Some days I take a ton of pictures.  Others I don’t take any at all.  So far this has been one of those lots of pictures days.

Warming up after getting out of the tub.

If I don’t comb his hair right away it curls like crazy.

I don’t comb his hair right away.

I love the curls.

After the cries of “mama” woke me up this morning (admittedly earlier than I would have liked) this is what I found.

His smiling face and contagious good mood almost made me forget about how cozy my bed had been – almost.  Pretty sure I’ll be napping when he naps later.

We were snuggling in the chair downstairs when I saw some movement out of the corner of my eye.

I was able to sneak the shade open, but the deer (there were two) didn’t stay long after that. I am guessing they were spooked by the neighbors leaving for work. Adam loved watching them though.  Maybe that’s why he got me up so early?

I wonder what kind of May flowers April snow-showers bring.

While we were taking advantage of the nice weather on Sunday (which has since been replaced by a week of rain and possible snow tomorrow), Adam decided that two of his friends needed to join us. He has three of these little guys – they have a stuffed animal head and blanket body. In his right hand he has Mickey Mouse (his favorite) and in his left is Elephant (2nd favorite). The third that he has is Winnie the Pooh.  Poor Winnie rarely makes it out of Adam’s room. In fact he spends most of his time on the floor next to Adam’s crib (which is where I always find him, regardless of how many times I lovingly place him back in the crib).

Now here’s the point of my story – and no, I’m not going to introduce you to all of his toys – he calls Mickey and Pooh both Pooh. At first I thought it was just what he called that particular type of toy, but then I realized he calls the elephant “Elephant” (he gets his creative naming from his mama – my favorite stuffed animal from when I was little is named Blue Doggy – and yes, it is a blue dog – and yes, I still have him).  If I ask him to go get Mickey Mouse, he knows exactly who I’m talking about, and will even correct me and call him Pooh.  It’s pretty cute.

Okay, maybe this is one of those rambling stories that’s only cute to me because I’m his mama.  I’m okay with that. I included pictures for the rest of you, and I don’t care who you are – those are cute no matter what.

This kid loves letters.  He spent the whole bath sticking his new foam letters and numbers to the wall of the tub and saying what they were as he did. He was so funny once they were all stuck to the side of the tub he would stand up and clap and cheer for himself. After he was done celebrating I would use the washcloth to clean the wall off and knock them back in to the tub and we’d start all over again.

I only gave him about 12 of the 84 foam characters and of the dozen I grabbed the only one he really knew was the “W” (or “M” if he stuck it on the wall upside down).  I might go through them and pick out the ones he knows and the ones he says frequently (like “E” and “A” and “T”, even though he can’t identify him yet).

I’m not pushing the letter recognition though. He enjoys pointing them out and likes playing with his foam and magnetic letters.  He also really likes to have me write the letters (on paper with crayons or on the driveway in chalk) so he can color on them. He’s just a little guy though, he’s got plenty of time to learn all this.  I’ll keep telling him what the letters are when he hands them to me and writing letters for him to scribble on whenever he asks, but learning the alphabet before he’s two isn’t a goal of ours.

He’s got more important things to figure out right now – like how to get out of a onesie without unsnapping the bottom.  Pretty sure he mastered that one today.

His shirt pretty much says it all, “Mommy’s Little Monster”.

As far as monsters are concerned though, he’s a pretty cute one.

It seems like Adam has one good night of sleep and then the next is not-so-good. He was up again last night and so we were both pretty tired today. I took this picture while I was laying on the couch this morning right after breakfast (no dozing off today – but I did move my laptop out of reach beforehand just in case).  You can see he’s curled up in his chair with a pillow he swiped from my bed (he’s all about sneaking pillows lately).

I don’t have much else to report – it was a pretty low-key day.  So I’ll just post a couple more pictures from today and then I need to get some sleep.

Hmm, I wonder what the weight limit is on this light fixture…

Oh, hi mom! I wasn’t doing anything wrong, honest!

