22 Months Old! T-Minus 2 Months!

Little Man is getting ever so closer to the age of 2. And I'm in complete denial. I haven't done anything or planned anything for his 2nd birthday. Except that it's going to be a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse theme. Cael loves MMC. Someone today asked me how old my son was. I stuttered as I replied "He's 22 months old." 22 MONTHS OLD!? That's only 2 months until he turns 2! Oi vey. The next 2 months will fly by too. I can't believe it's already July, and with July comes busy weekends. With August comes even busier weekends. I have 5 friends that are all pregnant and due anywhere from August to October. Plus, Cael and I will be going camping with my mom in the middle of August. I've taken off 2.5 days of work to go, and I'm super excited. (Minus the 7+ hour drive to get there).

Here's a breakdown of July. This weekend, we're helping Matt's brother and his wife move into their new apartment. In Virginia. Two floors below us!! Yup, that's right! We'll have family here, and Cael will have his cousin to play with! We're both super excited. Then next weekend, Matt, Cael and I are going to Long Island for the weekend. It's my bff's son's 2nd birthday party. Plus, she's pregnant and due in September, so I have to see her and her cute bump. Then Matt and I want to go to King's Dominion this month with Cael, which leaves the 3rd or 4th weekend in July for that. KD is a theme park within an hour of us, and it has a kiddie area for Cael. He loves things like that, so I'm excited.

Now onto Cael!

We have finally reduced Cael's binky usage. Granted, he still gets it for naps and bedtime, but I'm more than happy being back to that. After having it away from him, then Cael getting sick and needing it back, to the obsession that was having 3 binkies at one time, I'm happy we're back to where we started. It sounds like a waste, but how Cael was with the binks was bordering obnoxious. He'd have one in his mouth, and then have one in each hand. And when he didn't have them, he was miserable. Which made us miserable. So now, we take it from him when he wakes up in the morning, and when he wakes up from his nap.

I was home this past Wednesday so Matt could spend the day fishing, so I conducted Operation Binky. I let him cry and scream and whine and pull on me while he didn't have a binky. All day. It was obnoxious, but by Thursday, he was better. Distractions and playing with toys definitely helped him too. And over the past week since he hasn't been walking around with a bink in his mouth, he's become a TON more verbal. Just babbling and his babbling is changing. He's pronouncing different sounds that he hasn't pronounced before.  He even started saying a new word!! He now says "Bye!". And he knows when to say it, too. Granted, he says it with a British accent, but he says it nonetheless. He also started saying "Stop it!" He's heard us say it a million times to the dogs, so why wouldn't he pick that phrase up!? When he says it though, it sounds like he's saying "Stupid". It's kind of funny, actually.

Cael finished his first season of soccer 2 weekends ago. This past weekend was soccer Open House, so we went to that as well. Since he seemed to love it so much, and did so well with the program, we signed him up for the summer season. We're going to continue doing Saturday mornings, and his first "practice" is July 13th (which we will be missing, since we'll be on LI). I love watching him kick the ball and participate in all most of the activities. He has so much fun, plus he gets to socialize with kids his age. Fabulous program.

Over the past month, Cael has developed some new obsessions. He LOVES to play video games like his Daddy. Meaning, he'll hand us the XBox controller, whine for the game to be turned on, and sit and stare at the TV while he spins his character around. I guess seeing Matt play a couple times, it's something he likes. It keeps him quiet and occupied, and Matt doesn't let him do it all the time. But Cael will let you know if he wants to play.

He also loves water.  We knew that from his baths, but we've introduced Cael to a few new water areas this past month. We've gone to the pool here in our complex a couple times, and I took Cael to the local splash pad last weekend. He absolutely LOVED it. He'd run through the water sprays like it was nothing, and laugh out loud. And when he's in the pool, he thinks he can swim on his own. We got him a one piece swim suit that has the floaties built in around his body. He does really well with floating, and he loves to jump off the end into the water. He even goes under without a problem. I love that he's a water baby.

This past month, we introduced Cael to peanut butter. No, we didn't get the permission from his doctor (GASP!), but I've seen other moms with toddlers Cael's age giving peanut butter. Plus, we don't have any nut allergies in my family, and only Matt's sister can't have tree nuts. We were on full alert the couple of times we gave it to him, but he did fine with it. He enjoyed it, so I bought him the Ritz snack crackers with pb.

This past Christmas, my older brother and sister-in-law got Cael this really cute, real-metal car. It's the type that he sits on and moves by pushing forward with his legs. He finally figured out how to push himself on it. Granted, he moves slowly because his feet hit the front tires if he goes fast, but he seems to really enjoy the car now. I'm so happy that he figured it out, because now he gets a kick out of pushing himself around the kitchen and living room. It's another toy that he can play with.

I think that's about it for updates regarding Cael. Stay tuned for growth stats and pictures!!

Stats Update:

Length: 36 inches! (95th percentile)
Weight: 27 pounds! (46th percentile)
Head circ: 50.8 cm! (96th percentile!)

So in summary, I have a big-headed beanpole!

19 Months Old!

March 5 - April 4

I'm not really sure where to start with this post. The problem is, that I've been so busy, and never have time to update this blog when I want, that I lose track of time. Because of that, it'll be one, two, or three weeks past when I wanted to post it! I hate that.

So where to start. Cael is doing good with soccer every Saturday. He does really well kicking the ball around, and gets along good with the other kids. He gets cranky when we try to do what the Coach has planned, because he wants to just keep running and playing. But other than that, it's going well. I'm so happy we signed him up.

