It's been a month. I was good about keeping up on the calendar for a while, but then not so much. There have been so many little day trips and fun adventures and playdates. I haven't written them all down so they won't all get mentioned.
I'm going to do this update, in two parts: Part one will be all the stuff I jotted on the calendar followed by any 'baby book' specifics and then anything that I can remember off the top of my head (which won't be much), and part two will be a different post with pictures and captions. Here we go. There may be some overlap from the last post.
March 3rd - Dexter's pointing at body parts like eyes, nose, and mouth.
March 4th - Dexter steals AJ's 1/4 whopper while he's not looking and takes off down the hall chomping on it. I thusly realize I REALLY can stop cutting up Dexy's food.
March 5th - Dexter seems to be saying, "Mmmmmhmmmm" to mean 'yes' for the last little while. He says it a lot. This is the same day that AJ spelled Equires and thought it must say "Starbucks" so I know I already posted that story. Dexter also starts signing 'kiss' this day and going down the slide by himself. Just like AJ, we taught Dexter to get on his belly at the top of the slide, put his legs down first and head down the slide feet first, on his belly.
March 10th - AJ's talking in 'the naughty spot' and I say, "No talking in the naughty spot" and he says, "I'm not talking! I'm whining!" Laughed my head off.
March 11th - AJ says, "I like my burger." I say, "I like my burger too." AJ replies with, "I like my burger 3."
March 12th - Dexter starts signing 'milk' to mean 'drink'.
March 14th - We head for a hot chocolate after swimming at night, and AJ is confused as we head into 7-11 saying, "Where are all the tables?" It takes me a minute to figure out what he's talking about and then I say, "Starbucks isn't the only place that sells hot cocoa. We're at 7-11."
March 16th - Dexter begins signing 'ball'. Spring Break starts and we just had a blast this week. I can't remember all that we did, but I remember being so sad when it was over.
March 20th - I had a Norwex party with some girl friends and after the party, Gram took AJ overnight! He had a great time, as always!
March 22nd - Grand-Dan comes to see AJ for his birthday. Grand-Dan, AJ, and I go to Walmart so AJ can pick out something for his birthday. He happily chose the blimp from the movie "Cars". He had a great time playing with Dexter.
March 23rd - AJ wakes crying in the middle of the night and comes into our room because "Darth Vader is in my room". Needless to say, he got to sleep with us that night.
March 24th - I realise that Dexy's been signing 'cheese' for quite some time and it took me a while to realise it. Oops.
March 26th - I was chit chatting with AJ and asked what he likes to play with Dexter or something like that. He said, "I like to play cars and trucks with him and then take them away."
March 30th - Dexter starts roaring like a lion and bear.
March 31st - AJ is galloping down the hall on all fours. I say, "Oh, are you pretending to be a horse?" AJ says, "No, I'm being Gollum." Nice. Really nice. Thanks for that one, Daddy.
Somewhere at the end of March/beginning of April, AJ says one of his classic lines.....
"Can I have more cauliflower, please?"
April 2nd - AJ started gymnastics the week before. He's totally in his element. I'm sure that preschool and swimming have played a part in him coming out of his shell more, but man oh man, he is sooooo outgoing in gymnastics. He just LOVES it. I have no doubt in my mind that he'll want to sign up for another session. The funny story that goes with this is....
At his second class, I'm listening to his teacher get her little binder out for attendance. She's kind of talking to herself in front of the kids while she flips to the correct page and is saying to herself, "Okay... what day is it? Friday? Wednesday? Thursday?" I guess AJ was thinking that the poor lady was actually unsure of the order of the days of the week and says, "No it's Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday." That was cute. I didn't realise that he had picked up all the days of the week in order yet. I'll attribute this to preschool since I was rarely remembering to sing the days of the week song with him around this time.
Speaking of preschool.... AJ's been interjecting little facts and commentary regarding that which he learns in preschool. You can tell that when they're doing certain letters in class because he'll all of sudden be able to write that letter even better than before. For example, his lower case 'm' got WAY better.
April 5th - Dexter is sick with a bad fever. Takes a few days for us to take him in and realise it's an ear and throat infection. He started on the antibiotics and got better quickly. Poor little guy. His ear temp was 104. 5 at it's highest. He was just sooooo hot. The sleeps were horrible for about 5 nights or more, sometimes waking upwards of 8 times, and sometimes not falling back asleep for a couple of hours. It's not something we're used to, so it really sucked for us. Sucked even more for poor little Dex. He's back to normal great sleeps now. He even slept all the way to 7:15am this morning. (12 hours). That was nice, as he has mostly been doing just 11.5 hours.
