The Gabber

It's truly amazing how the development of language takes place in kids - we are having a great time witnessing Arlo's transformation from the babbles of infancy to sign language to a using a few words and now whole (correct!) sentences.  Just as he turned 2 he was trying out a lot of new words and we marveled at his expansion of vocabulary.  He finally said "Grammy" and "Pater" when we visited family this past June, although we certainly missed his "ehh-ehh" cough for Grandpa when he put a word to it.  He's got a good grasp now on most words - he'll try to say anything these days, even the hard to pronounce words like "exercise", "forwards", "transporter", "umbilical cord"....  Beyond individual words, though, he has blown us away with a great use of sentences and he's even getting some of the more difficult things like how to use indirect and direct objects.  About 3 months ago he referred to himself in the third person all the time ("Arlo wants a cracker") but not he's got first person down and even conjugates most verbs correctly for it.  Today he told me "That sandwich is yours; this one is mine."  Perfectly.  He is certainly absorbing tons of language from all the books we read cause he talks about them and tells bits of the stories while he's playing, and he has several of them at least partially memorized.  What really gets me is how quickly he made the transition to this level of communications.  I guess it's normal but I've never experienced it before.  Looking back 6 months and realizing he couldn't talk to us then but now he won't stop, well, it's just kind of miraculous.  One of the many, many things about raising kids. Makes me proud to be a mom.

Christmas in January and looking forward

Since I've been on maternity leave, we had a little extra time to make a family trip to Salem and visit grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends. It was great to get to spend a few days in the embrace of family - several of them meeting Magnus for the first time - and to have our Christmas exchanges in person.  There was sled-riding (see video), lots of good hanging-out, meals and drinks together, and we had some happy hands-free time with Gramma Karen and Grandpa Jim taking on a bit of the Magnus duty (THANK YOU!).  Arlo has talked non-stop about the time he spent with his cousins McKayla, Mariah and Alayna - and they seemed to enjoy it too.  We all got spoiled with gifts and Arlo's already mastered the new world map puzzle he got a week ago.  What a great trip! 


As the last few days of leave wind down we've been getting more and more anxious about getting things done around the house that are hard to find the time to do.  We're also trying to get ourselves ready for the shift - while Arlo is pretty fond of his brother at times, he's also a little jealous at other times and especially if his Daddy is the one holding Magnus.  So we're trying to get Arlo ready for sharing Dad and Magnus ready for missing Mom and Sam ready for having his hands full.  Not to mention I will need to get my head back in the game and start thinking beyond how to entertain a toddler or what we might want to make for dinner!  I honestly don't know how Sam does what he does as a stay-at-home dad, and I'm so thankful we've been able to share the parenting duties during my leave.  We have enjoyed 11 weeks where our first and only priority was being a family and being healthy and cozy together.  However, while the transition might be tough, I think we agree it's time, and I'm looking forward to getting back into the swing of things, albeit gradually and perhaps with fewer late nights!

Sled Riding

Around the house with Arlo

Arlo is a lucky kid - he's got tons of great toys.  But he's also happy to play with things around the house and he's interested in a lot of the things that are "everyday stuff" to us.  First, he's always been really into cooking - before I was comfortable giving him real food to work with, he would play endlessly with a bowl and whisk and a few measuring cups.  He quickly requested some water to put into those things so he could pour and stir.  I've also given him raisins, chocolate chips, other dried fruits and such to mix and eat for a more real cooking experience that required very little oversight.  That let me get some real cooking done without him getting bored just watching.  In the last several months, though, Arlo has been more and more ready to take on some of the bigger tasks with cooking - but obviously nothing with heat or my knives!  He is a great egg scrambler, can pour in just about anything measured (he got lots of practice with all the holiday baking), he loves to add seasoning and crack the pepper, and he's even cutting up the mushrooms for me with a butter knife.  I see some excellent potential once he's three!

Of course there's the usual stuff - light switches, doors, running waterr in the sink and bathtub, flushing the toilet, etc...But our little man - at 2 1/2 - is also interested in locks and keys.  His dad made him a lock play set with keys to lock and unlock the "door" out of a spare set from the basement.  He's always trying to figure out how things work - we find him with pilfered screwdrivers trying to take the battery out of his toys or unscrew the drum set.  Luckily he's not very successful with that yet!  He loves to play with the salad spinner (great loaded with matchbox cars) and the old teapot.  Perhaps not our favorite playthings, he's also figured out how to play his music cd's on the sound system and even control the tv remote.  He can even get the you tube video he wants to play on the computer now.  And of course he's all over my android phone with all of its kid-friendly apps.  If you get a strange call from me someday, though, you'll know it's likely little fingers getting ahold of something they shouldn't!

Christamas