Posted by Patrick on February 28th, 2010
Won’t be long until Ted has his own cake in front of him! Here’s a photo of Ted helping me blow out some birthday candles as I put another year behind me.
Ted continues to be a party animal, wishing everyone a ‘happy birthday‘ on Valentine’s day. Here’s a shot of him making some Valentine’s Day cards, Ted-style.
He’s still a big fan of the crafts, and a big fan of coloring. This month he was able to draw with crayons two wheels and a line around them and call it a truck. He’s on the right path to being able to doodle really well on his own, a skill that will serve him well in school and in meetings later in life.
Ted’s 23rd month also included a visit from Auntie Christine, who is a big fan of Ted from way back. Ted is now able to say most of his relatives names on contact (including dealing with the more than one person is called ‘Auntie’ paradigm). When using Skype though, he likes to wait until we hang up to say their name. Like tonight we were talking to my folks and as soon as we ended the call, he said “Pops and Gram!” Better than his old Skype habit, in which he would fill his diaper every time we started a call with someone. Toward the end of this month he actually began potty training.
This month he began speaking in pretty complicated sentences. “There are police cars everywhere!” “Mommy, Mommy, what do you see?” “Chickadee hopping on the ground.” “Eating the hummus and the Triscuit.” He knows a good chunk of the letters of the alphabet, and can almost sing the whole alphabet song. He sings a lot of songs too, both songs he knows, like Twinkle Twinkle and some freestyle made up songs that we need to get on video stat. He even made up a song about one of his best friends, Mackenzie.
The above photo is from the North Carolina International Auto Show. This is the second year we’ve gone. Ted is a big fan of cars and trucks, and loves to sit in the driver’s seat and pretend to drive. He also likes to wait until Daddy is looking away for 1/10th of a second and then beep the horn inside the building where the show is behind held. He had a great time there, sitting in every vehicle that was unlocked.
Posted in Accomplishments, Months Old, Ted |
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Posted by Patrick on January 31st, 2010
After twenty-two months Ted can now name some of the planets of our solar system. He exclaims “JUPIDER!” as soon as he see’s the red spot in his book of planets. And to think, he’ll never know life thinking that Pluto is a planet.
Speaking of books, he’s back into books big time this month. He’ll plop down in a lap with a stack to read through. He continues to fill in words and sometimes whole sentences when we conveniently leave them out.
And he sometimes speaks in sentences, too! His first two full sentences were “This is the bunny” and later “The cow says moo.” No adverbs or Iambic pentameter just yet, but he seems like he’s on the cusp of communicating a lot more with us. He’s also learned several letters and can tell you what they are while pointing to them. ”H for helicopter!”
That communication also includes the word “no” of which he knows the precise meaning. He’s gently easing himself into occasional toddler defiance.
But he’s still super fun to hang out with. Here’s a photo of him on his first walking hike with Aunt Deirdre a few weeks ago. He’s always up for adventure and daring stunts. Make no mistake, he wants to go down the big slide. Today he went seat-of-your-pants sledding in our backyard (our backyard hill is finally good for something!) and loved it.
Speaking of running around, he likes running around. We shout “ready set go!” and he runs across the house as quick as he can. This kid is fast. He still likes to dance, too. He’s a few weeks into another Kindermusik class, which only increases his dance fever.
Ted likes snacks and asks for them by saying “snack” and sometimes “snack please” . He still loves fruits and veggies, and recently tried and embraced hummus as his dip of choice. He scarfed down a whole container in a few days. Graham crackers with peanut butter and sprinkles are delicious, too.
Check out that first haircut of his. He almost needs another one now.
Here’s Ted watching Sesame Street on Hulu. Can you get any closer to that screen?
He’s not all stay-at-home-and-read-and-watch-internet-tv. Ted is a social guy. At playgroup he shares toys, or at least tries to. He also will say “trade” when he’d like to swap what you have with what he has. And he is a hugger. He hugs us frequently throughout the day, as well as his stuffed animals, his toys, and his friends. He loves watching the birds in our backyard and at our friends Lisa and Mackenzie’s house. He is starting to learn a lot of different kinds and can be heard shouting, “WOODPECKER, WOODPECKER, CHICKADEE, BLUEBIRD!”
Posted in Accomplishments, Months Old, Ted |
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Posted by Patrick on December 30th, 2009
December has been a crazy busy month, much like last December. Lots of exciting things going on, like parades and trains and holiday travel. And please, don’t forget the trucks.
Ted now memorizes book passages. He’s not really reading, but if you’re reading a book aloud to him (that he’s heard before) and skip an important word (“Goodnight ….”), he’ll jump to fill it in (“Moon!”).
