Conor turns 2!

Conor turned 2 and it seems like every day he is showing us that he really is on the verge of learning new things and how to do different things on his own. We ask him to turn off the tv and he grabs the remote and knows which button to push. He can use a mouse with a little success. He definitely knows how to turn on the computer, to get it ready for us to take him to Youtube so he can watch helicopters and airplanes. He attempts to put his shoes on himself and almost has his coat figured out too.

He picks up his books and sits with them telling himself what the story is about. He even pointed out a major plot detail in Goodnight Gorilla that I had completely missed (my little genius!). If the cd player was at his level, I'm sure he would be regularly choosing cds to put in and play. I already know we're going to have arguments about volume in the future. In the car on the way to daycare he calls out the names of songs he wants me to play from his Sesame Street cd. "Cookie" he calls from the back seat, which is my cue to forward to C is for Cookie by Cookie Monster. "Ernie" he says which means he wants to hear the rubber ducky song. And just this morning he said something about trash. I asked him if he wanted the Oscar song and he said, "yeah." The Oscar song is I love Trash. Of course nothing takes precedent over Elmo, and we must listen to Elmo's song twice as many times as all the other songs combined. Sometimes I tell him Elmo needs to take a potty break, and then I sneak in one of my songs.

We love our little two year old! I hope I can find the time to type up some of the other fun things he has been sharing with us.

2011 - Must be time for the terrible two's

Conor turns 2 mid-month, but that hasn't stopped us from complaining about the "terrible 2's" for a couple months now. I think I witnessed his first real tantrum around 18 months. He may not have been an early walker, but tantrums he picked up on easy as you please. So far we have been lucky in that the tantrums have occurred mostly at home. They're easier to laugh off at home, so I'm thinking we'll try to go from home to daycare back home again as much as possible and stay in most of the year. It will make it a quiet social year, but look at all the money we'll save.

Seriously, Conor isn't too bad even in the middle of a good crying session. If the tantrum is about something we're not willing to give in on, it doesn't take long to divert his attention to something else. A good (fake) belly chop from my husband usually has him giggling pretty quick.

The other day he refused to let me help him put his coat on. He couldn't do it himself, and finally said, "need help." Usually tantrums with me are over changing his diaper or getting dressed. Some parents say to just hand the kid an interesting toy to distract him. Ha ha ha, that worked up until a few months ago. I have to do a lot of Oscar winning acting to make a toy seem fascinating enough for him to hold while I put a new diaper on. My cell phone usually quiets him in 2 seconds but then I have to figure out how to turn off the auto-correct feature he managed to turn on.

So far there hasn't been anything too terrible that we've experienced, and I think the more language Conor acquires he'll be able to tell us what is wrong or what he wants. Hopefully he'll be open to the idea of negotiation and power sharing too. I promise I won't throw a tantrum if it doesn't happen.

These are a few of his favorite things

Conor is like most kids, knows what he likes and what he doesn't like. And sometimes what he doesn't like is what he liked 5 minutes ago. Ahhh, the ever-changing mind of a "pre-toddler" (you've heard of "pre-teen"? well we have that and a pre-toddler in the house...watch out!).

It's a powerful thing to know what the pre-toddler *loves* because if this knowledge is used correctly, it is possible to control their actions, at least for a short period of time. So, what does Conor really love? Besides his blankie right before nightie night or in the middle of a good cry? Or besides the bedtime bottle of milk? The only thing that comes to mind is.....popsicles! I pulled one out of the freezer for him the other day and I could swear his world stopped momentarily as his eyes locked on the plastic wrapped treat and he transitioned into the foot stomping happy dance that he sometimes does. He never once took his eyes off the popsicle as he ran towards me to claim it. I hardly had time to take the wrapper off before he reached me grabbing for it. He doesn't get to have these too often. I brought one out for him that day because he'd been such a good boy and I wanted to give him a special treat.

But now, knowing how much he loves his popsicles, would it be so wrong to use it as the occasional bribe to encourage good behavior? I haven't had to worry about bribing yet but I'll keep it in mind for when that day finally comes.

