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April 10, 2003
April 10, 2003
Collin is 21 months old.
I know it, I’ve been a major slacker and I really have no excuse. I’ve sat down and tried typing out an entry a few times but the timing just wasn’t right and I was always getting interrupted. Hopefully tonight I have a spare four hours (joking!) to get this hammered out.
Ah where to begin…(scratching chin)…
The weather has been wonderful and we’ve been spending most of our afternoons out playing and having fun. Collin has a turtle sandbox that he adores so we’ve been building sandcastles, filling up buckets, and buring our feet in warm sand. Soon it will be time to get out the sprinklers. Collin’s also been enjoying his Fisher Price grow-with-me basketball hoop that he got as a birthday present last year. Those along with lawn toys, tools, and dirt, we’ve been having a great time during outside. Speaking of tools, Collin is now taking his play screwdriver and carrying it in his jeans pocket. When he comes across a wall or a door, he’ll whip it out, make a power tool noise and “fix” up the wall/door.
For the most part, afternoon naps are a thing of the past. Unless he’s really tired or unless we’ve had a busy and tiring afternoon, Collin won’t take his PM nap anymore. He’ll generally take a 1.5 to 2 hour nap late morning and he’s good to go until its bedtime. He has about 4 or 5 different Ty Beanie Baby squirrels that MUST sleep with him. He calls them his babies and when it’s time for bed he’ll say, “ni-ni babies” or in the morning say, “Hi baby!” He’s even named two of them. One is Brownie and the little one is…well…Lil One. He’ll cover them up with his blankie, give them a sip of his milk (while making a lapping up/drinking sound to go along with) and be ready for bed. I have to say it’s the cutest thing. I love squirrels and have a small collection of small to medium sized breakable figurines. Someone has gotten his hot little hands on them and now a few are sporting broken paws, missing ears and chipped tails. Poor things, they look pretty pathetic. He loves to tote them around the house and feed them his lunch and role-play with them. The other afternoon he was trying to feed one a slice of pizza. He’s starting to get into role-playing more and will try to play with the cats and give them drinks from his cup. He’ll take toys and sit down and “play” like something is going on between them and he loves to grab the phone and pretend to talk. He’ll usually say something like this as he’s holding it to his ear. “Uh…yeah (nodding head). Oh okay. Okay…okay….I don’t know…okay. Bye bye daddy work.”
As for language, it just keeps growing and growing. Most of his words are real easy to understand and very clear now. Nananna has now turned into Ba-na-na (banana) and La yoooo is now love you. He’s also getting very good at asking for help when he needs it.
A few funny things he’s learned are to say, “oh okay!” when he thinks I’m going to answer “yes” to something he wants. He’ll say, “Mommy cookie Oh Okay!” as if it’s one sentence because he wants me to say it’s okay and doesn’t want me to have the chance to say no. Of course there are plenty of times I do say no and when I do, he replies, “oh Okay” and will give me a grin, trying desperately to talk me into letting him have his way. Also, if we tell him no on something, he’ll hold up his index finger and say, ‘ONE!” and grin and look extra cute. It’s as if he’s telling us, it’s okay that we said no, but just one or once will be okay. When he does get or do something that makes him really happy, he’ll say “Happy Now?” and laugh. It’s cute because even though he means it as an explanation, he forms it in a question. Or if Mark and I do or get something that pleases us, he’ll look at us and say “Mommy/Daddy Happy now?!” It’s so adorable.
A daily conversation goes something like this: Collin: “Mommy cookie oh okay!” Mommy: “No, Collin, no more cookies tonight.” Collin: “One!” Mommy: “No, not just one. No more for tonight.” Collin: “Oh Okay One!” Mommy: “Mommy said no more Collin, how about some more milk?” Collin: More milk? Happy now!”
They sure learn early! (smile)
One of Collin’s favorite things to do right now is color. He’s really REALLY getting into it and will plop down on the floor, on his tummy and color away. He’ll scribble and draw circles while yelling, “A clue! A clue!” Then he’ll bring the paper over to me and ask me to draw a clue (a Blue’s Clues paw print). He loves crayons and likes to sit and name off all the colors. He also likes to peel the wrapping off, break them in half, put them in his mouth and color on his arms and face. This is why I always get the Crayola washable ones! (grin) He also likes to finger paint and love, love, LOVES stickers. A friend of mine got him a book of like 2,000 stickers of all kinds and these have been a lifesaver when we needed to be quite in public or if I needed something to reward him with. Lately when I’ve needed to run an errand, my MIL will come over for an hour or so to watch him and since he has a serious meltdown when I leave, I’ll get out his “special” stickers and he and Gran will do a “project” with stickers and crayons. He’s totally fine when I leave and shows me his art project when I get back. Thank you Khristina!
Another thing Collin likes to do is jump on our bed. He loves to take his blankie and crawl up on the bed and bounce around, throw himself around and pretend to go “ni-ni.” He’ll snuggle the cats (only Sadie will usually put up with this) and want me to lay down so he can jump over me. He’s never once fallen off the bed or gotten hurt but I still always make sure to tell him to be gentle and careful. I think he’s scared of falling off the bed. When he’s getting a little too wild, I’ll tell him to watch out for falling off and he’ll immediately calm down. Well, at least for a few minutes anyway. If I’m taking up too much bed, he’ll now try to move my leg/arm and say, “Mooove??” He’ll also do this when he wants to hog the couch or wants us to move over on the chair. Some of the things he comes up with floor me.