He ate a crescent roll, which (don’t tell him) is a bread product. This was amazing. He does not want sliced bread, ever. Vegetables and fruits and yogurt are still a large part of his diet. He’s also very into pasta now, still into pizza, and wouldn’t mind taking a container of sprinkles and eating the whole thing (don’t worry, he hasn’t). He likes his Uncle Josh’s sweet potato pie, too.
Ted is still obsessed with transportation. This month its been trash trucks all the way. He and Kate will watch the trash truck pull up to the house and use its robotic arm to dump our trash into the truck. Ted smiles and says ‘dump!’ when this happens. Santa brought him a megablocks Recycle Truck for Christmas, much to his joy.
Ted likes playing under blankets. This will lead to a love of making forts, I predict.
Also:
- Can repeat most words we ask him to. The other day he said ‘astronaut.”
- When asked to say something to someone, he frequently whispers it.
- He was very well behaved on our flight up north. Magnadoodles and JetBlue in-seat TV screens helped.
- Knows a whole bunch of his relatives names now. He got lots of practice last week.
- Oh yeah, he still loves to dance.
Posted in Months Old, Ted |
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Posted by Patrick on November 29th, 2009
As he approaches twenty months old, Ted has become very serious about one thing.
Stickers.
Well, not very serious. But he does really like them, and doesn’t seem to mind them getting stuck in his hair. Or on our furniture. Kate got him some window-cling Christmas stickers for our front window, which Ted is quite fond of re-arranging.
November marked the transition from big and little pumpkins to turkeys and artichokes. Early in the month Auntie Christine stopped in for a visit. Here’s a photo of the two of them eating artichokes. Although I think only Ted actually got to eat any. I think he might have eaten two of them. He does still (thankfully) love veggies of all sorts, and can switch from eating pancakes with sprinkles to peas and broccoli without much fuss. He really likes edamame (soy beans) too.
Speaking of food, Ted also had candy corn for the first time in November. He loved them, of course, because he is human.
This photo of Chris and Ted is not a photo of them eating candy corn. They are sorting through rocks from our yard, which Kate and Ted collected in a bucket. Fascinating! Ted seemed to like it though.
Ted said “auntie” about a million times that weekend. But he’s more than a one-word kind of guy now. ”Crayon pleeeease” and “one more time” are common phrases. We’re pushing the “please” pretty hard, and sometimes he remembers to say it without being reminded. Ted can also identify the sound of someone’s voice without seeing them in person, saying “Pops” when my dad called us on Skype without using video.
This month’s mode of transportation is the truck (last month trains, before that helicopters). Watching our trash get loaded by the trash truck this week was very exciting, and he was disappointed to learn that the truck wasn’t coming back for a whole week! Poor kid. He points out all kinds of trucks, and can identify some, and for those he doesn’t know, brands them as “dump truck”. He is very into a book called Trucks.
This photo shows Ted holding and eating a burrito from Moe’s. He likes his with chicken, lettuce, cheese, black olives and extra black beans, and don’t forget the chips. What he fails to realize is that his parents eat the cookie that comes with it. When he reads this blog posting in a few years, he’s going to be mad.
Thanksgiving! We spent it in a nearby town with some friends, and it was fun. Ted didn’t even have to sit at the kid’s table!
Earlier in the week, Kate got out the blank cards, washable paint, and Ted’s left hand, and started making turkey cards. They came out great, and Ted seemed to enjoy it.
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Posted by Patrick on November 3rd, 2009
Being the parent of a nineteen-month-old is an entirely different experience from parenting a seven month old. Nineteen-month-old Ted is independent and primed for action. And nineteen-month-old Ted wants to run headfirst into danger.
(Here’s Ted in his car-seat. He’s been forward facing for months now. )
Here’s Ted modeling on the couch.
His use of language has gone from picking up individual words over time to instantly repeating words he’s told, and quickly assigning them some meaning. He knows all manor of color (“brown?”) and animal sound, and is quite knowledgeable in the realm of truck taxonomy (“dump truck! fire truck!”). He puts words together too, as in, “Mama’s blue car” or “one more book.”
He also is very into shapes – when coloring he knows circles and squares and hearts and moons and stars. He says “scrawngle” whenever he wants to say “triangle”. He knows open/close and light/dark.
While earlier in the month was all about helicopters, later in the month was all about trains. Trains, trains trains. Also, trains. Kate picked up Ted a little wooden train track, much to his excitement. This month Kate and Ted headed up to RI for Jack’s second birthday party. Jack and Ted had a great time playing trains together.
Here’s Kate and Ted when we were at the pumpkin patch, getting some pumpkins for his (second!) Halloween.
Here is a photo from their trip to the fire house with Mom’s Club.
Posted in Months Old, Ted |
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