Cael is actually stomping on the bubbles!

We had to miss the 3rd week of soccer (April 6), because both Cael and I were getting over the stomach flu. He actually started throwing up Saturday night of the 2nd week of soccer. He was already in bed, and about 9:30 that Saturday night, we heard him throwing up in the crib. It was everywhere! It was the most disgusting thing we've had to deal with pertaining to Cael. It was all over him, all over the bedding and all over the floor. While Matt cleaned up the puke, I put Cael right in the bath. Needless to say, we spent Easter Sunday comforting Cael and snuggling him. He threw up about 6 times Saturday night, and spent the night in our bed with a pot next to him. Over the course of the next 5 days, Cael developed diarrhea and had a fluctuating fever. By Tuesday, Cael was so lethargic, that he'd stand up, walk a few feet, then lay right down on the floor. I had Matt take him to the doctor that Tuesday, just to make sure he was ok and it wasn't something else going on. They did a finger stick to test his blood, and it wasn't bacterial, so that was good. Over the course of a month (since his last well visit), Cael didn't gain weight. He actually lost weight. But he was sick and not eating, so that's fine. He weighed in at 24 pounds 14 ounces. My poor little munchkin.

Sipping on his new water bottle after soccer

By Friday, I had developed it. I was hoping I had escaped it, but not so much. I had so much nausea and the pit of my stomach was hurting so bad. But I still got up Friday and lugged myself to work. However, I was sent home. Turns out they don't want you there if you're possibly contagious. Lol. I made it back home in perfect time, because as soon as I walked through the door, I had to run and throw up. Fortunately for me, I was better by Monday. I definitely had a fever Friday and Saturday, but I was thankful I didn't have it as long or as bad as Cael.

So now back to Cael. I don't really have any updates on him, because he's not really doing anything new. He's still not talking. But he'll babble your ear off. He continues to understand what we say to him, he just doesn't communicate back. He can now show us where his eyes, mouth, feet, nose and ears are. That in addition to belly, leg, teeth and hair. He's also started giving this new "look". I call it the "furrowed brow" look. Out if nowhere - or if you tell him NOT to do something - he'll lower his head, drop his brows, and purse his lips. It's hilarious, and we can't help but laugh when he does it. We have no idea where he learned this from, because we don't make this face (that I know of, anyway). Toddlers can be so funny.

Finally, we picked up the pictures that we had done for Easter/spring/18 months. I'm so happy with how they came out. We got a whole bunch of prints, and I can't wait to put them in frames and hang them on the walls. I'll do a separate post for them, though. He looks like such a big boy in them, that I can hardly take it.

My sweet angel

Fun at the park!

Soccer, Haircut & More!

After seeing a picture of a fellow Pod member's son (about 2.5 years old) in a picture with a soccer jersey on, posing with his teammates, it made me want to sign Cael up for soccer as soon as he was old enough. I played soccer when I was young, and my mom coached, so why wouldn't I want Cael to play too!? Well, when she told me that they started at 18 months, I was ecstatic. Actually, I was stupid-excited. I signed up Cael up that day. They're 12 week "seasons", meeting once a week for 50 minutes, and it was $150 for the 12 weeks. That includes a jersey and a team photo emailed to you, as well. I was able to sign up just a week before the first practice, so Cael didn't miss anything. And even if we signed up late, the cost would be prorated, which is nice to know.

I really didn't know what to expect, since the kids are so young. From what I read on their website, they do activities to work on cognition, as well as "play" soccer. These activities use cones, parachutes, balls, and various other paraphernalia that I can't remember the names of. I was worried about being able to keep Cael's attention since he's all over the place, and doesn't quite follow instructions yet. Not to mention he has a very short attention span, which is to be expected. But I was very pleased.

They started off with letting the kids play with the soccer balls while they waited for everyone to show up. Then once everyone was there, the Coach had everyone sit in a circle and do some stretches. Of course, Cael doesn't want to sit still, and screamed when we tried to get him to sit down. He wasn't the only one, though. Then we played Red Light, Green Light. That was interesting, because the kids didn't want to stop. So we heard a bunch of whines when the coach had the red circle, and yelled "stop!", and all the parents grabbed their kids to get them to stop. It was funny, actually. Then the coach set up an obstacle course with hula-hoops and some colored, rubber things that look like rocks. The kids had to step on the "plastic rocks" and jump into the hula-hoop, while following the white line on the ground around the goal net. Cael seemed to like that the most, as he loves stepping on the "plastic rocks". Some other activities included bubbles, building cone towers and kicking them over, and kicking rubber bouncy balls around. Then the kids have to help clean up all the balls. Overall, it's a very cute and fun way for Cael to interact and socialize with kids his age, AND start to get into sports. Not to mention he gets to run around and get some energy out. I can't wait to see how next weekend goes.

"You're going to do what to my hair!?"

We had another "big" moment this weekend too. I've finally accepted that the hair on the back of Cael's head was just too long. It was no longer making a cute little whispy curl anymore, and whenever he laid on the back of his head, his hair would get frizzy and just didn't look good anymore. So I took him to the hair place, and finally got him a big boy haircut, and cut off all his long hair. I was ok with it. Cael, on the other hand, was hysterical the whole time! He had to sit on my lap because he kept reaching forward to try to get to me. And even when he sat on my lap, he continued to cry like the lady was torturing him. But in the end, his hair came out pretty good, even though she was trying to rush because of the crying. It was a little choppy above his ears, but it was (I believe) the best she could do with the high-pitched screams.

Before and after his "big-boy" haircut!