Adam’s Expanding Vocabulary

Adam is doing better about responding appropriately to words, and occasionally using some of his own. When we rescue him from his crib each morning, he always says “Hi!” After prayers and testimonies at home and in church, he says “mamen.” Our most recent box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch (on sale!) had a wind up car, which has become one of his favorite toys. We pointed to it and said “car,” and now he refers to it as “caw.”

Thanks to day care and a video, he knows sign language for milk, more, and occasionally banana. He loves to ape the itsy bitsy spider actions and roll his arms all through “pat-a-cake.” He plays with his little yellow ball all the time, and he’s pretty good about throwing it now. He’s getting better at identifying us as “Mom” and “Dad.” We think he’s starting to get canines since he’s been whiney at nights.

We’ve all been sick over the last week, which was excellent given my unusually heavy homework load and the ethics portion of the bar I had to take Saturday, March 5^th (the "multistate professional responsibility examination, or MPRE"). The MPRE was fine as far as I can tell, but we’ll find out in 5 weeks. Adam is funny, he has watched us blow our noses enough that he imitates us whenever you give him a tissue.

Actually, Adam imitates us a lot. When he finds my keys, he tries to stick them in a door knob, keyhole or no. He tries to put on his own socks, though hasn't figured out that the socks have a hole. He has watched us pick up his toys enough that sometimes he'll do it himself, though he has a hard time fitting it all into the toy chest. He isn't interested in any toy or device that we aren't interested in, which may explain his predilection for throwing balls and driving cars. He loved my old phone until I got a new one, now he's only interested in the new one.

Adam is pretty clever, by toddler standards. He's figured out how to open doors with handles (all the church doors are accessible to him), he knows how to turn door knobs, but has a hard time gripping them tightly enough. He turns on his own humidifier, it has a knob too. He loves toggling light switches on & off. He stacks things that don't belong, like my shampoo & conditioner. He shuts the bath drain when we're trying to get him out of the tub.

We’ve also had some intense rain and wind storms. The other week we were woken up at 2am by tornado sirens. We checked the weather on the internet and found a tornado watch, which wasn’t surprising given the wind. It was about 40 degrees when we’d gone to bed and about the same when we got up. But at 2am it was 70 degrees outside, which was eerie. However, spring is on its way! Crocuses and daffodils are poking up their heads and some of the trees are budding.