Seventy-first Weekiversary

Since Pat’s monthly post last week, Ted has added “Zoe” and “kitty” to the six words he was saying last month.  He says Zoe clear as day.  He seems to be starting with the harder words first… He could say teeth before he could say mama.  And he says, “ticka ticka ticka,” while tickling his own belly.

He is also starting with the harder, more obscure animal noises, llama, monkey, donkey, and of course sheep, but he finally says, “moo!”  I mean to me, moo seems way easier than hee haw.  For the rooster he says, “cock-a.”  He doesn’t quite have the -doodle-doo yet.   And occasionally he will tell me that the dog says, “arf, arf, arf.”

He will tell you that a car says, “beep beep” and the train says, “toot toot.”  He loves pointing out cars.  I took him to Marbles Kids Museum, which is in downtown Raleigh and let me tell you- there are a lot of “cars” in the city.

He also loves playing the drums and loves drumming all over the house with anything that resembles a drumstick.  Or his bare hands if a drumstick isn’t handy.  I don’t know if it is just an intense phase or if he is going to be a musician.  Every time he hears a bit of music or someone says the word “dance,” he starts dancing.

Also new this week, he knows where his knees are, as well as my knees.  And when I pointed to my arm tonight and told him the word he repeated it like three times, trying to get the sound right.  I didn’t add it to the list of words he knows because that was the first time he said it and sometimes he will just say a random word once and never repeat it.

His newest sign this week is “help.”  Unfortunately he mostly only does the sign when I say “help” instead of just making the sign to actually get help.  Hopefully he will figure it out quickly that signing help is going to get me to help him much faster and happier than his previous method of whining in frustration.

Another thing Ted loves is feeding Zoe cat treats.  We had to put a child lock on the drawer where we keep them.  He will give her a whole bunch and we will tell him she is all done, but he keeps signing, “more, more.”  Zoe is definitely enjoying this new skill.  Also Ted seems to know that they are just for the cats and never tries to eat them himself or feed them to Pat or me.

Lately I have been looking at our cookbooks, Deceptively Delicious and The Sneaky Chef, just to get ideas for healthy things I could cook for our family.  Really Ted loves vegetables and fruit, so right now I don’t have to worry about hiding them in other foods… its the other foods he is more suspicious of.  One of the key ideas in both books is that toddlers don’t like trying new foods.  I decided I had better start upping Ted’s variety now, while he is still accepting of them, so that there will be less “new” foods for him when (and if) he hits that phase.  So this week he had olives, summer squash, quinoa, salsa, zucchini, and whole wheat crackers with cheddar cheese.