Happy or Merry?

The time of chocolate and ham, eggs and bunnies is upon us. Of course, I mean Easter. Usually, I feel Eastertime is the beginning of spring, but after yesterday's daylong rain/sleet/snow/thunderfest, I'm having doubts spring will ever get here.

Felix is doing well, mostly. Everyone says he's growing taller, though his pants still seem long on him. He's starting to use two word phrases with more regularity, usually describing the scene around us (e.g., "bird fly" and "Rugby naughty"). His longest phrase so far is "delivery truck, beep beep beep". He's liking all the sports on TV, easily differentiating between basketball, hockey, baseball and football. On the downside, he throws a tantrum every time we bring him inside, regardless of the time, weather, or his hunger. It's just a phase...

In honor of Easter, a little comparison (April 4, 2010 and April 1, 2011):

Felix: 21 mos

400 Words!

I've been trying to keep track of all of the words Felix knows, says, and uses correctly. And this morning, I realized that he has hit 400 words! Not surprisingly, foods edge out verbs for top spot. I'm sure there are others that I've missed, but this is pretty amazing, considering the average number of words kids are supposed to know and use at his age (20-21 months) is 10 to 40. Wow!

Also on a slightly different note, we decided it was time to break Felix of his Nuk habit, starting on the 1st. We did it by "breaking" his Nuk (I snipped off a tiny little bit from the end). He immediately decided something was wrong and that it was broken. That first night was rough. He cried for an hour. Each night has gotten progressively easier (in fact, he's slept through the night the last two nights - knock on wood). The only downside has been that he's been waking by screaming a few times - I think due to growing pains, and he's been tougher to put down. He no longer lays down quietly while awake and I walk out of the room. Now when I leave the room, he cries for Mama for a few minutes before settling down. Hopefully this will end soon, but so far so good!

Felix: 20 mos

¡Viva Mexico!

After a week of fun in the sun in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, we are back to cold reality. It was a nice escape, as we basked in sunny warm weather, played in the sand, and explored our natural-habitat resort.

This was our first trip with Felix, and despite apprehension about flying and traveling with him, everything went well. He did well on the way down, alternately playing and sleeping. We stayed at the Iberostar Tucán with the rest of the folks Grandma Maxine brought down with her. It was the best resort we've been to so far, in my opinion. I liked the "jungle" around the inner part of the complex, complete with trails and faux ruins. Our room overlooked the jungle, and we could see ripening bananas, geckos, and even spotted a monkey from our balcony.

Since we had Felix around, we didn't plan any excursions for ourselves, even though we had ready and willing watchers for him. We just weren't interested this time. Instead, we spent the majority of our time on the beach or near the pool. Felix really enjoyed it. He liked to play in the sand, smashing sandcastles, jumping, and (unfortunately) throwing sand. Much of it ended up in his mouth. We took him into the pools and into the waves on the beach. He learned so many new words, like peacock (even identifying them by their sound alone), wave, ocean, beach, sand, papaya, pool, and lizard among many others.

Felix provided us with much entertainment during the trip. He really liked all the airplanes that flew overhead, and when one passed and was out of earshot, he started asking for "more airplane". Sorry, buddy! He also started off calling boats buses or airplanes, but we got him to say boat by the end of the trip. He also liked the monkeys and "lilads" (lizards). And having the resort be all-inclusive was great, because Felix ate his fill (especially of exotic fruits like papaya and pineapple).

In all, we had a fabulous, relaxing trip. Thanks, Grandma!!

Felix: 20 mos

"I love you!"

Things have been cruising along at our house as we wait for winter to end and emerge from hibernation. Nick recently moved his office, and I took a stained glass workshop, which was awesome. But enough about us...

