Time Flies!

I have written about three posts so far this week but I can't ever seem to finish one before I am beckoned away from the computer and naturally by the time I get back to it I have pretty much lost my train of thought and have something new to write about instead.

So for once in my life (and only out of necessity!.. so don't get too spoiled here!) I am going to make it short and sweet.

I can't believe how much Luke is changing these days. Just in the past week he has started signing and can now communicate through signing "no", "music" (both of which he has been doing but I guess I never realized it before), "more" (his favorite and most frequent!), "food/eat", "sleep/tired" (very cute!), and tonight he signed "milk" for the first time. The "milk" sign was cute because he was paying close attention to his hands and my hands trying to re-create what I was doing. In the end rather than opening and closing his hands he does more of a pinching motion with them... I was so impressed to watch this all unfold.

Also something new he has started is letting us know he is ready to go to bed! A week or maybe a little more ago as I noticed he was starting to get cranky and restless (and it was getting late... he doesn't have a "set" bedtime but he generally gets cranky and tired around the same time when we are at home) I asked him if he was "ready for sleepies?" I usually say something like "are you tired? you ready for sleepies?" only this time I started walking towards our bedroom as I was saying it. Now that he is walking it never occured to me he would just follow me. The next night he initiated the walk to the bedroom himself when I asked if he was "ready for sleepies". Dave and I exchanged an incredulous look. We thought it may be coincidence but lo and behold every night since when he is tired and ready for bed he starts to lay on me and we sign "sleep", I ask him if he is tired and "ready to go to bed/ready for sleepies" and he goes right for the bedroom and to the rocker to wait for me to come read him his nightly bedtime story "Mommy Loves Me".

I also can't believe how much he has progressed with his walking in no time. Especially considering he has been sick twice and congested and teething ever since his first birthday. Right after his first birthday (within a week!) he was walking independently. A few weeks later he was walking everywhere! Now he is giving the running walk a go. He goes back and forth through the house trying to see how fast he can go. It is hilarious!

He is also showing his independent side much more. At mealtime he insisits on feeding himself. As you can see from the picture this doesn't always make for a "neat" eating experience ;) He has nearly mastered the spoon and has pretty much fed himself at least a half dozen times using the spoon and a bowl. Of course he still likes to use his hands a lot but he was determined to master the art of eating with silverware! Every once in a while when he is really hungry he will hand the spoon over to me to help him get a couple good spoonfulls in but he is pretty good at doing it himself. And note: only when he hands the spoon over... definitely don't try to coax him away from doing it himself if that is the mode he is in!

Even in other settings he wants to learn how to do things himself. We were playing outside today and I got out the bubbles. He loved watching the bubbles but he was more interested in figuring out how I was making the bubbles come from that little orange wand. He took the wand from me and dipped it in the container as he had seen me do and then was a little perplexed about the whole blowing part. He would put the wand up to his mouth and cringe when he tasted the soapy bubble solution. Then he would hand the wand back to me so he could watch me do it again.

The picture above is Luke with what looks like a little green lunch pail on his arm. This is actually him imitating me "going bye-byes". For months now he has been signing bye bye (again... a sign he has been doing that I dismissed because he wasn't doing other signs I guess... silly me) and anytime I get our "bye bye" bag and gather him up he knows it is time to go bye bye. About a month ago he started "pretending" he was going bye byes like Mommy. I kept this "lunch pail" (it is actually the first food grinder I bought when I started making baby food) in a low cabinet and he started taking it out of the cabinet and putting it on his arm and walking around the house like this. At first I didn't quite figure out what he was doing but then he would also wave bye-bye to me and I realized he was pretending to go bye byes like Mommy does when she gets her bag. It is hilarious to watch him now because he goes for the cabinet, gets out the pail, puts it on his arm, turns to you to wave bye bye, then heads for the door.

Well now that I have once again NOT made it short and sweet (maybe this will be a new goal... I will continue posting with the goal of making it short and sweet and see if I can ever make this happen!!... probably not!) it is time to call it a night!