growing up Connor

A baby no more. Connor plays in his room by himself a lot now. He thinks its fun to shut the door on himself. And destroy things in private. (He's not actually hardly destructive at all, just likes to remove all his clothes from the shelves on occasion.) Usually when he wants out he just gets fussy and bangs on the door; and usually we listen, but this particular time he gave up and just went to sleep on his own.

Speaking of which , Connor is saying a lot of words these days. He very clearly says "Mama", Dada", "baba", "up", "open", "ball", "Jaz", and "boom". Less obvious to anyone not his parents, but clear enough for me, he says "dow" for down, "ow-" for out, "ba-oon" for balloon, "sat" for sit, "vava" for vacuum, "Jaymn" for Jaden, "Liwwy" for Lily, and probably a dozen other things I'm forgetting right now. And what's really cute is he tries to talk in complete sentences making up other babble to till in the gaps.. ("Dala dina nuna.. UP?") Mama was his first word from way back. He started saying up very clearly right around the 1yr mark. Open he picked up from the Wheels on the Bus book / song. Boom comes from Marvin K Mooney (GO!) and the ga-zoom machine. Baba was Mom's way of teaching him to say bottle, which was good because now he totally asks for and understands when you tell him it's bedtime.

Actually, he basically understands everything I say to him, like asking him to get his shoes, socks, pants, jacket.. if I ask him if he wants food, to go outside, a hug, tell him to be nice, play with his toys.. he gets it all. He understands "stay" and "wait", though waiting is definitely not his thing. Mama taught him all the face stuff a while back so he knows eyes, ears, mouth, nose, teeth. It's amazing, really, how much he has learned even in just the past 2 or 3 months.

Sure, he screams his full head off sometimes, but he's overall a joyful child, easily placated, very obedient and gentle, and fun to be around. In some ways he's better when the older kids are around, but he also squawks at them when he doesn't want to be told what to do by a kid, though they're usually just trying to help him either do something or stay out of trouble. Mama's finally found a TV show he likes: the Wiggles. He likes to dance, and loves hearing singing, so that's what hooked him. He also likes the funny costumes, and pretend he can jump.

Heather and I love him dearly.