15 Month Cole Update

Coley hit 15 months recently and he's just getting....more. More what? Sweet. Stubborn. Talkative. Goofy. Cranky. Hilarious. All good things (well, I could do with less cranky, but we can't be picky now, can we? Oh wait...add that to the list--picky).

At his 15 month doctor's appointment all looked well. He weighed 24.6 lbs (75%) and I forget his height but it was about 90% and so was his head circumference. Big boy!!

As for words, he's got a gazillion. Well, we lost count around 60, he's got way more than that. He's even hinted at putting two words together. Today I said "Daddy's here!" as we drove in the driveway and then as we walked up to the house several minutes later he repeated the same thing. He also said "Elmo ook" (Elmo book) the other night while he was taking story requests (And shaking his head and saying Nooooooo to the other books I offered).

Cute things he's done/said lately:

• In addition to "uh-oh" he now says "oh NOOOOO" when he drops something
• "Ummm" everytime he looks inside the fridge (reflecting my indecisiveness at what to feed my family, apparently)
  
• He says Mama? Dada? Ah-dee? in question marks when he wants us. Addie and Cole can go on forever. Ah-dee? What? Ah-dee? What? Ah-dee? WHAT?? But the cutest is how he will want to tell us something. "Mama? (T)ruck." (I just saw a truck) "Mama? Up." (Pick me up!) Dada? Elmo" (Yo dad, let's getting moving on reading this Elmo book, kay?)
  

• He recognizes and can say the following character's names: Elmo, Big Bird, Abby, Grover, Bert, Oscar; Dora, Boots, and Map; Wow Wow Wubzy (it's adorable to hear him say this), and Mickey (still dik-dee). Mickey and Elmo are big faves.
• He can say please (peez), thank you (dahdoo), and bless you (behoo). How polite! It's the cutest when he does them umprompted (some of the time)
  
• We listen to Pandora (internet radio that you can set to themed channels) and after listening to the Lion King channel a lot, Cole can now identify a Lion King song after the first line and will make his "what does a lion say?" sound (kind of a TV-static little raspy roar thing) to let you know he knows it's from the Lion King
• Speaking of animals, he knows the sounds for (and uses daily) a cow, sheep, elephant, monkey, lion, owl, cat, dog, bird, mouse and horse. And Uncle Dan gets just as much of a kick out of asking him to do them all over the phone as he used to do when Addie was this age.
  
• Speaking of animals (yes, again), the other day Cole went from walking to down his hands and knees and started crawling on the floor saying "woof woof woof woof" then stood up and looked at me and said "dog" :) I love that he can pretend now! And yesterday he started saying "hoo hoo hoo (as he was walking towards us)" stops and says "Owl" then walks away. Thanks for the info, dude.
  
• Speaking of yesterday (am I boring you yet?), we were at Rockville Town Square playing in the fountains and Cole would play for a minute or two then come back and give me a kiss, play, kiss, play, play, kiss. I melted each and every time.

• Speaking of potty (oops, we weren't, but go with me on this one)...Cole has now sat on the potty a total of 3 times, though no deposits were made and I have NO intention on potty training him early even if his big sister is a promoter of all things potty. He's been able to tell us "boop" as he is pooping for awhile now. Then he started saying "bee bee" when Addie or one of us goes to the bathroom. Since his big sister holds her self MichaelJackson-style when she has to use the restroom (We're working on breaking that habit--ideas welcome), he's started grabbing the front of his diaper and saying "Bee bee" anytime one of uses the restroom. This led to Addie insisting that he needed to go to the bathroom so we got out the potty insert for the toilet that Addie used to use. It's cute, but yeah--no rush on my end for him to start using the "pobby" exclusively.
• He's known "up" and "down" for awhile now but now he knows the difference between hot and cold. He prefers water with ICE thankyouverymuch. Because it's "brrrrr"
  
• He's gone from having a trucker's appetite to being a lot more picky. Sigh. At least he liked the ribs!
  

• The kid is STUBBORN. He has an unhealthy obsession with my iphone. He loves talking on the phone and he knows how to unlock it (two step process: press circle button, then slide button on the screen) and can scroll through pictures and has even found a few of his favorite apps. If I take it away? Hysterics. And not easily distractable either. Sigh. This happens with other less expensive items too. If he doesn't want to be picked up he will straighten his arms in not-so-passive resistance so you can't get a grip under his armpits. He knows what he wants and makes it quite known to you.
• He so wants to be a big kid.
  
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• His relationship with Addie is still really great. They are often found playing Ring-around-the Rosie together in the living room and laughing at each other's belly buttons (Cole calls his "buddy" which I think is a hybrid of "Belly" and "button"). They fight over toys and dora books, but overall they really truly love each other and they cooperate quite well together.
• OH! Addie, the drama queen, will cry over every scratch and barely a boo-boo and lately Cole will walk over to her and give her a kiss wherever she's hurting...so sweet.
  
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• They really do love each other and I am immensely grateful to how that worked out.

Coley Boley. A sweet and silly clown like his daddy :)

Hold me Closer Tiny Dancer

Addie dances all day long. If she's not sitting or lying down, she's dancing. Today she was dancing to her rendition of Hakuna Matata in the Geek Squad line at Best Buy. If she's not full-out dancing, she's often walking around on her tippy toes and/or dramatically throwing her arms here and there to make a point.

