Here’s hoping Jess gets around to sending me some of our recent pictures or posts them herself. We just got back from a beautiful weekend up on Torch Lake, and got some great pics of the man - lots of time on the sand, in the pool, he had a blast.
And he continues to amaze - I’m almost taking it for granted that he’s going to do or say something incredible every day. He got to put on his show for 2 of his 6 grandparents this weekend - Nana and ‘Eddie!’ Ed will forever be associated with high fives for Colin, as Ed taught him that maneuver along with the unique Ed follow-on - double thumbs up accompanied by shouting “hoo, hoo, hoo!” Colin loves it.
Some of his other great quotes:
- Us: “Do you want a waffle or a bagel” - Colin: “Both”
- The day after he fell off my deck chair and hit his cheek (so it was my fault), Nana asks him how his face is, he points at the spot where he hit the deck (ha) and says “Dada”
- Ten minutes into the four hour drive up north - Colin: “Mama?” - Jess: “Yes?” - Colin: “All done…home” - nice try buddy
There were many more, hopefully Jess can add a few. I can’t believe he’s going to be 2 so soon.
It is still amazing to me how much Colin understands in such a short time. Last night he was playing in the living room and I asked Chuck what we should have for dinner - it didn’t even seem like Colin was paying attention and he yells “Pizza.” Chuck and I just both looked at each other like “did you just hear that?” - we tend to do that at least once a day now.
Yesterday we got Colin a sand box and as we were filling it outside (well Chuck was carrying the 50 lb sand bags over) Colin kept saying “More sand. More sand?” It was so clear and sounded like a real sentance. He has started singing/saying his ABC’s - he can already recognize all the letters but now he is starting to know the order too. He is also starting to count. It used to be 2..1..9…2 but over the weekend he started saying 1..2…3…4..5…8…9 - it is really cool to hear him and be waiting to see if he gets the next one right. I overheard him counting and I couldn’t believe he made it to 5. I am sure all parents go through this stage … “I can’t believe he knows that…etc” but it is still really fun.
We have been working on a mini-kitchen remodel and lets just say that it is a good thing this is a practice house. We put in a new counter - bought it from Lowes…just formica, anyway she made a point of saying “oh, we can do that in one piece…” I thought, great. Of course we didn’t think about actually getting into the counter space, so Chuck and I cut it right down the middle by the sink…then read later you shouldn’t make cuts by the sink due to water leaking…hence caulk is our new best friend. The “cut it right down the center” was just the first in a series of probably 15-20 “adjustments” we had to make to the counter…it was a mess and my fault since I made the template. That was just the beginning because then we got plumbing…seemed like an interesting challange until our first test run when water was dripping from everywhere. Anyway, we got it fixed eventually, although I keep checking under the sink for drips…maybe they were all due to our little helper 
Maybe you can get too many pictures - I’m not going to post the ones Jess took recently of Colin’s skin, because he’s had hives the past few days. We haven’t been able to trace the source, and it doesn’t seem to affect him in any way, but it hasn’t been easy to deal with.
On a brighter note, he’s hilarious, and smart. Jess is always amazed when he pulls his latest feat of astounding recall or understanding; i.e. pulling into the doctor’s office the other day, and he says “cracker”, just because the doctor gave him a cracker at some point in the past. Or when we’re driving by the Y and he just sees the sign and says ‘pool’ or ‘elevator’ (I can’t do justice to his pronunciation on that one). We’ve also been dropping words from other languages on him recently, and for some reason he’s spot on with the pronunciation of those words - ask him to say ‘hello’ and it comes out like ‘a-do’ or something similar. Ask him to say ‘bonjour’, and it’s like he’s growing up in Paris.
I did try to post a photo here, but Blogger sucks sometimes on that front. Have to wait till next time.
Of course you can’t ever get enough Colin pics - this one is a couple of weeks old, but it’s one of Colin’s first “own cones”. That’s his obsessive chant as we get anywhere near anywhere that serves ice cream. Most often that’s the Dairy Queen, dangerously located within a couple of blocks of our house. We just sort of let him go to town on this one, and he was loving it. Notice the full facial coverage of vanilla soft-serve.
As Jess mentioned, we just got back from a quick trip to NYC to visit with Colin’s grandparents. It’s great taking a trip with almost no agenda. In this case, we did arrange to go see Spamalot on Broadway (which was hilarious), but other than that it was just a chance for my Mom and Dad to see Colin after 5 months. Also had a chance to catch up with friends, and couldn’t believe that anyone other than our parents (hey Riss) actually reads this blog - nothing like some motivation to keep this thing updated.
I couldn’t believe how well Colin did in the car. We drove straight through (~10 hours) both ways, and even on the way home he was remarkably well-behaved. Probably a bit of exhaustion mixed in there, as his sleeping issues kicked into gear while we were in Tarrytown.
Speaking of sleep issues, I think I’m running a serious sleep deficit, and I’m not sure when I’m going to catch up - the wail-a-thon Wednesday night didn’t help anything, as I ended up sleeping on the couch so that I could try to get 4 hours before heading off to work.
But we’ll muddle through - got my first organized run in quite a while (probably since the triathlon in 2003?) coming up over Memorial Day, just a 10K. I’m not planning on breaking any records.
Here’s baby boy with the first stuffed animal that appears to mean anything significant to him, affectionately dubbed ‘bunny’. On occasion he’ll sit Bunny down, then sit down across from him, and start having a conversation with Bunny. And one of these days we’ll hopefully capture that on the video camera (where is that camera again, and how much did we pay for it???)…
Over the past couple days Colin has done a few funny things I want to be sure to remember.
I don’t really let him watch TV but he does watch Sesame Street and they give a Spanish word of the day. The other day it was “Hola” and Colin repeated it a few times. Later that day I asked him to say hi in spanish and he says “Hi in Spanish”
On Tuesday we went to home depot to by a door and had to wait awhile. Of course Colin would not stay in the cart so he got down and wandered over to a display of door handles and locks. He got super excited and said “Mama - keys, keys” - meaning he wanted mine. I gave them to him and he slowly picked one key out and tried it in each lock (which was covered by plastic) and goes “no” on to the next one “no”, etc. He must have tried every key in every lock - which was good for me. This may not seem like that big of a deal, but he is only 20 months and it is amazing to see your child do something that requires 3 or 4 connected thoughts and that you have never specifcally shown them or talked about.
Tonight while eating dinner - mexican stew (picture broth, peas, carrots, corn, etc) Colin took his spoon and vertically flicked and entire spoonful all over my head. It was mostly an accident but right after he did it he goes “High five” while putting his dirty hand up. This is a good example of where I sometimes feel like I can’t believe I am a parent - while trying to tell him he shouldn’t have done it I can hardly keep from laughing.
Of course it isn’t all fun and games. Colin hasn’t been going to bed well recently and he always wants me in his room while he falls asleep - it has been my fault because I let things slide while we were on vacation. Last night though he woke up at 12:30 and screamed my name for 45 minutes - pure torture. I thought after you “cry it out” once you don’t have to do it again, but I guess I was wrong. I ended up staying in my room and just talking to him a bit until he finally feel asleep. It is just terrible to hear him going “Ma-ma, ma-ma” and heaving and crying, knowing if I just walk into his room I can make it stop - but in the long run it is best for both of us if I don’t.
During our trip to NY last week we took Colin in to New York City to visit Chuck’s high school friend Larissa and her husband Michael and as we were walking back to our car he was blowing kisses to every person we passed on the sidewalk…Chuck and I thought it was pretty funny.
