Paul’s Page

We went to a local park that had a plastic train to play on. Paul is going through a very serious train phase, and so this was quite an exciting thing.

We also went to the petting zoo with his little friend Andy. Paul was seriously scared of the sheep: they “baaaa”ed very loudly, and as we weren’t cool people who paid for animal feed, they were not happy with us. Paul only had interest in the animals for a very short time, but we live very close to the petting zoo, so we will return many times this summer, I’m sure!

Yesterday, Paul got his very first credit card offer in the mail. Now, that’s starting ‘em young!

I have pictures and stories for you. Sorry I’ve been bad at getting them up this month!

Remember this photo from about a eighteen months ago?

Some things never change.

Ah, I love my boys. And I had worried that Paul wasn’t going to take a nap.

(Apparently, he was playing happily and then he went over to Daddy, put his head on Daddy’s lap, and fell asleep. It was enough to put Ryan to sleep too, apparently.)

Paul amazes me with what he knows. The other day, I was making some bread while he ate a snack. While measuring the flour, I counted aloud as I always do when I cook and he’s in the room.

“ONE!” I said. Paul held up one finger. (He likes to say “one more!” when it’s bedtime and we’re reading stories.)

As I got the next cup of flour up, Paul called out “Dooo!”

I was excited and said, “YES! Two comes next. What is after two?”

“Tree!” Paul called out.

I could not believe it. I can’t get him to do it again, but I was sure impressed with that one moment of success.

It may have taken three months to get to it, but I have finally put some pictures on the wall of Paul’s bedroom!

I have Greg Olsen’s O Jerusalem and a picture of the Cochabamba Bolivia Temple, and Aunt Jenny sent Paul some wall hangings last Christmas: an airplane, a car, a train, and a name plaque. I also bought a document frame from Michael’s and I’m going to rotate pictures from the Gospel Art Picture Kit. This month it is a picture of Christ being baptised, in honor of cousin Daniel’s upcoming baptism. I’ve been telling Paul about baptism all month. Next month I’ll put a different picture up and we’ll talk about the story all month. Hopefully by the time he’s older, he’ll actually learn something from that, right?

I think everything looks pretty nice and having something on his wall makes the room so much more cosy. The pictures are a bit small, so I may get something big for the largest wall at some point. For now, it’s very nice.

Here’s Paul giving a guided tour for you.

Birds and Doggies

Signing Time does wonders. We got the “Leah’s Farm” episode from the library, and Paul just loved watching the animals in the video. Our yard has plenty of birds to watch, and every single one of our neighbors has at least one dog. Those are, by far, his favorite animals, and he loves to sign the words too.

“Birdie” looks like he’s eating his hand in this video. He also says “outside”, “cold”, and”dog” in this video.  He signs “birdie”, “dog”, “frog”, and “cold.”

Other Things

Paul loves shoes. He goes around the house picking up shoes and carrying them into the laundry room (where I put them when I tidy the room). He likes to tidy the house, including “helping” me sweep and vacuum. I hope he keeps these habits when he’s older! Shoes are his favorite item of clothing.

He also loves music and he loves to dance.

Sometimes, he goes around the house saying “Jesus” and pointing to our pictures of Jesus.

He likes babies and signs “baby” when ever we see one in the store or church. I bought him a baby doll at a garage sale, and he likes pointing to her eyes, ears, nose, toes, and mouth. She doesn’t have any hair, so that always confuses him when I tell him to point to her hair! I think Paul likes his belly button the best and likes to look for his at random times of the day. If I ask him where his ears are, he’ll come find my ears.

In this video, he’s dancing, saying “shoes,” and pointing to our family picture (looking at either daddy or the baby, which is, of course, himself).

Paul loves to say “hi” and “bye-bye” to everyone we meet. Most people ignore him, but often people come up and tell him how adorable he is, patting him on the head in the process. (That is something Ryan says he hated when he was a kid. Oh well: like father, like son!)