Adam definitely redeemed himself today. I woke up at 8:30 and he was still sleeping.  He ended up waking up about 15 minutes later and was in an awesome mood.  He had breakfast and a bath and then we finally took a trip to the indoor playground.  It’s a good thing we went today, since they close for the season tomorrow.  I think we’ll definitely get a membership next year, it was nice to have a place where he could run around.  One of his favorite things to play with was the mailbox.  There was one orange block in there when we got there and he would take the block out, put it back in, walk away, come back open the door, and repeat.

Man did he love that mailbox.  I actually looked it up online and it’s like $25.  The reviews aren’t that great though – the main complaint is that the mailbox doesn’t hold normal sized envelopes.  I did a little more research and found a regular sized “real” plastic mailbox for less than $10, so I think he might be getting that soon. He’s not at all spoiled, I know.

In my defense (not that it takes much for me to rationalize spoiling my child) he is really in to the alphabet and coloring lately and anything that encourages that is okay with me. He can currently identify four capital letters.  He knows W, M, O, and D.  My favorite is when he says “O”, he pronounces it “oooh” (like the sound in pool).  He also says “mmmm” (like he’s eating something yummy) for “M”.  And don’t even get me started on his “W”, I need to get it on video.  I don’t even know how to convey it in writing. It’s literally too adorable for words.

Another favorite of his at the playground was the “roller coaster”.  You can see it behind him in the above picture and here’s a close up of him on it. I think he could have played on that all day.  I enjoyed it a lot more once he figured out how to push the cart back up to the top of the ramp by himself.

After the playground we went grocery shopping, to the bank, had lunch, and then it was nap-time.  He went down for his nap with no complaints and woke up in the same great mood.  He’s just such a fun little kid.  We did have a couple of tantrums around dinner time and while shopping – but nothing major.  And really, he’s 20 months old – a couple of tantrums a day is not at all unreasonable.

That last picture was right before bed. I literally picked him up – all bundled up like that, carried him upstairs, and laid him down in his crib. He gave me a big smile, said “night night” and that was it. If only bedtime was so easy every night.

 

 

Can I just tell you how much I love this silly kid? This picture was taken when I went in to get him from his nap earlier. He had thrown everything out of his crib – except for the pillow he stole from the guest room that morning. He was standing when I walked in the room, but when I tried to pick him up he laid back down and said “night night” and giggled like crazy.

And yes, he is still in his pajamas (the top at least, he’s pretty much anti-pants whenever he can get away with it). We didn’t have the best night – or morning for that matter. He decided that he wanted to be awake from 3:30 until 4:15 and then get up at 6:45 (a good 45 minutes earlier than normal). Then while we were laying on the couch watching Blue’s Clues I thought he was going to fall back asleep.  I was wrong.  I dozed off for 10 minutes and he pulled two more keys off of my laptop keyboard.Things greatly improved after nap-time.

He took me on a date to Applebee’s for dinner tonight (I really wanted a steak). When we walked in we saw some people we knew and ended up sitting with them.  It was a really nice surprise. We came home, watched an episode of Blue’s Clues (again) and then he went right to bed. Fingers crossed he sleeps through the night.  He needs the sleep, and so do I.

One of Adam’s favorite things to do lately is play a version of the “shell game”. Three or four plastic cups, a small toy, and he’s a happy boy. I think the best part about this is that he’ll entertain himself with this game – and always acts surprised when he finds the toy he hid.

I had a doctor’s appointment earlier today and everything is going well there. My blood pressure was great, the baby’s heart-rate was perfect, and Adam was even really well behaved during the appointment (that crayon wallet is one of the best things I’ve ever made). The only problem came when the appointment was over and it was time to stop coloring. That’s when the tantrum started – he sat on the floor, kicked his heels and screamed. To be fair was almost nap-time and he had been really good all day. I would like to apologize to any soon to be first time moms that had to listen to my child’s yelling though. I am sure your kids will *never* act like that.

And one quick picture before I call it a night. This was  taken right before Adam lost his driving privileges and his car was relocated to the impound (AKA guest bedroom) .  Shortly after this he also lost his shopping cart privileges, for the same reason.  He’s pretty tricky.