More new words!

A few more words for Conor in the last two weeks: hello and yellow, purple, cold and plane. Oh, and bottle. Bubble is still a stand in for blueberry, but he is really making attempts to say words by pointing at things and waiting for us to say what they are. He's done this a lot with books we look at. He attempts to say Elmo by saying Momo. And "thank you" sounds a bit like "A chew". He has surprised us with some other new words but I can't think of what they are just right now. He still impresses me with how he tries to mimic my phrases by just copying the intonation. He doesn't usually get any of the words at all but he captures the phrasing really well.

Conor's crazy week

This week Conor has been waking around midnight and again around 3 or 4 in the morning. He probably has some teeth coming in slowly that are causing him to wake. Or of course it could be gas, but that isn't the type of thing to wake him up anymore. It has been really hot too although not as hot as last summer, or even last month. Fingers crossed that he gets back to a regular sleep schedule.

Nighty Night!

The books all recommend a consistent bedtime routine for babies, so that they can begin to calm down; the day is nearly done and it is time for bed. At least that's what I guess the idea is.

Typical bedtime routines involve taking a bath, brushing teeth, maybe a last drink of milk or water, and a bedtime book. I try to follow that routine but it doesn't always work too well. The idea is to get baby to calm down and ready for sleep. We find that Conor wants to play, play, play until he is wiped out.

After his bath and brushing teeth, he gets another hour of running around the living room, chasing and throwing balls, playing with cars or exploring some other favored toy. Once he shows signs of starting to be tired (usually between 7:30 and 8), one of us gets a little sippy cup with milk, and his blanket and heads upstairs with him to his room. If it's me, we like to rock in the chair for a few minutes and listen to some music (Caspar Babypants), or I like to sing a few lullabies to him. It is almost my favorite time of day sitting in the semi-lit room, singing some favorite songs to my little guy. Here is a quick list with links to some of our/my favorites:

Skye Boat Song
Tur-a-lura-lura
All the Pretty Horses
Dance to your Daddy
My Darling
Golden Slumbers
There's a Kind of Hush

He's very sweet when I sing to him. He either really does fall asleep to the singing, or is faking it to get me to stop, ha ha. Next I'm looking for a simple Greek lullaby to balance out the celtic-ness of our night time drill.

He speaks!

The last two weeks or so have been exciting for us to realize that Conor's babble is slowly becoming language that we actually understand.

I had been enjoying the sound of him just stringing incomprehensible words together into babble sentences (in the back seat of the car while we're driving, or in his crib, or in his high chair at the table). I don't think even he knew what he was saying when he did this, but he enjoyed the act of "talking" and didn't care if anyone was listening or not.

Before we knew it the babble started to sound like actual words. Here is a list of words in Conor's official vocabulary: hot, bubble, milk, bottle, poop, mama, dada or daddy, kitty (sounds like keekee), Ian (sounds like Eee), up, three, bye bye, all done, go and ball.

For some reason if he doesn't know the word for an object, it is automatically "bubble" til he does learn the word. He doesn't use all the words on a regular basis, but we've heard him say each enough in the right context to know he understands what the word is. The words he uses most are bubble (he likes his blowing bubbles), go (as in Go Go Go!!!), dada, mama, and ball. He knows what blueberries are but I think it is easier for him to just say bubble when he wants them.

I catch him repeating my intonation with phrases alot. This morning I said "right now" and he mimicked the sound of the words. When he was learning to say "all done" he did the same thing.

He knows many more words of course. Ask him to go get his shoes, blanket, coat and he'll go look for them. Tell him something is "over in the corner" and he looks to the corner. If I tell him to put something in the trash he runs to the kitchen and stands at the cupboard that holds the trashcan. It's a great but dangerous time. I think we're at the point he's paying attention to things more than we might realize, especially TV and our own occasional bad words that slip out.










Here's Conor with Oma Barbara in June 2010.