Im really behind on updates…so to make things simpler, this update will be more of a list of some of the new things Nathan’s been doing over the last couple months.

He makes up songs now and then. One had only the words “yum yum yum yummmmmmm” and one was “I dont like carrots” to the tune of Nick Jr.s “I dont like candy corn”, which turned into “I like candy corn” (can you tell this was all the way back around Halloween. Wow, Im behind!)

Nathan is really talking in full sentences now and we can have total conversations with him. It’s very cool. Some of the things he says are:
What are them doing?
Whats that sound?
Who that is? Or who her is?
I want a other one
Do that again
Whats them names? (for what are their names or who is that)
When he’s trying to stall or get something he wants after we’ve said no, he says “Because I need XYZ” or “Just one more time” (While holding up his pointer finger to show me just ONE).
“I just need to see something for a minute” (When he’s trying to stall)
“Donk” (no idea, probably something he does with his friends at school)

He remembers a lot of the Chinese and Spanish words he learns on TV or at daycare-
“ting” (listen), “ni hao” (hello) and “xie xie” (thank you) in Chinese
“arriba” (up) “abajo” (down) and “salta” (jump) in Spanish. He even used Arriba and Abajo correctly in context once or twice, and he can count to 10 in Spanish.

He recognizes his name when he sees it in CAPS and loves pointing out N’s whenever he sees them (”That’s my Name!” and tells us N says Nnnnnn). He remembers that Nurse Shark begins with N from a book we have. He’s getting better at recognizing some other letters and can tell us what sounds some of them make and what words start with some of the letters (thank you Leap Frog Letter Factory!)

He’s still good at remembering the books we read and saying the words with me. He can do that with some TV shows and a lot of the songs on the shows. Speaking of TV, he is a HUGE Dora the Explorer fan. Followed by Diego, Max & Ruby and the movie Finding Nemo. He loves the Cars characters too.

He told Gary a story he made up and repeated it to him a few times, though I cant remember what it was about, so Ill have to ask Gary to do a separate post.

He has a few friends that he has really clicked with. Two at school and two others. He tells us they are his “best friends”, though his teachers are also sometimes his “best friends”, and so is Daddy on good days.

He’s saying I Love You to us more, sometimes without us saying it to him first.

He loves playing “tickle monster” with us (i.e. he hides with one of us under a blanket while the other one pretends they cant find us and then surprises us with tickles. We’ll giggle and whisper under the blanket wondering where the Tickle Monster is, or if he’s coming (it’s usually Gary) and pretend that he really can’t see or hear us. He also loves playing football, especially with Gary. They throw the ball, then Nathan runs for a touchdown and spikes the ball. Sometimes he gets tackled.

He’s getting better with the potty (though we’re still just going with the flow and not really pushing it at this point.)

He considers Fen part of the family, which is just adorable when we’re talking about something he, I and Gary are going to do and then Nathan says “and Fenny?!”

All in all he is just growing into such a smart and talkative little guy. He remembers so much (must get that from Gary), and is so silly and goofy sometimes. He’s starting to show more empathy when he’s bad, coming over and saying sorry sometimes, though we still have plenty to work on and he gets his fair share of time outs!

Boy loves his Cheetos.

But OMG they are messy.

We went to the beach again a couple weekends ago and had a great time. It was just the three of us and even though the weather wasn’t great most of the time, we managed to have plenty to do…we made it to the beach a couple times, visited a water park one afternoon, made a trip to the boardwalk, played mini-golf and took some walks. It was relaxing and nice to just move at our own pace.

When we were at the beach in July Nathan loved the sand but didn’t want to touch the water. This time we got him into the water and he loved it! The tide was going out and it had created a little sand bar so we could walk out a bit with the water only up to Nathan’s knees and the waves were were smaller by the time they got to us. Nathan had an awesome time jumping the waves while he held our hands.

There was the usual digging in the sand too.

We visited a water park one afternoon and after a little time warming up to the place and a couple failed attemps, Nathan decided to try one of the smaller water slide that he could go down himself. And he loved it and immediately wanted to go on the big water slide with us. We spent most of the afternoon going down that water slide or floating around the lazy river. It was a really fun afternoon and it was awesome to see Nathan overcome his fear.

We played mini-golf a few times because it was only a couple blocks from where we stayed and was a good activity when the weather wasn’t good for being wet. Plus Nathan loved the idea of the animals and pirates there. After one of the visits we decided to try out some of the arcade games and Nathan had fun playing on the motorcycles and cars.

The trip to the boardwalk was fun too. It was a nice afternoon and because it was the weekend before school started, I think the crowds were down a bit.

Nathan took his first ride on the boardwalk tram.

And he enjoyed his first Dippin Dots (my first ones too)

Ice Cream Headache?

He also had a great time on all the kiddie rides and didn’t want to leave at all.

