Daniel singing

In my previous post I mentioned that Daniel has started singing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.  Here he is doing it on camera:

In other news, he often refers to himself as "Danny," though he can also say "Daniel" well and if you ask how big Daniel is, he'll say "so big" as he holds his hands wide.  He also knows a lot of animal noises and can respond to "what does the [cow/dog/pig/monkey/etc] say" questions with the correct sound.  And if you ask what Tarzan says he'll say "aaaah" while beating his chest.  Ask what Fonzie says and he'll reply "AAAAY!"  He's pretty cute and he knows it, judging from the giant smile!

He enjoys wearing Mommy and Daddy's clothes:

In Daddy's socks

In Mommy's shoes...which I then had to keep him from throwing in the tub!

In Daddy's shorts

He also loves going to our neighborhood pool.  I know he'll really love the beach when we go in a few weeks!

22 months: Tinkle, Tinkle Little Star!

Today Daniel is 22 months old.  This past month has seen a dramatic expansion of his vocabulary and verbal skills.  Literally, he probably says at least one new word a day.  And he's starting to use more and more phrases too, including "Bye-bye Mama," "one more thing," "Mimi blanket," "Daddy reach it," and, as of the other day, "peepee potty."  (More on that one in a minute.)  It's amazing and exciting to watch him learn so much and communicate so well.

The other day Daniel was playing with his Scout toy and it was singing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star."  Daniel began to sing along, "Tinkle tinkle, star."  It was the first time we'd ever heard him sing, and it was so cute!

Then, Sunday night, he brought new meaning to tinkle tinkle.  Lately he's been saying "peepee" and "poopoo" a lot, and takes great interest in watching us use the potty (to be the parent of a toddler is to have no toilet privacy).  So I bought him a little training potty and that night we let him try it out.  The plan was just to "offer" it, giving him a chance to see and sit on it but not pressuring.  At first he needed help to position himself properly on the seat but within a few minutes he was confidently sitting on the seat positioned properly behind the splash guard.  Then, as we were applauding that achievement, we heard the telltale sign that he was actually using the potty.  Needless to say, that got even more cheers.  He was so proud of himself, clapping his hands, smiling, and saying "yaaaay!"  Tinkle tinkle little star, indeed.

With that, potty training has officially commenced in our house!  As I was shopping for the potty I thought, "wow are we really here already?"  Yes, yes we are.  Wow, my baby is already potty training.

Today we offered the potty morning and night. He sat on it both times but didn't produce. No worries, right now it's just about acclimating him and giving him the option.  Given that he will only be staying with Grandma during the day for a little longer, we aren't going to bother trying to integrate potty training into his day there.  But, once he starts school, his school will help with potty training, so I expect him to make great strides then.  Hopefully, getting used to the idea at home will help him respond better to it at school.

The other day Daniel fell asleep on the way home from Grandma's house.  I realized he had been quiet for awhile and then heard gentle snoring coming from the back seat.  I drove around a few extra minutes to give him more sleep time and expected him to wake once we pulled into the garage.  But he was still sound asleep, snoozing away, despite my efforts to wake him.  So instead, I pulled out my phone and recorded him for awhile.  As you can see, even after I woke him up he still tried to go back to sleep.  Tired boy!

21 months old: He talks!

Daniel never fails to amaze me.  He's been a talker for months but the last few weeks have been a vocabulary explosion.  Literally, he's got several new words every day, too many to keep track of.  He hears us say a word and then he says it too.  And he's not just saying them, he understands what they mean.  Words that I don't even specifically remember teaching him, he knows and uses correctly.  A few of his recent ones are: shoe, sock, shirt, pants, diaper, zip (pronounced "zeep" like a Frenchman!), watch, milk, fork (pronounced like...well, it needs an R-rating), outside, I gotcha ("Igocka"), apples, and airplane.  And, finally, he says his own name, though it comes out more like "Naniel" than Daniel.

To be around him is to be treated to an almost constant narration of what he sees.  When he sees something he doesn't know the name for, he'll ask by pointing and saying "umma, umma, umma."  Actually, that's a phrase he uses a lot to get our attention.

He's learned a few cute tricks too.  We'll ask him, "what does the lion say?" and he'll reply "roar."  "What does the little piggy say?" "Wee, wee, wee" (all the way home).  And when we say, "how big is Daniel?" he says "sooo big" holding his hands wide.

