Sunday, September 13, 2009

and I almost forgot!

Dax said MaMa tonight - and then pointed to me! :)
This is funny - because he used to say it when he was itty-bitty... but then stopped saying it...
I'll have to admit he signed and said "daddy" right after that, then said "Honey" (just this past weekend - it's really cute, too - like "onyee"), and then finally said "ma-ma" today - and KNOWS what each of those means.
He's been able to point at people when WE say them for a while now, though... he could point at Ba-Pa first, truly...
So actually - the timeline is more like - signed "daddy"; said "ba-pa"; pointed at "daddy" and "ba-pa"; pointed at daddy, Ba-Pa, Honey, Moo-Ma, mommy; pointed at all of them, including Popi; and finally SAID "ma-ma" AND pointed AT ME tonight (not just a picture)! Anooj just said Dax signed "Grandpa" today when he asked Dax where Ba-Pa was! wow.
Geez. He's signed "daddy" forever, it seems like... so that feels pretty good to be a verbal word now, for me. I think it might be absence (saturday school) that makes the vocabulary grow (fonder).
:)
xoxo kiddo - you're pretty great - you didn't even have to sign and point to me to make me say that.
:)
-mommy.

Wow. I suck at posting! Here goes....

Ok - so in just the last week alone, Dax has learned to say "Honey," has learned to slide down a slide without holding my hand, and has begun to feed himself brekky without ANY assistance - meaning, I have left him to his own devices to eat his OATMEAL while I get dressed (I have posted pictures of this in the past)... and he did GREAT! :) That's a HUGE step for us.
Not only that, but he's now absolutely fine with childcare at the church - we were doing pretty good there for a while, but we digressed about a month ago, when Dax bonked his head on a ping pong table, and he threw up because he was so distressed about it (he actually didn't even get a bruise - so thankful!), so the next day he threw up in childcare when I left him there for Building Blocks... but the sweet angels there didn't come get me when it happened. They swiftly packed up the room, got all the babies out, and kept on plugging away! I can't even tell you how much I owe the lovely ladies of Watermark childcare on Wednesdays and Thursdays/Fridays...! They're saints.

Also - in July, Dax started being able to eat peanut butter! *whew!* what a great and awesome thing peanut butter is... I can't even tell you. It's fabulous for snack times, on crackers, with bananas, by the spoonful... and we've now even worked in an ENTIRE (1/2 of a) peanut butter and jelly sandwich to our mealtimes! That's SO great!
Dax will happily eat just about whatever's in front of him - but I have noticed that he's not completely happy with the same thing twice in a row - unless I've skipped a snack, or he's slept through a snack. Otherwise, I try to keep it mixed up.
He's always loved his veggies - so I can often stick with peas for lunches and dinners for a while (until I get sick of serving them, really - and then we'll switch to broccoli or something else). But peas are quite easy - so who'd argue??

We're just floored with the kid he's turning out to be. After church today, we were all at lunch, and Dax leaned over to Anooj and went "uhh-uhh-uhh" with his mouth ready for a kiss - he just wanted to kiss his daddy! After Anooj gave him a kiss, he leaned over for one from me! What a sweet, sweet feeling that is! I can't even tell you.
He's just a bundle of love bug. And I just want to eat him up all day.
:)

He knows a ton of signs now, too - which makes our days SO interesting, and so much more worthwhile - he can tell me what he's thinking, what he wants, and what he sees - it's just amazing! I've been meaning to get a list of the signs he knows... but it'd probably be too boring for anyone to read... but the ones that seem the most important to us are: careful!, eat, hat, airplane, cracker, more, water, milk, PLEASE, HELP, shoes, frog (ribbit!) - which can be any reptile right now, other than a crocodile, crocodile!, monkey, duck, horse, bug, stars/socks (they're really similar!), mouse (from Goodnight Moon!), bear (teddy-bear), and of course, ball! Our day would be so much more difficult if we didn't have them...

And he says: Hi! (he's said that for a while now, but it's worth mentioning again -it's so cute when he does it!); boo-boo (he says bo-bo); corn; gone (all-gone; it's SO funny when he says it); *shooooossh* for airplane; FIRE truck, truck, truck, truck, truck, AWWWW truck, truck, truck (this could be Dump Truck, Garbage Truck, Fire Truck - although that one's pretty unmistakably loud, or just plain old Truck); moo-moo movie (he says mo-mo, or wo-wo-wo for movie); HOT - oo! hot!; woo-woo (dog); baaabaaa (sheep/goat); owwwowww! (cat)... and I'm probably forgetting so many more...


I'm so grateful that I've finally learned when he's tired, when he's hungry, and when he needs to go play outside and get some energy out. Those are cues I missed for quite a long time - and any normal person would question why that might happen, but I can honestly tell you that I was too busy trying to SEE them... I was too busy trying to survive, and trying to find out what was going on - that I didn't notice when the time was right to make things happen... like naps...
These are tough for every mom...
Some days I spend nearly the ENTIRE day trying to get Dax to nap... And the problem with this, is that our babies are just LEARNING MACHINES. And once they've learned that one action begets another, they'll keep doing whatever it is that got them what they wanted... to test it, yes - but to LEARN it BETTER... And on those days, Dax seems to learn that if he stays awake for one more song, or gets one more book read to him, then he can do it longer the next time... And those can be bad days...
For both of us...
But I've gotten SO much better at reading his cues - and a little fuss (when he realizes that he's about to lose the nap-battle with himself and just cannot stay awake any longer) can be SO worth it, if it nets us more than an hour of naptime.
:)
Anyway - we seem to be in a nice ebb-and-flow right now for our family.

Besides that I'm in school, and working, and trying to keep the house clean (what??), and being a full-time mommy, full-time wife, and a business owner...
It's been a little chaotic lately, to say the least - but I feel like we're all adapting pretty well for the effort so far.
:)
I'm proud of us in the Thakker household.