|
(Davis wanted to put all his toys in the laundry basket with him and have me push it around the house.)
Things that Davis likes to do at 20 months old:
- Play in the dark before going to bed. He likes it when we turn all the lights off and he walks around and tries to find us. If we turn the light back on, he demands that we turn it off again so he can keep playing in the dark!
- Play in the bathtub. He has some plastic cups that he plays with in the tub, and enjoys pouring the water from one cup to another, etc. I like to say that he's learning about volume, viscosity, and other very advanced science concepts. :)
- Play with his kitchen, his doorway playhouse, and his Mega Bloks. (He has been showing off some pretty impressive fine motor skills with those Mega Bloks lately. You should see the towers he can build.)
- Watch television. We don't want him to turn into a couch potato and don't have the TV on often, but within the past two weeks he has suddenly developed a strong interest in cartoons. The little stinker is always bringing us the remote control and wanting us to turn it on. If we do, he usually then plays with the remote control, pointing it at the screen and pushing buttons. Oftentimes, this results in him accidentally changing the channel, at which point he gasps and says "Oh no! Oh no!" and brings us the remote so that we can change it back. He will point to things on the TV and name them (dog, ball, bird, balloon). Earlier this week he came across a little toy Ernie doll and ran to hold him up by the television, obviously recognizing that Ernie is a character from TV. Today he said "Mickey" when that famous mouse appeared on the screen. All of this probably makes us sound like those parents who have the TV on all day and just plop their kid in front of it, but I promise that we are not!
- Empty the bathroom wastebasket. He surprised us one day by carrying it to the kitchen and dumping it out into the larger trash container (which we do to consolidate the trash). Now he does this every time he happens to look into our bathroom wastebasket and sees some trash in it.
- Sleep. I will probably regret saying this, but he has been going down easily and sleeping great at night lately (knock on wood). We're trying to transition down to one 2-3 hour nap per day, and he's doing well with that as long as I can manage to keep him awake until after lunch. I think back to that first year of terrible naps, multiple wake-ups per night, etc. and shudder! I certainly hope that we have put those problems behind us forever.
- Playing chase, peek-a-boo, hide-and-seek, tickles, and horsey.
- Coloring. Actually, this mostly consists of sitting on someone's lap and playing with the crayons. But he looooves it. He got hooked on this when Grammy (my mother) was visiting last weekend, and a couple of days later, he was making his "I want that" sound and gesture and I couldn't figure out what he wanted, until it suddenly hit me that he was gesturing for the crayons and the paper! He knows exactly where we sit when we color, has to have all of the correct coloring accessories out, etc.
The other night Greg said, "Don't you wish he wouldn't grow up? Isn't this a fun age?" Now, of course we want him to grow up, but yes, this is an especially fun age. We are LOOOOVING his easygoing, fun-loving, active and happy personality and all the ways he shows it. He has finally started clapping properly with both hands open (before he always kept his left hand closed and clapped the right hand against it - weird). He can blow kisses and give high fives. His vocabulary is growing every day (some newer words include "bye-bye," "baby," "please," "teeth," "color," and "all done"), although he still chooses not to use many words with regularity. He is showing us how much he understands by following our directions, like "go get your jacket" or "where are your socks" or "go throw this away." He can correctly point to/identify these body parts on demand: head, eye, ear, nose, mouth, tummy, feet, hands, and teeth. He is becoming pickier about his eating. After a period of time where it was absolutely exhausted trying to get him to cooperate for an entire church service, he has been doing so well in church lately. He likes to play with the tiny pencils they have in the pews, and with a can of puff-balls that we bring for him to play with where he can dump them out and then poke them back in through little holes. His babysitter's 13-year-old daughter remarked recently, "You know, he is pretty much the cutest boy ever . . . and the easiest." She's a pretty smart girl. ;)
We love you, big boy!
 |
