Nathan’s language seems to be going through another spurt. He’s stringing more word together now, usually just two at a time. Some of them are All gone/done, Up we go, My (fill in the blank), and Thank you. The other night Gary gave him his pacifier before bed and Nathan said “Thank you, Daddy”, and I think it was one of the sweetest things Ive ever heard.

He’s also added lots of new words to his vocabulary, more than I can keep track of at this point, but some that come to mind are Pumpkin, Applesauce, Teeth, Bathtime and Football. I made a list of all the words I could think of and there are over 50, plus a handful of phrases and a bunch of animal noises. Without making the list I never would have realized how many words Nathan knows now!

He is also (finally) calling me Mama. For awhile now he’s been using Daddy as the universal word for family or parent. He knew I was Mommy if you asked him, and that Gary was Daddy and he was Nathan, but for some reason a lot of times he would say Daddy for all of us. Just in the last couple weeks, he’s started saying Mama, and boy is it a lovely thing to hear!

Nathan says A-B-C thanks to a Sesame Street train we have that sings the alphabet. He also sings “row row” and “ashes ashes” and still loves to dance, sometimes spinning himself in circles until he falls over. He often refers to animals by what they say now…especially sheep (baa), elephants (a high pitched roar sound while he moves his arm up like a trunk), and many birds now get a honk honk while he squeezes his nose, so he must have learned about geese at school.

Nathan has also become more interested in his stuffed animals. He’ll hug them and kiss them. Gary and I both saw him trying to feed his monkey Ishy (thanks Uncle Allen!) his breakfast while he talked to him (all we caught of the conversation was “baby gibberish, outside, baby gibberish, daddy, baby gibberish.”)

So, there’s the update for now!

We took our second plane trip with Nathan this past weekend, and it was another trip to Dallas to visit my Grandma and other family there. Nathan was very excited when he saw all the airplanes at the airport and loved watching out the window once we were on the plane. I wasn’t sure if he’d get that he was actually on an airplane, but as we were walking down the hallway to board the plane he got more and more excited and kept pointing to the door and telling me “airplane!”

On the way to Dallas Nathan didn’t fall asleep until 15 seconds before we touched the ground. Literally. He was happy to be in his carseat for the first 90 minutes or so, and then understandably got fidigty, so we brought out the DVD player and just about everything else we’d brought with us, and I walked him up and down the plane a few times.

Having a snack before we got on the plane.

Sleepy, but not sleeping.

Since Great Grandma is a handful to say and Nathan already has a Grandma, I started calling my Grandma, GiGi. Nathan picked up on it fast and was calling for GiGi during the entire weekend. I’d tell him we were going to find GiGi and he’d run to where ever she was yelling “GiGi! GiGi!”. It was very cute, and so sweet to see how much he loved her right away. He even called for her a few times after we got home, which was a little sad since he couldn’t see her.

Every morning we took a family walk to Whole Foods for breakfast and coffee. It was a nice way to start the day.

Saturday we went to the Dallas World Aquarium with Uncle Allen. We loved this aquarium. You enter in at the top and spiral down through a rainforest that’s filled with fish and other animals. There are also other great areas with fish, sharks and land animals.

Saturday evening we visited my Aunt Helen and Uncle Arthur and then went out to dinner. Nathan was not entirely thrilled to be at a restaurant, so we took turns walking him around outside until food came. Gary found a dog statue that Nathan had fun with and it kept him entertained.

Sunday morning was low key at home. Since we didn’t bring lots of toys with us, we had to keep Nathan busy and ended up spending time outside playing in the leaves. The weather was gorgeous most of the weekend.

Sunday afternoon my Grandmother had friends and family over to see Nathan. I’m so glad she does this when we visit because its really nice to see everyone and for Nathan to spend time with family he doesn’t see much. Once everyone left Uncle Allen broke out his guitar and played a little for us. Nathan was fascinated with the guitar and loved the music.

Nathan started trying to copy how we look when we take pictures. Here he is pretending to use GiGi’s camera.

GiGi & Nathan (and me).

Monday morning it was time to pack up and go. By this time Nathan was just bursting with energy and didn’t want to listen to anyone. I think it was a combination of wanting to express his opinion and independence (which he’s been wanting to do a lot lately) and having been in a new place and different timezone with a new schedule and us constantly keeping after him to make sure he didn’t get into anything he wasn’t supposed to. We were lucky that he slept well throughout the trip (minus the 5am wake up the first morning), and on the plane ride home he fell asleep before we even took off, and slept about half the trip.

As usual, I went way overboard on pictures, but they’re all here.

This time they brought out the clippers! I was worried as I watched the big curls fall away, but it turned out to be a cute haircut. They cut the sides pretty short, but left the curls a little longer on top. I think he looks a lot older now.

I played with his hair before I took this picture, usually the curls don’t stick up as much, but I thought it was cute.

Cousin Jacob reading to Nathan last week.

It was sweet to watch them together. Before they sat down to read they were playing with a toy parrot that repeats back things you say. Nathan loved watching Jacob record silly things and kept saying “peep peep.”.

I took Nathan out to a few houses to Trick-or-Treat for Halloween. I don’t think he quite knew what to make of it, especially since our neighborhood is pretty quiet for the holiday so there weren’t lots of other kids out doing the same thing. He also had a Halloween party and parade at daycare that morning, so I think he was kind of over the costume by the time we went out. Either way, it was a fun evening.

Getting ready to go out.

Checking out the loot.

Enjoying a Halloween treat.

We’ve had a couple dinners at Oma & Opa’s recently. Nathan’s gotten pretty good at saying their names, though not always when we ask, and he’s had a lot of fun at their house.

Playing with Gary.

As soon as you say Pee-Yew or that Nathan’s socks, or anything, are stinky, he wants to stick them in your face as much as possible. Here he’s playing the game with Oma and his PJ bottoms. The other night he was hopping from lap to lap and sticking his foot into our faces. I suppose we shouldn’t encourage it, but he thinks it’s hilarious, so why not?!

Nathan still loves books and being read to.

Playing with Opa.

Smiling Little Monkey.