Felix has managed to grow about an inch and cut his last four front teeth. He's also developed several new interests:

• Climbing (especially into his high chair)
• Shoveling (I'd go so far as to say this is a minor obsession, not an interest)
• Identifying every semi and bus he sees while we're driving.
• Showing off his knowledge of body parts (in which he will randomly poke you in the nose and eyes, saying the name of each - beware). He knows most of his parts, including tough ones like elbows, wrists, back, hips, and chest.

He also is answering questions appropriately (we've added "yes" to his vocabulary) and he has definite opinions about what he wants to do/wear/eat. I just tried to count them up, and he can say well over 250 words. He's also starting to say phrases, including the subject of this post (last night, aw!). This morning, he said "Go Bucky", though to nothing in particular. This past weekend, I taught him how you can make an M into a W. Last night he stumped me, though. We were playing with blocks and he kept saying "idareck". I'd repeat it back to him, and he'd correct me if I didn't say it right. I had no idea what he was talking about until I was putting him to bed and he pointed at his I'm a T. Rex book. Aha! He was saying "I'm a T. Rex"! Why yes, yes you are a Fe-Rex. :o)

Felix: 19 mos

First the Snow, then the Cold

The 1-2 punch of massive snow and bitter cold is not making me a happy camper. My every-season-but-winter-loving self is exceedingly glad to be headed to Mexico next month, if only to get away from all the snow surrounding us.

Front yard, pre-blizzard

Backyard, pre-blizzard

Front yard, after the clean-up

Backyard, post-blizzard

Felix and the Deck Snowdrift

Felix: 19 mos

Go Pack Go!

It feels surreal that our beloved Green Bay Packers are going to the Super Bowl. It's been a wild ride of the season, with the first and second halves of the season having the same win-loss pattern. I love extra Packers football, and this is just fun.

We've been coaching Felix to fine tune his football watching skills. During the last game, I taught him First Down (with the arm motion), and he can occasionally do it with a "fuhdown". He's taken aback when we jump up and down yelling Touchdown! when it happens in real time, but he'll do the arm motion and say "tot down" once we've settled down. We've been working on getting him to identify a Green Bay logo ("Gee!"). Now if only we can get him to boo when he sees black and gold (also handy when facing Iowa)...

And along those lines, Felix's new favorite word is Wisconsin. He doesn't have all the syllables yet, pronouncing it "Condin!", but he surprised me this morning by identifying it on the license plate of a car in front of us. Add that to Bucky, W, Badger, and we've definitely got ourselves a Badger from Birth and the brainwashing is nearly complete. :o)

And bonus fun - see how big Felix has gotten:

January 16, 2011 (18 months)

August 2, 2009 (3 weeks)

Felix: 18 mos

18 Months!

Felix turned 18 months old yesterday.  I look back at a year ago and remember a little baby who smiled a lot but couldn't sit up, was babbling, and about to start solid foods.  Two years ago, we were just getting ready to tell people we were expecting.  Wow.  Time sure files.

This morning, Felix signed "love" to me.  Nick said, "Tell Mama you love her" while I was holding Felix.  He then put his fists up to his neck, the closest he can come to making the sign for love.  It was the first time he's done that!  Aw!  And last night, Nick's birthday present came in the mail.  Because he can't say two-word phrases yet, I got Felix to say happy and birthday ("buhdee") separately.  It cracked us all up. 

Felix is also showing us a different way to look at the things around us.  He's latched on to moon shapes, and sees them everywhere.  Sometimes this confuses us.  The other night, he pointed at a coaster with a stylized drawing of a pilsner glass on it and said "mun!"  It took a minute for me to find that there was in fact a little moon shape within the drawing.  And this morning, he said "mun!" several times to the large poster we have in our dining room.  There are no moons in the picture that I could see.  I picked him up and asked him to point to the moon.  He pointed to the letter R.  It took me a second to realize that he meant the empty space in the upper part of the letter that did look like a moon.  I'm sure this is just the beginning of our sharp-eyed, smart little boy showing us a new way to look at the world.

Felix: 18 mos