doesn't know why something is the way it is or why he can't find something.

.....Wanting to wear certain items of clothing or footwear. He prefers shirts with pictures on them, like his firetruck shirt. He frequently changes his mind about shoes. Sometimes he wants to wear his nice brown shoes. Other times he'll choose his blue Converse sneakers or his black and blue duck boots. For a while after I first bought him his boots, he wanted to wear those NONSTOP -- he even wore them during his naps a couple of times. The great thing about the boots is that he can put them on himself (although then I'm not guaranteed that they'll be on the right feet).

.....Calling out for people to come get him while he's in his crib, either before he falls asleep or after he wakes up. He'll say, "Mommy here? Ma here? Daddy here? Ha-wee (Halley) here? Wi-wa (Lila) here? Eat-man (Ethan, our friend) here? Win-say (Ethan's wife, Lindsay) here?", thinking they'll come "here" to pick him up. Occasionally he'll throw in a wild card, like our neighbor, Rita ("Wi-ta"),whom he doesn't see very often, but whom he nonetheless thinks might be available to come get him.

.....Asking to go to specific places, like "Barbucks" (Starbucks), Target, "Moo-seum" (Children's Museum), or the "Choo-choo store" (Anderson's Bookstore in downtown Naperville, which has a Thomas the Tank Engine train display). He also recognizes stores when we pass them and asks to go in them.

.....Eating peas!!!! This is a huge accomplishment, since John used to gag on them. I've been hoping for a long time that he would start eating peas because they are so easy to fix. One day I was eating peas for a snack (I'm trying to eat more vegetables without having to eat salads), and John asked if he could have a bite. He's been eating them ever since. This is how I discovered that John will eat literally anything if he sees me eat it (a good thing if I'm eating vegetables, a bad thing if I'm eating cookies).

.....Saying "John do it!" I love that he is exerting his independence.

.....Playing regularly with blocks. He finally got interested in playing with the bag of Mega Blocks I got him eight or nine months ago. His favorite thing to do with them is to keep stacking them on top of each other until the tower collapses. John also started playing with Legos. My mom found two huge bagfuls of old Legos in the storage section of the basement, so she brought them out and washed them in a bleach solution. "Weg-os," he calls them.

.....Pronouncing words, in general, much more accurately. He is also now able to more closely approximate many bisyllabic words that he formerly abbreviated as monosyllabic words. For example, several months ago, he started calling Grandma Kay "Ma," but he now he calls her "Jamma" or "Gamma."

.....Using possessives more frequently. (I think he may have started using them for the first time while Ross was home on leave.) Sometimes he correctly adds the -s suffix onto nouns to show ownership ("Ma's house," "Mommy's car") and sometimes he doesn't ("John chair"). He is just starting to use the possessive pronoun "mine," but he has overregularized the rule governing possessive nouns and therefore adds an -s suffix to the possessive pronoun ("mine-s"). This is fascinating stuff for a language acquisition nerd like me.

.....Saying "hmmm" when he thinks something is interesting. He no doubt picked this up from his mother, who often ponders things aloud.

.....Drinking nonfat milk instead of whole milk. I gradually switched him over by way of 2% milk. He hasn't seemed to notice.

.....Sitting in his booster seat for every meal. This was a necessary change of location because he wouldn't stop kicking the foot rest on his highchair and I got tired of asking him to stop. But, while he doesn't get to choose where he sits anymore, he does get to choose other things, such as which color bib he wants (blue or green) and whether he wants to use a fork or a spoon to eat. In general, I give John oodles of choices so he feels like he has a say in what he does.

.....Calling himself "John" instead of "Naan" or "Naan Naan." He can also say his last name! "Coo-chard," he says. "John Coo-chard." He may have actually started doing this in November, but I can't remember for sure. It was definitely very recently.

.....Spelling his first name. He'll say, very matter-of-fact-ly, "J-o-h-n, John." I love to hear him do this over the monitor when he's talking to himself in his crib. He's got to be looking at the letters on his wall while he's doing it.

In closing, here is an extremely interesting fact about John at 23 months.....

He still doesn't say "yes"! It's the strangest thing -- if you ask him if he wants to do something, and he does, he'll say, "ok" or "uh-huh" in a very sing-songy tone. He'll never say "yes." Never. The only way he'll say it is if I ask him to repeat the word after I say it. He says "no" very well, though (sigh).

Anyway..... it's so hard to believe that our baby boy will only technically be a baby for a few more days! We are having a construction-themed birthday party for him the day after his birthday (the 9th) at Grandma Kay's house, so I will be posting pics from that very soon.