He loves the zoo (calls it zoom). Our zoo just opened up a huge underground nocturnal exhibit called Kingdom of the Night. It’s an underground PITCH DARK cave and swamp exhibit. We’ve been twice already Collin loves it. I was thinking he would be scared, because seriously you can hardly see a foot in front of you. People are bumping around and whispering for their kids. The second time we went, we were casually strolling through the swamp part and I looked over and saw an opossum on the loose! It was taking a leisurely walk along the arm rail. I swore I about jump out of my skin. We waited for a while and told a zookeeper that was near by. He said, “Oh, did he get out again? He does that sometimes.” Excuse me?!!!! That opossum was NOT happy when they tried to put him back into his safe area. He was flaring out his teeth and hissing. Scary stuff. The excitement in my life is just too much! Ha ha!
Some friends of ours came over two Saturday’s ago for a play date and I’m not joking when I say that Collin basically cried and fretted the entire five hours they were here. They have twins, one boy, one girl who are just 6 weeks younger than Collin. We usually always go over their house for play dates but thought it would be nice if Pat and Celeste brought the twins over to our house to play. Bad idea. Collin was already a little off schedule when they got here but I think was really did it was the fact that Pat is a very loud and very boisterous. Collin is not used to being around people who yell on a regular bases. Pat doesn’t yell to be mean, he just yells as he talks. When Collin does something wrong, we sternly, without yelling, tell him no. When Pat’s kids do something wrong Pat yells, “NOOOO!” Collin always thought he was being yelled at. Long story short, each time Pat moved, Collin freaked and if Mark and I weren’t at his side the entire time he was crying his eyes out and being extremely whiney and hard to handle. I really did feel bad for him and as much as I got tired of listening to him cry and whine all day, I did stay close and reassured him that everything was okay. It was so out of character for Collin and I felt bad for him. He had a rough day and wasn’t interested at all in playing. No more of that. I told Pat and Celeste that from now on, we have to come to their house. I think that Collin might have felt scared having someone loud like that, come into his own personal safe space.
I got Collin’s Easter pictures taken a few weeks ago and those will be ready later next week for pick up. This Saturday I’m having all three grandkids’ picture taken together (Erin, Connor, and Collin) professionally as a surprise for MIL’s mother’s day present. Erin and Connor are coming over Friday night to spend the night so I can get them all nice looking and pressed on Saturday morning. The only thing I’m worried about is lice! Yes, you read right, lice! Last weekend I went out and saw Mark’s band play, it had been months since I had actually went out and enjoyed myself, so I planned on a good fun night. I had MIL come over after Collin was asleep on Saturday and since she has the other two grandkids every Saturday night (for church the next day) they just all slept over until we got home. I made the kids up a bed on the living room floor with the air mattress, lots of pillows and blankets and plenty of snacks in the kitchen. After I left, MIL said that the kids conked out and Collin didn’t wake up once. Cool, smooth sailing. Or so I thought! That was Saturday. Monday afternoon my SIL calls me and tells me that Erin and Connor got send home from school because they have lice! Ahhhh! Doesn’t it just figure that two nights ago they stayed at our house. I quickly got off the phone, started washing EVERYTHING in scalding hot water, frantically started vacuuming the furniture and ran to the store and bought a RID lice kit. I’m scratching again just writing this. I don’t think that any of us “got it” since I’ve been scanning our heads since I found out, but it’s still a creepy feeling thinking about it. I know that it’s not their fault, lice tends to happen in schools but STILL! We have to wash again with the RID stuff in another 10 days just to be safe. I’m calling SIL to make sure they do this again BEFORE they stay at our house on Saturday. I don’t want to take any chances. Yuck!
One more funny/cute story before I end…last week I was taking a phone call during the afternoon. When Collin is awake, I make all phone calls lickity split fast because I know how much trouble he can get himself into when he thinks I’m not paying attention. Well, a friend of mine who I haven’t spoke to in age’s calls. Since Collin was being very content I decided to go ahead and chat for a while. Another long story short…I had stupidly forgot to latch the refrigerator door lock and when I got off the phone I walked into the living room only too see an entire bottle of Hershey’s chocolate syrup poured all over the coffee table and floor. Collin decided it would not only be fun to finger paint with it, but he even got himself out a little plate and was making himself some sort of chocolate dinner. Oh, he was being very proper about it I tell you. When I walked in, he looked at me and pointed to the plate full of syrup and said, “YUM!!!!” What could I say? It wasn’t his fault. What kid wouldn’t want a plate of chocolate syrup for dinner?! My poor carpet! Last year it was a gallon of purple grape juice, last month he squished two handfuls of strawberries all over the carpet and walls, and now it’s the chocolate syrup. Hungry yet?
Speaking of food…I’ve lost three pounds as of last week. I’m not brave enough to weight myself on a regular basis. It’s not much but it’s a start and I’m still going to the gym 3-4 times per week. Now if I could just drink more water during the day!!! I’m working on that one.
Toodles for now!
Until next time,
Collin and Jennifer
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