Pretzel, Animal, and Bear

Those are three words off our list of favorite things that Creedence says right now. Over the past six weeks or so, his vocab has expanded immensely. I'm not going to try to describe how he pronunciates those words, but it's really adorable. He also says funny things that I know just come from listening to us throughout the day, like "alrighty then!" as a sort of transition word from one activity to another.

He's becoming more complex and its fascinating to watch. He is proving to be very tender-hearted towards babies, which is a promising sign. I make an effort to have him around little ones regularly, and he loves to help feed them, change diapers, hold them, and keep them happy by providing binkies and even his own toys. He is terribly concerned when a baby is crying, and will look at me concernedly, as if to ask what we should be doing about this, how do we get the baby to be happy again. The concept of happy vs. sad is something he's grasped and been able to express over the past weeks. He responds better to seeing me or Steve make a sad face when he has hit or bitten out of anger with us, as opposed to going to "time-out."

This softness only goes for babies though. If the kid can walk, bets are off. Creedence LOVES football (yeah, I know...) and likes to tackle.

He plays pretend with certain toys, like cars or stuffed animals, and is getting better at playing by himself. I tried to institute a quiet time in the mornings, because he is up at 7:30am and doesn't nap until 2, and I thought maybe a rest period in the middle there would help everyone keep it together through the morning. So I would get him situated with a bunch of toys, tell him it was quiet time where he plays alone and mommy goes to rest, and then I would go lie down or do something he considers boring (another word I unintentionally taught him while flipping through trying to find something good to watch).

Oh how he suffered! He would come up to me on the bed moaning and whining, saying "Up! Up!" repeatedly, bringing in all his toys, nuzzling up to me trying to push me off and out. I gave up after just a few mornings, but have since found out that it was more of a goodbye/separation problem then him being needy for my constant attention. If I don't say the words quiet time, or otherwise distinguish the act of my leaving the room to go lie down as anything special, he tends to last a lot longer playing on his own.

I feel like we're in a special place overall with Creedence right now. He is communicative and fun to have around (like really fun, not just "Oh, look, cute" fun. He can make me laugh and we converse and he's actually really helpful at picking stuff up for me most of the time), and he is still pretty easy to distract, so tantrums and meltdowns aren't really a problem yet. His sleeping is grad-u-a-l-l-y improving, for completely mysterious reasons that he is keeping to himself. I can now count on two hands the total number of nights he has slept through completely in the past 19 months. He can successfully use a fork, spoon and normal cup. Potty training phase one is progressing well, which means he'll tell me now when he has gone in his diaper, he'll sit on his potty for more than a couple seconds, and I'm able to pretty clearly tell his patterns. That may not sound like potty training, but this is progress for us. I'm also really aware of how these days of just me and him are counting down, so it makes me welcome the days where we are both in pajamas through lunch without feeling as much of an urge to be busy with other things.

As for the baby, she is super-active on a regular schedule throughout the day and night. She is as active if not more than Creedo was, but I don't remember being able to know what time it was by the amount of movement I feel. The most dramatic and consistent kickboxing seems to be around 10pm, no matter if I'm up or going to sleep. I've also got crazy heartburn, so I'm hoping for hair, and there's this ridiculous back pain some days that I can only describe as obnoxious. Its really obnoxious. We're just about in the third trimester though. I feel like if I can just make it through Christmas, then it will be easy from there. Right? Because being nine months pregnant is easy? It just makes sense to me though, to do all the baby prep and worrying and cleaning before then, and then plan on being calm the last month. I'm really looking forward to it actually! That's the best part of being pregnant I think: so much to look forward to.