Calen

I'm been neglecting this blog terribly these past couple of months. Alas, I have rarely had the time or inclination, and when I did have one, I never had the other.

But I decided I should give an update on Calen and what he is up to these days.

- Vocabulary has taken off. I can't count how many words he can say and uses. I'd guess somewhere in the 100-200 range. I had him saying "process" yesterday. :)

- My favorite Calen-ism is "apple-cado". You know, AVACADO. It just comes out a little cuter from him. Hey, give him credit. He still has four syllables!

- Not too interested in potty training, but he has his moments. Usually all he does is say "potty train?", and when I ask him if he needs to go he says"NOOOO!!!!!!!"

- On one of those occasions I told him he shouldn't yell, he should tell me, "no, thank you". The next time I asked him he started to yell "no", then caught himself and calmly said, "no, thank you". Gotta love it when he listens.

- We were in the car the other day and he started whining for my water bottle. I reminded him to say "water, please" when he wants it, and he did. When he's drinking in the car I always tell him to be careful of spilling water on himself. Apparently he listens, because Monday we were inside and he saw a water bottle on the counter. He asked me, "water, please". I gave it to him, he took a drink then said to himself, "careful, baby". I laughed.

- He seems to be aware when people are upset. Whenever I watch a movie which portrays someone upset/emotional he always looks at me and says "sad".

- He is almost 3 ft tall and about 27 lbs.

- He still sleeps well at night; usually about 12 hrs. One nap a day, most often midday for a couple hrs.

- He fluctuates between being a great eater, a picky eater, and a non-eater. I think that makes him normal????

- He has a great memory: once about 3 months ago he got up from a nap and Mark was already home and outside working. I told Calen we could get his shoes on and he could go outside, maybe even help Daddy shovel. Ever since them, nearly every time I tell him we're going to go outside, he asks me "shovel?"

- He got a little wading pool on Saturday and now wants to go in it every time we walk out the door - including this morning at 7:20 when it was 44 degrees out!

- He got his cousin's cowboy boots handed down to him and loves them. He wore them every day for the first few days. Every morning he would ask me "boots?" When he was wearing them he walked around saying "cowboy".

- He danced at a wedding reception a couple weeks ago for 2 1/2 hours. Straight.

- He is an extrovert. We think.

- He can sort-of sing along to "Jesus Loves Me". He doesn't know all the words, but he hits the highlights.

- He loves to be sung to.

- He finally started using the word "up" when he wants to be picked up. For the longest time he said "climb".

- He doesn't talk in complete sentences, but he does express complete thoughts sometimes. On Sunday we went for a walk with our friend Julie and her dog. This morning when Calen woke up, the first thing he said to me was, "Julie. Dog. Fun!" It was too cute.

I'll wrap up this lengthy ode to Calen with a couple photos. The first is about a month old, the other two a couple of weeks (from Memorial Day weekend).