Everything Daniel

Now that Daniel is been home seven months, I thought I would try to type up another update on his milestones.

Eating:

Daniel has finally started eating more meats on his own instead of me having to mash it up in potatoes or mix it with rice or noodles. Generally now I can just cut it up on his plate and he's good to go. He loves hotdogs, dinosaur chicken nuggets and fishsticks the most. He still loves green beans and is returning to liking carrots. All other vegetables are pretty off limits as far as he is concerned unless mixed into the meal (rice or potatoes for example). He drinks from an open cup at meal times very well (he knew how to do this originally although we reverted him to a sippy for travel). He will no longer use a small fork, but insists on using our adult sized utensils. He hates sandwhiches and spaghetti. We no longer find a need to use the highchair as he will now sit nicely in his booster with no straps. He does still experiment occassionally with knocking food off his plate, banging the fork or trying to put food in his cup, although it's much less often. Otherwise, we think he's doing great!

Sleeping:

Daniel is still a good sleeper. We are finding we generally can't rock him to sleep anymore as he wants to play in our arms and also has become very good at faking sleep. For the most part we read a couple of books (Goodnight Gorilla or as he calls it "Oodnight 'Rilla" is his favorite) and then rock for a few minutes and then lay him down. Sometimes he knocks right out (around 8 or 8:30) and sometimes he will jabber to himself as late as 9:30 or 10:00 pm. Yet he still always wakes up around 6:45 am, plays for a bit and then falls back asleep until about 7:30 or 8:00 am. He used to not wake up at 6:45, but ever since the time change he has started this new habit. Naps are getting shorter now too. They only take an hour and a half to two hour nap at day care and it's starting to show on the weekends. Sometimes he'll sleep 2-3 hours, but I'm noticing it's more to the 2 hour end now, although he still plays when he wakes up for a little while.

Speech:

Wow! I can't say enough about this. His language is really starting to explode. Sometimes it's great and other times, not so much. For example - he is now saying 3 word sentences. His newest is "hang it up" (his jacket after taking it off) and "cover your mouth" when someone including himself coughs. The not so much comes in with sentences like "No, all done" and "Time out Mommy". These two sentences of his have the ability to drive me batty. "No, all done" can mean 'no more' or 'more (I'm not all done)' so it's hard to figure out which way he's going sometimes with that. It also tends to come out when he doesn't want to do something we ask like brush his teeth or wash his hands. "Time out Mommy" started off as a funny that I wish I never laughed at. I stood up on a chair in front of Daniel to change a clock on the wall back an hour and when I got down Daniel said "Time Out Mommy" for standing in the chair. Well, technically he's right, but now it has become a bit of a game. When he does need a time out and I tell him his behavior is going to result in one, he immediately yells back to me "Time Out Mommy". I have been trying to squash that as it has become more of a form of backtalking now. Otheriwse Daniel is doing great. He is also starting to use "please" and "thank you" regularly without having to be prompted and has mastered "excuse me" and "bless you" after a sneeze. He will also now apologize for something when he gets in trouble without being asked to. Lastly, He uses his name ALOT now. It's "Daniel's hat" or "Daniel's truck". Really, really cute!

Colors, Numbers, Alphabet:

Daniel has really started to learn his colors. He recognizes blue, green, red, yellow, purple, pink, white, black, brown and gold. We have rings for a ring toss game that we work with while playing. I call out a color, he picks it out and we toss. Great fun. He won't however, look at a color I am holding and tell me what color it is. I think this is still a part of not really understanding when he is being asked a question. I know he can say the colors because when we pass a white truck he will say "white big truck". I think he just still doesn't get the concept that I want him to answer me when I ask him what color it is. We are working on that. The alphabet hasn't progressed much past A, B, C and that's okay for now. We are going to work on that next. I've been focusing on numbers lately by reading a Count with Peter Rabbit book. I knew Dnaiel could count to 3 as of yesterday. He even understands what the numbers mean. He scooped up two pieces of sausage yesterday morning and said "two" to me so I was thrilled with this. Then this morning I had a proud moomy moment. I was driving Daniel to day care and I hear a quiet, "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8". I was so excited I said "1" followed by a response from Daniel of "2" all that way up to 10!! Then I had hime say "1" and I responded "2" and so on and so forth to be sure he knew all the numbers. He did it!! I was so proud and excited!!

Development:

Daniel looks great! (I'm biased of course!) He is growing taller and eating to beat the band, which hopefully means some weight gain. I don't have current measurements, which I had hoped to have today, because our doctor's office stopped taking our insurance so we have to switch. While I'm not thrilled about this, I'm not completely devastated either as I really haven't had an attachment to this particular office or doctor.

That's about it...I'll leave you with a few photos. We went to Daniel's cousin, Parker's birthday party this weekend and had a great time. Also this morning on the way to day care, Daniel asked for the "newspaper" so I gave him an ad and he acted like he was reading it on the way - too cute!