Paul also loves to eat, as he always has. His favorite foods are bread, milk, bananas, and tomatoes. He also likes peanut butter and jelly,  macaroni and cheese, and apple sauce. Here he is saying and signing a few more words for you while he eats a snack. Isn’t he cute?

Paul’s favorite toys are trains (there is a train table at the library and he has two engines) and cars, which he likes to make vroom all over the furniture. But his other favorite toys include an empty oatmeal container and a plastic tupperware container. He puts his matchbox cars and other small toys inside them and mixes it together with a plastic spoon from the kitchen. I think he is making soup.

Vital Stats

• height: 33 1/2 inches tall (75th percentile)
• weight: 26 lbs 13 oz (50th percentile)

Paul is an incredibly happy boy, and apparently he is completely up-to-date developmentally. The doctor kept saying “Oh he’s so good” when he did things like open his mouth when she asked him too. I think he was just observing and taking it all in because it was all new to him (relatively; he doesn’t remember the last visit three months ago).

When the doctor left, we had to wait for the nurse. He was ready to be done though. He kept walking to the door saying “go? Go? GO!” When the nurse finally came, he got two shots. He wasn’t sure what was going on with the first one, and since we were clapping and saying “yeay!”, he started clapping too. For the second shot, he was a little more wary and tried to pull away. It brought tears, but when he saw the bandaids, he was fascinated with that too, and even the tears stopped.

Overall, I love my boy. This week’s special words are “Hi! Hi!” and “Bye! Bye!” to strangers both coming and going, “shoes” as he wanders the house looking for them (anyone’s is fine), and “go!” for everything and everywhere. He still signs “thank you” with a little kiss.

Paul finally has enough hair that I had to buy him a brush this week. When it is wet, it is matted and long. When it dries, it curls in the back to produce an adorable head of curls. Ryan is quite traumatized by this: every time someone comes up and says “What adorable curls! What lovely hair!” he has memories of his own childhood. He, apparently, hated having curly red hair because everyone wanted to touch it. Alas: like father, like son.

Paul is signing at least 30 words now — surprising me every day with new ones. I shouldn’t be too surprized since Signing Time is his only show these days.

Paul is saying at least 15 words. Sometimes his talking sounds like babbling and other times it actually is words.

Paul has become fascinated with dogs and birds. He also loves the train table at the library. He also loves the slide and the swing at the park: I need to fix up our play set in our yard because right now it’s not useful for a baby Paul’s age.

Paul has a runny nose again this week. It will never stop, I’ve decided.

Paul’s naps are still sporadic. I never know if he’ll go down or when he’ll be ready for it. (Saturday he was ready at 10 a.m. and he slept for three hours. Today it was one hour. And that’s it.)

Paul likes his binkie. He can only have it when he’s in his bed, so sometimes he begs to go in his crib, just to have his binkie. Ten minutes later, he’s ready to go on with his day again.

Paul is a smart kid. There are so many stories I meant to share. I’m going to have to write them down as soon as they happen because now I’ve forgotten!

There must be something special about being 18 months old now (I mean, other than going to nursery). Paul has reach a few new stages. Thankfully, he’s back to napping; being sick last week helped convince him that naps are still nice. But I think I already mentioned the new stage of frustration. I realized this week that it is not all language related because (drum roll please….) Paul is saying words!

It has been a gradual realization. I started noticing that his babbles sounded remarkably like the words I had just said. And then I started to hear the words out of context: yes, he is definitely saying actual words. He has always said “dada” and “ball” and “Mooooo” (for more and milk both). But now the words are definitely clear.

Words I’ve noticed in the past few days/weeks:

• Mom-ma
• Dad-da
• Go
• Crack-er
• Ball
• Paul

I will listen very careful and report any others I hear! This is fun. I get very excited when the word he says sounds like an actual word. I’m sure he’s excited that I’m understanding too, although he’s more eager to sign the word than to say it.