He loves waving at people everywhere we go, and I see people's faces light up while they look at me (b/c he rides in the carrier on my back). He is one of the kiddos. He likes to shout, "MEEEEE" and raise his hand whenever anyone offers something at the dinner table. Anyone want mustard? MEEEEEE!!!!
He likes to sign eat, please, more, milk, and sometimes I'm sorry. But he's so verbal, that I suspect he'll rely less on signing than any of the other kids before him. He says, "yah" a lot. I correct him with yes, which he can also say. He can say all the kids' names--mostly when prompted with, "Can you say..." Actually, all the kids were being silly the other night at dinner, saying, "Thank you, Daniel!" and he joined right along with them. Ay-ooo, Dah-na!! That kid is hilarious.
He's the only one who's made it this long still nursing. Not much. But a little. It's causing me to question my judgements of other moms who choose to nurse longer than is typical in our culture.
One of the words he's picked up on is "cheese." When Lucy aims her little camera at him, you'll often hear him say, "EEEEE!" It's so cute.
I love watching him dance to music. He tilts his head to the side and bobs up and down a little.
We've not disciplined him as much as the other kids, but Daniel and I have been more intentional lately about practicing head down, come here, give me please, and lie still. It's really hard to be consistent with my attention split four ways.
He likes to mimic the bird sounds he hears Elliot say. Elliot will come bounding in to the house to tell me he heard a mourning dove, and he'll perform the little song he's heard. If I'm holding Charlie at the time, I then hear him hum this little high-pitched squeaky sound, and I ask him if that's the sound of the birdie, and he nods his head decisively.
He adores animals. Like. He LOVES them. Any animal. Squirrels, birds, puppies. He stops in his tracks and bends his knees and points with his little hand and gets so, so still. He will gesture to strangers--trying to get them to look at the animal he sees. It's like his whole world stops when he sees an animal, and he's is in heaven. It's what I was hoping for when I took Lucy to the zoo at that age. Instead, she was absolutely fixated on the rocks and on the Pepsi vending machine. Couldn't have cared less about the lions and giraffes. Oh well.
He loves to look at books. It's unfortunate that he's the 4th of such close together kids, because it is rare that I actually get to sit with him on my lap and read. He's really more interested in flapping the pages back and forth. But he loves the pictures. Especially pictures of animals.
He's a morning napper. Another unfortunate fact, since we usually play through his nap time in the morning, and then he gets a kind of sub-par nap in the afternoon. But he seems to be thriving despite it all.