Another cute thing he does is try to jump.  I'll stand in front of him and jump up and down.  He watches trying to figure out how I manage to get both feet off the ground and tries to do it himself but he ends up just getting up on his tiptoes and dancing around in something of a moonwalk.  Then I'll hop from leg to leg and he can copy me on that.  I know it's just a matter of time till he figures out the 2-footed jumping.  If there's a way to teach it though, I haven't found it.

In other news, we've decided on a preschool for Daniel.  After looking at 3, we've settled on Apostles Day School in Coppell, where our friends' two kids go.  It wasn't the most conveniently located option, but we loved the warm nurturing feel of it.  It's a Montessori school so the kids learn through self-paced "works" as well as group activities.  It's located at an Episcopal church too, so the kids get weekly chapel time, which we like.  He'll start this summer and I know he's going to love it.  He enjoys his days with Grandma but I think he'll really enjoy and benefit from the added stimulation of the classroom and regular interaction with other kids.  He really enjoys his playdates with his little buddies and it'll be fun to see him make new friends.

This is our favorite age so far with Daniel-he's so interactive, his personality becoming more developed, and every day we get to watch him learn new things.  Of course, every age has been our favorite, and I can't wait to see what's in store over the next few months.  Every day with our little boy is a blessing.  We're so lucky!

Driving!

He climbed right from Daddy's arms onto the fridge!

Trying on Mommy's shoes

Playground fun

20 months old

So here we are, now 4 months away from Daniel's 2nd birthday.  With every passing month he seems to transition more and more from a baby to a little boy.  His latest trick?  As I discovered today, he can climb onto the table. Time was not so long ago I could set him down on the floor, leave the room, and he'd still be in the same spot when I returned.  Now, apparently he's likely to be up on the dining room table.  As is often the case with such things, even as I'm telling him "no" and setting him back on the floor, I'm struggling to hide the laugh.  Life with a young toddler is never dull!

In other news, he's becoming increasingly vocal and seems to learn a new word every other day or so.  Recent additions to the list are "please," "home," and "bath," though his favorites are "mama," "dada," "up," and "no."  He can say his grandparents' names too, somewhat: Grandma is "Damma," Mimi is "Mimi," or sometimes "Mimimi," and Grandpa is "Baba."  He also has a lot of "gibberish" words which might make sense to him but don't yet to us.  Perhaps he's just trying out different combinations of sounds.  In any event, it's pretty entertaining.

No new developments on the sleep front.  He'll skip his nap sometimes or go through a few nights in a row of waking up, but overall he's a great sleeper.  He's a good eater too, though with occasional picky/light eating phases.  He's getting increasingly proficient with a fork and spoon, though tonight's adventures in eating rice were quite messy because he insisted on feeding himself.  But, I'm happy that he seems to like healthy foods and wants independence.  As far as clothes go, he's still in 18 month clothes.  They aren't getting small on him yet but they aren't big anymore.  I bet we get another month or so out of them then it's on to 2T.

A few weekends ago we went to the Houston area for my grandmother's memorial service.  I booked us at a suite hotel and definitely think that concept would serve us well on future trips.  It was nice to have some room to spread out and be able to put him to bed (in the pack n play we brought) in the bedroom, then shut the doors and stay up and visit in the living area.  Before bed though, we went out to eat at the BJ's brewpub nearby.  Funny, Kevin's and my first date was at a BJ's, now we see it and think "oh, good kid-friendly place."  And it was-lots of families, and noisy enough that the occasional cry wouldn't be disruptive.  I was a little nervous about it as we don't generally take Daniel out to dinner, we'd been on the road all afternoon, and it was his bedtime, but he rose to the challenge and for the most part did quite well.  We did get some funny pictures of him next to the empty glasses from the beer sampler Kevin and I shared.

On that trip, we also discovered a new trick of his:



One big change in the works is that we're planning to start him in preschool a few days a week after his 2nd birthday.  We haven't chosen the school yet but we've got it narrowed down to our top 2 choices.  I think either would be a good option for him, we just need to discuss the differences and decide which is the best fit for us.  The plan is to start him off with 3 days a week of school and 2 days at Grandma's, then eventually go to 5 days of school.  He loves his time with Grandma, and she loves it, but he's also enjoying interactions with other kids now too and I think would enjoy the different stimulation and structure that a classroom provides.  So, by the next time I post we'll probably have a decision on that front.

