Luke's painting techniques at age 20 months.

Terrible Twos, Colors, and More

Luke is growing like a weed. He is now able to dangle a leg over the side of his crib, with the crib at its lowest setting. We're going to have to convert him to a bed soon, but Melissa and I look like deer in headlights when we consider Luke having free reign on his room. We're trying to child-proof it the rest of the way, but I am forseeing some front flips off the rocking chair.

Luke's starting to comprehend colors (we think). He made a pretty good abstract painting today. He was pointing and calling out each color as he went. We'd been working on colors at stoplights during drives. He would start crying since we weren't moving, so I tried drawing his attention to the lights. "Green means go!". He didn't seem to quite get it, but one time he started laughing when the lights changed. Meanwhile, Missy had him coloring and painting a lot. Then this morning he finally started saying the names of the colors.

The previous is an example of how he randomly goes through a learning spurt. He is starting to get full phrases accurate now. Instead of "cracker", he'll say "I wanna cracker". He loves to open books and point out objects and name them. He likes to hear us say the names too. He'll even spend time by himself with a book and try to say the names to himself. It's pretty crazy how much different the interaction is from a month or two ago.

He's started learning that he has choices. His automatic response to any question now is "No." He's really putting up a fight on food. He wants pasta and crackers with juice as pretty much every meal. Fortunately for him we're more stubborn than he is. Sometimes, though, when he's not getting his way, he'll throw a tantrum. We've only had a couple really bad ones, but usually it ends up being something silly that brings him around. I think one time we had a several-minute tantrum because of a spoon instead of a fork.

So he's definitely in the terrible twos. But they aren't that terrible. He still sleeps the ENTIRE night for us, which seems to be unusual. What I mean by this is Melissa and I haven't had to get up in the middle of the night at all in the past year. We still check on him when we go to sleep and put a blanket on him or something, but we don't hear a peep all night. It's nice.

He's completely obsessed with the outdoors. Every time it gets warm enough for Melissa and I to stand it, we're out all evening. He still fusses when we come in. He doesnt want to eat or sleep, just be outdoors. He likes riding in a stroller on a walk, but his favorite is definitely the swingset. We've been to parks in Bloomington and he has a blast there.

Words, Words, and more Words

Luke continues to amaze us with his growing vocabulary. Here are some of his newest additions:

go bye bye
dark
night
book
eyebrow
faffle – waffle
susic – music
shashide – outside
milk
ight - light
up – help
nanow – window
Ausin – Austin
sissy
Datie - Katie
Bible
durch – church
Jesus
puzzle
more eat
more please
nacroni – maccoroni
sketti – spaghetti
uck - stuck
five
four
sore - store
ool – school
erk – work
iangle – triangly
pho - phone
pease - please

Body parts he knows (but can't say): nose, eye, eyebrow, cheek, toes, leg, arm, ear, forehead, head, hair, chin, belly, penis, hand