As the count (Seasame Street people, come on!) would say "One, Two, Three...ah ah ah!"
William is a counting maniac. He has always like to point (with help) at things and count them, but he has really ramped it up this month. I started to notice at the end of July he would say "One...." and look to me to finish counting the objects he was pointing at. The best object for counting? Cars/trucks/buses of course! We've been counting and counting and counting and counting everything around the house for the last few weeks and slowly we built up to "One, two..." This last week though has brought the number three. Which, makes the geeky teacher inside of me all warm and fuzzy. My kids likes to count. I'd love to teach him to kooky Count laugh to use after the number three, but I'm afraid we will never advance beyond to the number four. Imagine the sad day his fourth birthday will be if he thinks he is turning "ah, ah, ah!". So this week around the house has heard a lot of "One, two.......three...."*
Unfortunately, the communication William is using is becoming clearer and clearer. I would estimate he now easily has well over 100 words. However, he really wears out a few of these words every day. Now that he knows how powerful his words can be, he spends at least 25 minutes out of every hour requesting either "Milk" or "Elmo". Both of which are rationed at this time. Milk is currently rationed (for William) because our doctor reprimanded us at his 18 month appointment for giving him too much milk throughout the day. For reference, our doctor recommends between 18-24 ounces of milk a day for a kiddo William's age. William was easily drinking upwards of 30 ounces a day. Which, I didn't think was a problem. It's healthy, has vitamins and it makes him happy. However, then he wasn't eating as well (or gaining weight as well) because so many of his calories were coming from milk. I knew it was going to be hard cutting the milk down from his diet. I was planning for about 3-5 days of tough love with the milk restrictions. Here we are almost a month later and like a broken record I hear "Milk, milk, milk, milk, milk, mo' milk" all day long. The kid has endurance (nicer than stubborn, don't you think?). The funniest part (to me) is that when I tell him "All done milk" or "No more milk", he'll ask "Juice, water?" "Milk? Juice? Water?" in this pitiful little voice that brings to mind someone who hasn't had a drop to drink for days or weeks.
Elmo is the other rationed commodity around our house. We try to only use Elmo (or TV at all) when we absolutely have to. The AAP (American Academy of Pediatrics) reccomends kids William's age watch 0 minutes of TV per day until they are 2 years old. At two years, the reccomendation is to watch less than 30 minutes of TV a day. So, I'm working to follow the guidelines. However, sometimes a girl needs to take a quick shower, go to the bathroom by herself, open the oven door without help or complete another task without the help from the toddler tornado. So, we use the Elmo then. But, William is in love with Elmo and would watch him until the drool ran down his chin and he couldn't support his weight on his chunky little legs any longer. I've never tested this scientifically (and never will), but I suspect William would watch Elmo from the time he wakes up until he topples over from exhuastion 12-14 hours later. Without eating, drinking or having a diaper change. So in between the petitions for "Milk? Juice? Water?" will be "Elmo? Elmo?" "Elmo? Milk? Juice? Water?". LIke a broken record all day long...
When his words fail him or when we fail to follow through with what he commands us, he is starting to get physical. He is not patient enough to try and explain it again to you. When he wants something, he'll sigh and grab your hand (is there a sweeter feeling? A warm little hand in yours that isn't pulling away while squealing like a stuck pig?) and say "C'mon" and drag you to the location he would like you to go (usually the fridge for some of the beloved "Milk".**
And to conclude, here are some pictures of what we've been up to this week.
More swimming lessons - next week is the last week. Here he is trying to pick up weighted easter eggs from the bottom of the pool without getting a hair on his head wet.
Still reaching...I love the facial expression in these!
Can you believe I'm posting a picture of myself on the internet in my swimming suit? Here we are practicing our kicking. For the record, William would like me to note that after we practiced our kicking, we worked on perfecting our swan diving from the platforms and then did some backstroke practice. None of that baby stuff.
Just because it is funny. I pulled out this gigantic dog from a closet this week, thinking William might like to roll around on the floor with it. My class won the dog through some school contest we won - I can't figure out why I didn't pawn it off on some poor kid to take home instead of storing in our closet for the last 3 years. Anyway, although William sort of liked it, the cat has now claimed it as his own sleep buddy.
Last weekend we tiled, this weekend was all about the grout. You can see the tile now has grout and the shower fixtures are installed. You can't see that the sink is also working and more importantly, so is the drain! Very close to completion on the "Grandparents' Suite" portion of the basement.
Backdoor entryway has also been grouted - complete!Annnnddddd....two more clues about our next project. These are tough ones!
Clue #3: If you click on the picture to enlarge it, you'll see one of the video tapes is labeled "Big Brother"
Clue#4: Our office needs to be moved to the new location in the basement before this can become the future home of William by Januaryish next year...we have a lot of work to do!**Enough rambling. Remind me to tell you about the potty chair on Saturday and the evolution of the titles Mom and Daddy at our house, and the beginnings of pretend play.
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