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Tuesday, February 24, 2009

It's been a busy few months

Since Doyle's adventure with the Giant Red Man of Terror, he has really started to turn into a toddler. He walks and even runs everywhere he goes these days, and loves to climb onto anything that he can. We recently got him a mini climber toy with a door to go through and a small slide to go down. He's been playing with the door for a few weeks, but during the last week has really figured out the slide. You can see it in the back left of the picture of him riding on the giraffe scooter. This is the most recent picture of him, taken on Oscar night.

He's also learning new skills by the day. He's learned to open the doors in the house unless you deadbolt them. He's discovered that the remote control makes the television do stuff, and he will walk around the house with the remote to see if it works on other things too. He recently has started playing with the flashlight, and thinks it's great fun since Scarlet, the crazy dachshund, will chase the beam around the room barking. He recognizes that words have meaning, and although he doesn't form them perfectly yet, he has a few words that seem to equate to different concepts.

"Dada" is any adult, or large person, and is a phrase that means "come here," "I want something," "Hey you!" "I want to play," and "You're funny," and about a dozen other phrases you can imagine.

"Baba" is a bottle, sippy cup, or any type of liquid or drink. It is generally said while pointing at the object that he wants.

"Dooohhhh(g)" is dog, but can also mean other creatures with fur.

And although my ears may be deceiving me, I think he sometimes says, "Hi." Either that, or he's agreeing with me in Japanese.

Recently he's started pointing at pictures in books to hear us say the words, and then will point at them again in a different order to hear us say them in a different sequence. This is very funny.

The most recent skill he has learned is picking his nose. Several times this week I have found him with his finger up his nose and the happiest grin on his face. I've tried to convince Katie that he's just pointing at his brain, but she's not convinced.

Katie, who works for the State, has been given two unpaid furlough days a month in order to help reduce the State's budget. It amounts to about a 10% monthly pay cut. On the other hand, it does give her some free time. Since I have almost maxed out my vacation time, we used the first furlough in February as an excuse to travel to see the elephant seals near Cambria.

It was a long drive, and Doyle was a bit cranky, so he probably didn't get the most enjoyment out of watching the seals as I had hoped, but he did look at them for a while, and then promptly realized that the squirrel hanging out nearby was much more interesting.

As a baby, Doyle was fun. As a toddler, he is awesome.

Labels: baby, Vacation