Eating good in the neighborhood

I've been meaning to post about our experiences with the Urban Acres CSA (community sponsored agriculture) but haven't gotten around to it till now.  Last month we signed up, along with our neighbors, for a biweekly share of ~30 pounds of local, organic produce.  We've gotten 3 shares so far with items including broccoli, kale, mustard greens, chard, spinach, sweet potatoes, turnips, beets, radishes, apples, and oranges, among other things.

When we started the CSA I decided 2 things: 1) I would use everything we get, even if it's not something we would normally buy, and 2) I would use every usable part of the veggies.  That means cooking and eating the greens if they're edible and saving the scraps to make veggie stock.

Here's our first share, and some of the things we made from it:

Sauteed broccoli crowns

Red pepper-garlic broccoli leaves

Pickled broccoli stems

Applesauce for Daniel

Garlic ginger mustard greens

Sauteed Indian-seasoned cabbage

Our second share:

Beets-look at that pretty coloring!

Rainbow carrots, carrot greens, and shiitake mushrooms

The most unusual/creative thing I've made is a pizza using pureed boiled beets as the sauce base instead of tomatoes-"beetza."  Would never have thought to try that but saw the recipe online and decided to give it a try.  I made a honey whole wheat crust then made the sauce with pureed beets, goat cheese, olive oil, and seasoning.  I topped it with mozzarella cheese, goat cheese, spinach from our share, kale, and venison sausage.  It wasn't from our share but it was made from the deer Kevin shot last fall, so it fit with the local/organic theme.  Here's what the finished product looked like:

So how did it turn out?  Actually, pretty good.  I wouldn't use beets instead of tomatoes, but if I had beets on hand already this would be a good use for them.  The bacon actually wasn't all that great on its own but turned out to be pretty good as a pizza topping.  And I had made pizza crust before but not in awhile, but now that I've been reminded how good it is, we'll have to make more homemade pizzas.

Tonight I simmered the veggie scraps I've been storing in the freezer for the last month or so and made some stock.  Not sure what I'll do with the scraps now.  I pureed them so I think I'll see if they work as the base for a soup.  I made a soup last week using CSA cabbage and baking potatoes and am thinking to do another one with some CSA celery this week.

The CSA shares have definitely challenged me to cook new things and get the most out of our veggies.  The shares have so far been a good mix of things we would get anyway (broccoli, apples) and new things (beets, radishes, romaine and spinach heads-we usually get bagged) and while we haven't loved everything (Kevin wasn't a beet fan before and the last month hasn't changed his mind), we have found some new things we like and would get again, and I like the challenge of cooking new things.  Looking forward to seeing what great stuff we get next week!

Meet my new blog!

You know when there's a tv show, and a supporting character becomes popular enough that s/he gets a spinoff show to star in?  Same kind of thing here.  I decided that my posts on the races I run are enough of a tangent from the primary goal of this blog-keeping our family and friends updated on our family life-that it was time for the little bird to leave the nest and become a new blog.  So from now on, you can find my race write-ups, including for today's Cupid's Chase 5k, here.  If you like pictures of cool trophies, you should definitely check out the first post!  And with that, we resume our regularly scheduled programming...

Books I read in 2011

Decided it was time to move last year's reading list from a side widget to a post and start new for 2012.  So, here's my reading list from 2011:

• Room, Emma Donoghue
• Chi Running, Danny Dreyer
• Born to Run, Christopher McDougal (r)
• The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan
• The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing To Our Brains, Nicholas Carr
• The Lincoln Lawyer, Michael Connelly
• Innocent, Scott Turow (r)
• Choke: What the Secrets of the Brain Reveal About Getting It Right When You Have To, Sian Beilock
• The Happiest Toddler on the Block, Harvey Karp
• Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Frontlines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture, Peggy Orenstein
• The Frailty Myth: Women Approaching Physical Equality, Colette Dowling
• Nerve, Taylor Clark
• Patent It Yourself, David Pressman
• Patent Pending in 24 Hours, Richard Stim and David Pressman
• Nurture Shock, Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman
• The Help, Kathryn Stockett
• The Price of Everything, Eduardo Porter
• Poser: My Life in 23 Yoga Poses, Claire Dederer
• The Confession, John Grisham
• Vanished Glory: A Family in America, Connie Lynne Smith
• Dilemma: A Priest's Struggle With Faith and Love, Father Albert Cutie
• The Appeal, John Grisham (r)

I liked most of what I read last year.  Particularly memorable books were Vanished Glory (historical fiction about some of my distant ancestors), The Help, Nerve, and Room.  I'm already off to a good start in 2012 too!