Sunday, January 23, 2011

Ride 'em, little doggie

An amusing video for you from our Christmastime visit with Byron's family, wherein Leo rides, pets, pokes, pushes, smacks, and hugs Monty, Uncle Scott & Aunt Adee's dog. I don't think Monty is even aware that Leo is in the same room.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

We now return to our regularly scheduled programming...


Christmas break is (finally) officially over - Byron started back at school today. It was great having time of for us all to travel and play together, but it's honestly nice to be back into our normal lives. Other friends (and their kids) are back in town now, playgroups are scheduled again, and our spring student loan payout has finally dispersed (big hooray!).

As for Christmas, we spent a week at my mom's in Missouri, then a week and a half at Byron's folks in Chicago. Leo got to see (and play with) a ton of family members, and came home with a ton of really cool new toys. He got to go 4-wheeling (that's riding an ATV for you non-country folks), make snowballs, play with a dog, show off his dancing skills, drag both of his great-grandmothers around, and help 'decorate' the Christmas tree with his Legos. Considering all the travel, new people, and unfamiliar sleeping places, he was a champ. You can see more pictures of our travels on my Flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/clickclickchic/sets/72157625704619577/

But the most exciting part of the time (for us anyway) was hearing his sudden language explosion. The pediatrician said it would happen around 18 months, and we've really seen it over the last 3 weeks. He now repeats everything, and says words without prompting. While most people wouldn't understand most of the words he says, we can really understand quite alot. And he loves letters and numbers - he loves to watch Wheel of Fortune and repeat all the letters as they come up. We're pretty excited about this development, mainly because it means an a near end to all of the moaning and pointing he's been doing! He has also developed an absolute love of clementines (up to 3 a day, sometimes 2 in a row) and is getting pretty good at peeling them and separating segments without much help.

So our little boy is growing up fast. Which is good, considering he's going to be a big brother in about two months. Guess that means I should enjoy this relative calm while I can?