Play dough and words

Robin played with his play dough today. I've shown him how to make snakes with play dough before, but he's never been able to reproduce it. It's also been about two weeks since he's played with play dough at all. Well, today I looked back over at him, and I discovered that he'd made a snake all by himself! See it? Just to the right of the big clump?

Doesn't he look proud of himself?

And now, for your viewing pleasure, here are some videos of Robin talking. We can add several animal noises to his repertoire, including snake and dog sounds (in the video) and pig and train sounds (which I forgot to prompt.) He's also learned the Dreaded Toddler Negative. He's not actually saying "no," but he's figured out that shaking his head has the same meaning. *sigh*

Mother's Day #2

For the past couple of years, we've gone to the Zoo for Mother's Day brunch, but it was a bit hard on us last year (what with pausing to nurse every few hours and the weather being chilly.) This year (especially since Dean's grandma can't get around very well right now) we decided to have

brunch at our house. Dean's goal was to replicate the Zoo's brunch, so he prepared a lot of batter and fruit the night before, and set all the non-moms to work fixing it when they arrived. Us moms got to relax and play with Robin (in a few years, we'll put him to work, too.)

It was very yummy, and was nice not to have to change diapers all day.

Here's Robin giving me a Willow Tree statue called "Child's Touch."

Later on, Dean, his sibs, and I played croquet while Robin refused to nap (he cried for a L-O-N-G time.)  Kathy had to leave her shoes at our house because Robin had snuck them into his room before his nap, and we didn't want to disturb him to get them out.  That evening, Dean cleaned out my car for his gift to me.  All in all, it was a great day!

18 months old and loving it

I guess I've been a little lax in posting lately, so it's time for a few updates. Oh, and people have been lax in commenting, too. We like hearing from everybody, so please let us know what these posts make you think about from time to time!

A few more words: Robin's vocabulary has expanded a little bit--not fast enough for impatient me, but that doesn't diminish the fact that he's definitely learning.

New spoken words: (we're up to 9)
fish (sounds like shh)
oink (okay, it's more of a snort)
baby (about two days after he started saying this, I had a book out with lots of pictures of babies in it, and he was getting a big kick out of flipping through it, pointing to babies, and saying "baby."
He started babbling "no," but hasn't used it in context yet

New signs: (we're up to 7)

cheese
hat

He's getting really good at identifying things. We can look through most of his books now, and ask him to point to a certain animal or object, and he can find lots of them. It's so awesome to watch him learn! He doesn't have colors yet, but we're working on them.

He's much more assertive these days, and he's certainly good at communicating in non-verbal ways. A big thing he does right now is grab for our hands, grip a finger, and lead us where he wants to go. Then he'll either point to what he wants (a door opened, a toy/book/food that's high up, etc) or he'll grab a toy or book and hand it to us. If he handed us something, he'll next show us where he wants whatever-it-is done, by pointing or patting a chair or something. He's still very much into books, so we go to the library regularly--and like all kids, he's learning by repetition, so we get to read the books over and over (and over and over and over and over) again.

I learned today, though, that he definitely needs more peer time, and more chances to practice sharing. I know kids don't grasp that concept for a long time, but I want him to get more practice at it. He took a book away from another kid at the library today, and continually tried to take a puzzle away from another. Since he hasn't done that sort of thing before, I felt a little surprised and embarrased. I have been trying to get together with some friends with kids more often (I met a friend at a McDonalds playplace yesterday and Robin had his first Happy Meal) so this is just more motivation to step it up a bit. (Normally I never go to McDonalds, but we needed an indoor play area since it was so chilly, and we wound up staying much longer than I'd expected, so I decided to just do lunch there.)

Robin's favorite place to read these days is in the coat closet. I guess it's nice and cozy in there. Now that he's found it, we have to go in there at least once each day to read.

He's started going down slides by himself. He even went down the big slide at our park by himself once (although it's not something he's decided to repeat. He can also hang on to zip lines and monkey bars for a short while, supporting his own weight. He also likes playing with his bucket and shovel at the park. I've already decided that Dean and I will get him a sandbox for his next birthday.

He likes trying on his Daddy's glasses. He looks so funny, and he always makes this same face when he's got them on. We think he looks like the old man in the cartoon "Up."