Another almost first was that for a couple hours one night we were a little worried that Nathan had his first broken bone or sprain. He’d been jumping and twisting around on the couch and caught his toe in between the cushions. It’s rare that I hear him cry out quite like that and his poor little pinky toe was red and swollen. We contemplated a trip to one of the clinics in Ocean City but decided to tape up his toe with a bandaid and wait until the next day to see how he was. And he was, of course, just fine. (Thank goodness. That’s a first I’m happy to wait a long long time for.)

Lots more pictures from the weekend here.

Nathan knows how to pump his legs on the swing now!

(This is fuzzy ’cause it’s from my cell phone)

Nathan’s newest “thing” over the last couple days is saying “Ta Da!” when he does something. You know, very important things, like hand you a book, or put a magnet back on the fridge, or roll a car down his toy garage. I have no idea where he learned it (which means probably at daycare), but it’s cute!

He also seems to be really good at memorizing things. Books some, and TV shows. We watch a little TV in the evenings and we’re usually watching the same channel, same show, every day. Since he sees things over and over again, he’s now started saying things along with the show, or singing some of the songs that come on between shows. Kind of neat to watch actually.

Nathan has also started a cute, but painful, habit of leaping onto our laps with no warning.
He likes to “sweep” with a Swiffer mop we’ve shortened. Unfortunately he refuses to do it if there is a pad on the mop, which is why I put sweep in quotes.
He also still likes to play pretend with his stuffed animals. It varies from day to day which one he likes, but he’ll feed them real or imaginary food and cover them up with his blanket.
Which reminds me, for awhile now Nathan has liked to fake sleep by pretending to snore. He doesn’t do it in bed, just at random times when we’re playing. Another of those things that I’d love to catch on video but probably never will. Videotaping him is really hard because as soon as he sees the camera he wants to watch it, which means now the screen is facing away from me and he’s just staring into it and not doing whatever it was that inspired me to take out the video camera in the first place.
Oh, did I mention he’s kind of bossy?

Nathan playing “piano” on a little toy that has Do Re Mi keys while singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and the ABC song.

Nathan and Rintoo (AKA Daddy) had a long conversation while we were at the beach. Nathan howled with laughter the entire time, and it was hilarious to watch.

Now, Nathan will hand Rintoo to Gary and say “Talk to me Rintoo.” It’s actually become a great way to get Nathan to cooperate more with getting dressed or brushing his teeth. Because of this, Rintoo is often seen wearing a diaper, and even had on one of Nathan’s t-shirts for awhile. I guess it’s kind of his equivalent of having a doll and it’s cute to see him pretending to talk to him or share things with him.

Well as usual, when it rains it pours with Nathan. He never does only one new thing at a time. Just in the last few days there were three that really impressed/got to me.

Last Friday during our weekly Shabbat dinner, Danielle and I were telling Nathan about how it was Shabbat and he spontaneously started singing Shabbat Shalom at the table. So looks like we have a new Friday night tradition in our house. Then on Saturday when we were on the way up to Pennsylvania for a Birthday Party, Nathan was entertaining himself in the backseat just idly chatting as he normally does when out of nowhere he sang the ABCs all the way through all by himself three times in a row.

Finally, this morning as he and Danielle were leaving the house, I told him, as I do every morning, that I love him and this time he looked up and said “I love you Daddy” in response. Which was the first time he’s ever done that unprompted.

A small update on Nathan’s new language skills- he will repeat pretty much the entire alphabet after us, which I’m hoping to catch on video. He’ll say I Love You if prompted. And he can, or will at least try, to repeat pretty much any words we say. We really need to watch our language now!!

I was excited to learn that Nathan’s teacher had a TV brought into their room for lunchtime on Inauguration Day so that the kids could watch, and when I asked Nathan who the president was that night, he replied “Omama!”

Nathan’s also stringing more and more words together to make sentences and he’s referring to himself a lot more. He loves books about parents and kids so he can tell me who is the Mommy or Daddy, and who is Nathan. And if there’s a kid in a book, he wants me to change the name to Nathan, so “Spot Loves His Mommy” is now “Nathan Loves His Mommy”. All of this is very cool because we’re hearing him say things that show he’s processing stuff in a whole new way now.

Over the past month or so, Nathan has gotten really good at feeding himself with a spoon and fork. Nowadays we mostly just let him go to town when eating, only intervening to help him spear something with a fork or to prevent him (or try to) from dumping apple sauce or yogurt all over the table and tray. We’re not sure if he’s going to be a lefty or not, because he uses utensils in both hands, but he seems to be better at getting the food in his mouth when he is using his left hand, to it seems that might be the way it goes.

After his biggest feat of self-feeding so far, eating a whole pudding cup all by himself.

In addition to feeding himself, one of Nathan’s favorite new pastimes is to feed Fen treats. It has gotten to the point that the at least half of the times that Nathan walks into the kitchen saying “cookie” he’s asking for a dog treat to give to Fen. We’re trying to teach Nathan to make Fen sit down before giving the treat but I think it’s getting a little lost in translation as most of the time we tell him to tell the dog to sit, Nathan himself sits down before delivering the treat.