David's Second Week

Hello again...

Not sure how many more of these I'll send, but I will make an effort from time to time...If you have anything to say, please let me know.

David has had a good week. My sister came over Saturday with Jared and Avery, my neice and nephew, and they spent a good part of the day...we had elbow macaroni and meatsauce, and David just ate it up! He thought it was great!

Sunday we spent some time at my mom's house. David isn't a big meat eater, I'm finding. We had a roast and some rice with potatoes, and he wasn't much on the meat, in spite of how tender it was. He didn't really eat chicken, like I may have mentioned last week. Tonight we had quinoa with cut tomatoes and avacadoes...he loved that, too.

His meal of choice is yogurt, banana, Crispix cereal, and goldfish crackers. I have to get better at feeding him before he realizes he's hungry. Usually we get home, and he doesn't allow me to leave him for even a minute...so it's hard to make something, and even if I have leftovers to throw in the microwave, he loudly objects. But when it's done and I get to feed him, he eats well. He's getting better at sitting at the table, though we have our moments of me making sure he stays there. I'm finding that time out, followed by some other activity usually resets his "sit at the table" clock, and he will be able to finish. And me, too!

His vocabulary is growing...he is making a transition between "beep!" for cars, and saying the word "car"...I'm trying to make the distinction between car and truck, since there are so many of them, but it will be a while, I'm sure. He also said something else that floored me. He told me that Mimi (my mom) re-covered the two chairs that I have that go with the table in the dining area. He also did something else that blew me away...he was eating a cracker, and because of the way he took a bite out of it, it looked like a slide, and he said so: (he calls slides "wee") "look at the wee, daddy" in baby language. It was awesome. He has an imagination!

I'm sure there's things in here that I've missed...I wish I could relate and relay everything that happens...David has learned to stall by having me read a book to him. I think I'll take it. We play a game in Colleen's old room where I stand him on the window sill, and as I'm holding him he pushes off the window and I act like it's an exaggerated push that he does and I spin around, and move around...and then he points at the other window, and we do it again. It's lots of fun.

The hardest thing for me is one day I needed to have him in his room just for a minute, and the way he screamed and cried was worse than I've seen...he absolutely does not want me to leave his sight at any point. I'm glad he does go to bed well.

Tomorrow, it's going to be rainy and wet, so no park...He's gotten over his cough, and has a doctor appt on Monday...routine is good...and little interruptions aren't always bad.

PS
Here's a few things, that I think are important, but I don't know how I missed them: David says 'piece' (please) when he wants something really bad. It's so cute! It took me a day or two to figure that one out. It seems so obvious now, but when he started saying I wondered about his wanting of a 'piece' of something...Thursday night he asked me to put on the SpongeBob pajamas that I inhereted from my sister, by saying "BunmBob dis! Piece!?" (pointing to his pants)...so I put them on him, and he was happy! And the matching shirt, of course.

Lately, I'm reminded that I speak some French, and that I should be trying to speak French to him. I think that it would confuse him since he's just learning English. I tried tonight with a picture book of animals, and I was saying the animal names in French, but he didn't respond right away when I called a cow by its French name...so I caved and said it in English. It would be easier if I spoke French all the time, or fluently.

Another important thing is that I'm trying to introduce tooth-brushing into his routine. The problem is that he likes it so much that he wants to take time to brush his teeth a lot. And he likes toothpaste, too, but I don't give him enough to hurt anything, and I actually brush his teeth for him, but he takes the thing and brushes his own teeth. Not well, but he's getting better.

And then there's potty training. The other day I had him sit on a little kids potty my mom brought me, and he soiled his diaper I realized later. If only I had taken the thing off first! So that's a challenge. Getting him to sit on the pot was tough enough, but getting him to take off his pants is part II of the challenge. I'm working on that. I know that Dot (his regular day-care baby sitter) is working on potty training, too. He doesn't like the potty, no he says so: No po-ye! Not sure why he doesn't like it. He'll get over that, too, I think.