This past weekend we met up at a big park with some families, and two moms separately caught these images of her dancing to the music of a nearby carousel. I love these photos because she looks so serious and intense, but I know she's happy because she's dancing. My free spirit. My tiny dancer.

photo by L. Dunnivan

photo by E. Trigg

Two new videos

First off is a Mother's Day video Steve made with the kids for me...I love it :) (WARNING--it's 6 and a half minutes long and there's a lot of random dancing in there)

Cole LOVES looking at himself in the mirror (who can blame him, he's adorable!). So when he can see himself as I video him from my phone...he becomes quite the showoff.

Just like his momma....check out my adorable little man!

Last Day of School

So today was Addie's last day of her first year of preschool. I would be lying if I said it was a smooth road. Addie cried almost every day at drop-off and while she would often cheer up soon after I left (according to the teacher and other parents), there were times when I would pick her up at the end of the 2.5 hours to find her sitting on a chair quietly while the other kids played. She sometimes didn't participate in the art projects, which is strange because she LOVES to do art at home. But she always thrived during Mini Movers--a singing/dancing/activity thing they did once a week. The school she attended was a co-op which meant that there was one teacher and 2 parents per class day and the parents all rotated, so I was there sometimes, and not there others. This inconsistency, we feel, was not good for Addie, so we have chosen a new (non-co-op) school for next year. Crossing our fingers that next year is an easier one for her!

I took pictures on the first and last day and WOW they have both changed so much. We expected Cole to change over the 9 moths--he went from a immobile 6 month old that didn't even crawl let alone walk to a walking/running/trouble-making little toddler. But ADDIE--WOW, she went from little girl to big girl in one school year. She now insists on choosing her outfit (resulting in some solo-dress-up days at school--from Redskins Cheerleader to Snow White to Fancy Nancy) and she can dress herself, put her own shoes on, take herself to the bathroom, and she's quite the independent little girl.

Check out these pics--September 2010 to June 2011...wow what a difference!!

How does time fly so fast?????

Please don't change...

At one point Addie used to say "poothtaste" instead of toothpaste and I loved loved loved it and never wanted her to learn the real word, though of course...she did. Lately, Cole has some cute words that I know he'll grow out of

Elmo=Elbow

Blueberries=Bubble (he also calls strawberries and grapes bubbles now)

Mickey=Dikdee

Addie is pretty funny, too.

Addie: "Daddy, why do the Streets Have No Names?"
Steve: "I don't know...maybe they forgot to put street signs up."
Addie: "I think a big street sign monster came and GOBBLED them up! But that's just a guess."

Summer Summer Summertime.....

We haven't even hit summer solstice but the weather is hot hot hot! I'm not complaining, the summer is SO much better than winter for me. So I'm declaring it summer here already. Here is just some of the summer fun we've been having.

We set out to plant our garden last weekend. We fortified ourselves with Steve's homemade pancakes and dined on them al fresco.

Then off to Home Depot where Dan introduced Cole to some pretty big power tools.

Addie was very serious about being a big part of the planting process.

Cole just liked playing in the dirt.

Since last summer the very beautiful (but very hungry) deer ate any and all vegetables that came up in the garden, this year Steve designed a big ol' fence to surround the plot.

The finished product!

In other summer fun, Addie has been loving the sundresses because they make her feel QUITE fancy

Addie and Cole continue to have a love and scuffle (not hate) relationship. The scuffling is pretty minimal and really only involves the sharing of toys.

Cole has been very serious about his artwork lately. Masterpiece #137. Artist: Cole Robert Silvestro. Title: Recycling Shmecycling. Media: Cardboard. Style: Neoimpressionism. Pants: optional.

Speaking of pants, we went over to Addie's schoolmate Emery's house for a swimming playdate. Having come unprepared, Addie got to borrow some of Emery's duds. Cole just went in a t- and diaper combo.

NOT PICTURED: the point when we realized that ALL of the kids were naked, the only stitch of clothing on the collection of them was Cole's diaper. There was quite the anatomy lesson that day.

And in big news, Cole had his first Popsicle last night. We couldn't do anything to convince him to hold it by the stick, whenever we tried to show him, he got mad, thinking we were going to take away his preciousssssss.

Loving the summer so far :)

Slacker update + Ice Skating

I know, I know. I've been TERRIBLE about updating the blog. Here's the thing...I get overwhelmed by big tasks. So I throw it on the backburner. Then they get bigger. So when I finally get around to an update, I have so much to update it takes me a long time to choose the photos, upload them (on blogspot you can only do 5 at a time and they upload in reverse order, so you have to do some finagling with the order...bah), then I have to come up with the captions....it's a whole evening! So...I've hereby decided (and surely the grandma's will help keep me accountable) to post once a week. If I do it often then it won't be so stressful, right?

Right :)

So....I am behind a few holidays or two (ahem...Easter....ahem...VALENTINES day) but to ease myself back in the waters, I'm just going to do one theme today...ICE SKATING! I give Gaga all the credit for suggesting and nudging us to do this for a long time. We finally got Addie out there and she was nervous at first but she LOVED it so much we went back a second time.

The first time Gaga came with us and was going to skate with Addie, but Addie was nervous and wanted me to go with her --so that's why I'm wearing short pants--not exactly ice skating gear. I was also unprepared with Addie. I remembered a jacket but EVERY other kid on the ice was wearing a helmet from home. Oops. But the cool thing is that the special "tot skate" session means not a lot of people on the ice and they bring out these little walkers that the kids can hold for support. Pretty cool, huh?

The second time I was a bit more appropriately dressed, and we got Addie pretty cool helmet. Oh, and she was wearing actual gloves instead of socks on her hands.


Hey guys? Can I come?



Cole was just a little jealous :) Next year, little man. Next year.