April 6th - Dexter seems to be now taking an interest in copying words we say.
April 7th - Dexter's copying us saying, "duck" and "cow".
April 9th - Grand-Dan comes to watch AJ at gymnastics and hangs out during the boys' lunch time with Richard. He played pretty hard with the boys from what I hear.
Easter Weekend - Richard picked up his mom from the ferry on Friday afternoon. She joined us for dinner, stayed over, came to watch AJ's 'big kid swimming lessons', treated us to a great trip to Science World for the Lego exhibit and Chinese food for dinner, stayed overnight again, got to watch AJ search for all of his Easter eggs. My parents came to see Norma and say 'hi' before she heads to NS again and to see AJ for Easter morning. Richard (Daddy) headed overnight on the Island with his mom and to see his Grannie. My sister took AJ overnight that Sunday night and Dexter and I spent a VERY special and fun day together just the two of us. It was so nice. The whole weekend. AJ was so excited to see Granny.
April 12th - Dexter's saying, "Book" and "car".
April 17th - I had Jack and Rya today (Friday). Jack and AJ played downstairs for at least 2 hours in the afternoon. The two boys didn't argue at all the whole day. I even heard some really great sharing and turn taking. Dexter and Rya were good little babies for me too.
April 18th - Dexter (who is already a whiz at climbing all over the playground equipment and walks up all staircases at the playground for quite a while now) crosses the big wiggly bridge all by himself. Upon getting home this day, I think to myself, "I'd better take advantage of all this independence. I'm going to let him walk in to the house from the car." He did it. He didn't run away. He didn't deak me out. He walked to the first stairs from the car. I held his hand while he walked up. He walked to the next set of stairs. He held the railing and walked up about half of those and I held his hand for the other half. He got to the door and then went up the inside stairs. That was the very first time that I didn't carry him in the house from the car.
-Also today, AJ did something very impressive or very coincidental...
He and I were making a birthday card for his pal, Josiah. I asked him if he wanted to write "Happy Birthday" or if he wanted me to do it. He said he wanted to. I wrote it out first and said the letters as I went. I said, "H" and then I said "a", and he was sounding it out as I went and said, "Ha".
-Today AJ had swimming lessons and he tried really hard to put his face in the water, dipping his nose in even! He's doing very well in the no-mommy swimming lessons. I don't necessarily mean skill-wise, but rather emotionally. He's only cried a bit in certain instances like when he didn't want to go in the water with a life jacket on. Otherwise, he's been really brave and not too shy. I'm really proud of him. I think it really helps that Makenna's in that class.
Stuff for the Baby Book....
AJ-The only thing that's really changed in the last month is AJ's letter formation. When I get him to make a card or something, he's really good at copying names. I don't hold his hand to help him write (which I've never done actually, and should probably try sometimes). Like, I can write a word like Grand-Dan and he'll write it out underneath on a line I've provided.
-It's not new that he can write his 'real name' Alton, but I don't think I've ever mentioned it before.
Dexter's Word List updated
Mama
Dada
Daddy
Hi Dada - new
AJ
cat
up
baba (what we call a bottle)
banana - properly
hi Rya
book - new
car - new
Dexter's Signs List updated
more
change (which he seems to occasionally be using to actually tell me he's pooped)
cracker
finished
hi
bye
sleep
eat
surprise
stop
daddy
kiss
milk
ball
cheese - new
Animal Sounds-pig - he snorts
-lion and bear - he growls
Body Parts-He points to facial parts
Ladies and Gentlemen. You are looking at a box, right? Wrong! This isn't just a box!! This isn't even just a flowered box! It's not just a flowered box that Dexter got for Easter with a bunny stuffed inside from Gram and Papa! For just 5 easy payments of just $49.99, you too can have yourself the one and only........
I'm not kidding about how much this kid loves stools and backing up to anything his size to sit on.
This is Dexter trying to get the last bits of "Bachelor Chow" out of his bowl. Bachelor Chow is Daddy, AJ, and Dexter's favourite meal!!!
This is just Dexter hanging out at Gram's house.
Really, he doesn't have a soother in all the time. Only when he sleeps.
AJ searching for eggs in the living room. Note the ones on top of the picture frames. He got such a kick out of all the crazy places the EB left the eggs. Such a kick in fact, that you actually get to have the privilege of seeing AJ smile for a picture. Chocolate will do that to a kid, I guess.
That darned paci again!!!
These are not in any particular order:
