It has been pointed out to me that perhaps I shouldn't post about how much my life sucks and then disappear for a week. Sorry.
Here I am, back! And with a developmental update. Colin is 18 months old, and a fine big capable boy.
Just recently he's really gotten the rules down for peekaboo. He "hides" (announcing "hiding!") and then pops out and shouts "peekaboo!" He has not fully grasped the principles underlying hiding, which sometimes makes for very cute results.
(Also a perennial source of toddler cute: Colin thinks he can jump. What he can do is squat down and then stand up quickly saying "jump!" It's almost like jumping, right? He's very proud.)
He's got a few hundred words now, which he deploys with verve. We can have real conversations:
Me: Want to help me put away books, Colin?
Colin: touches a book. Alex.
Me: Are these books for Alex?
Colin: Chapter.
Me: Yes, those are chapter books.
Colin: pointing at my monitor. Baby! Becky! Baby!
Me: You want to see pictures of Becky and the babies?
(pulls up our friends' baby blog.)Colin: reaches for the screen. Baby. Carry.
Me: You want to carry the baby?
Colin: Yes.
One of my favorite new words of his, which he uses all the time now: "Turn." He'll take a bite of a cracker and then hand the rest to me, saying invitingly, "Turn!" Or Alex will get out of the bathtub, and if it doesn't look like I'm getting ready to put him in next he'll anxiously say "Turn! Turn!" He was in a study today at the Johns Hopkins Cognitive Development Lab, and he eagerly directed me and the experimenter to take turns with a particular toy. It feels like it's of a piece with the general harmoniousness we've noticed in Colin all along.
He has a few two-word phrases:
help me, other side, read again, cut it, and, inevitably,
more see-see (i.e., nursing). They are stereotyped for the most part; he's not flexibly putting together two different words he happens to know. But it is still definitely an expansion.
He likes to reel off lists of words. When I'm rocking him at bedtime, I'll hear "Red. Red. Orange. Blue. Green. Pink." Or he'll look up from playing and start naming animals and making their sounds. "Sheep! Baaa. Neigh... horse. Cow. Cow. Moo." Or he'll just start pointing to and naming parts of the body. I guess that when you only have a couple hundred words, it's hard to make conversation without relying on lists. (Colin is actually the world champion of animal sounds. You should hear his elephant trumpet.)
Colin and Alex are as thick as thieves these days. They chase each other around the house and climb all over each other. As soon as he wakes up in the morning he looks around: "Alex? Alex?" He wants to be right where she is doing right what she's doing. Sometimes this poses difficulties on the homeschooling front, but I try to remember that their good relationship is more important to me than her learning this particular thing at this particular moment. On her side, of course she sometimes finds him annoying, but she also plays with him much more than I expected her to.
Colin likes: airplanes, trucks, trains, and other things that go vroom. Bunnies. ("Hop! Hop! A bunny!") Being "pretty," such as dressing up in Alex's dress-up clothes or putting ponytail holders on his wrists and ankles. Playing in the sink or other water sources, which he attempts to justify by pleading to wash his hands. Being read to. Looking at pictures online, particularly Google Images searches for "commercial airplanes" and our friends' aforementioned baby blog. Having his entire family in sight at all times. Nursing, a little too much.
He continues to be a good regular-food eater, although ironically he isn't any heavier than Alex was as a terrible eater. He loves meat, fish, shellfish, rice, pasta, fruit, raw vegetables. We've got another one here who loves sushi.
His sleep continues to suck, but he has slept through the night twice now, so I have a tiny shred of hope that it will improve. We've decided to nightwean in a few weeks (after our camping trip) in hopes that that will lead to a big breakthrough in nighttime sleep.
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