His first bad word

It finally happened....Cade said his first bad word. And I was just sure he would hear it from Mike and say it from him. Mike talks a lot saltier than I do, especially in the car when driving. But this one came from me. And don't you know it was hard not to just laugh when he did it because it is so funny to see such a little person say something they shouldn't..... at least at first it is. We were watching Coleman's football game. When they are at home, I have the privilege of being able to park up by the press box. This allows us to stay in the car. Cade gets to watch a movie in the car and Momma gets to actually watch the game and not wrestle a 20 month old.

There was a fumble and momma said "oh, sh*%." Well, "oh, sh*%" was repeated a few times in the back. I stifled my giggles and tried to figure out how best to handle the situation. I turned around to see this adorable face with a great big grin. I had to tell him without smiling back that "we don't say that word." And knowing how smart he is, I'm sure he was thinking "but you just said it." I was very aware of what I was saying at that point. If anything happened, I'd say dang. Cade did repeat that. And he thought it was pretty funny when I would say it. I can live with dang.

Debbie was kind enough to point out that it will be really funny when Cade goes to school and says the bad word and when he's asked where he heard it, he will say "my momma says it." I'll be very embarassed. LOL.

Sentences

Cade has stumbled head-first into talking in sentences. This seemed to happen overnight for me. He told me the other morning, "I need socks." I was getting him dressed and we had a few days of cool weather so he wore socks and shoes on that day instead of no socks and sandals or crocks. This particular day, it was going to be warm so I wasn't going to dress him in socks. I got him all dressed and said "okay, let's go." He looked at me and said "I need socks." How could I argue? The kid thought he needed socks so we got socks!

I've mentioned before about Cade's shoe-fetish. He comes by this honestly....and I don't mean from me. I like shoes as well as other women but Mike is not like most men....he likes shoes. I think at the moment he has more shoes than me. As a result, Cade loves shoes. Example....Mike brought Cade back some lined-crocs from Denver last week. When he took them to Cade, Cade put them on and wouldn't take them off his feet, even to take a nap. He wears shoes around the house if they are where he can get to them and put them on. Yesterday, I brought home the tennis shoes I ordered for Cade (Can I just say that I had no idea how expensive shoes are for kids....especially when they wear them for such a short time!). I handed him the shoe box when we got in the house. He sat down on the floor and was digging the shoes out, while saying "cool shoes." I went into the bathroom and next thing I know, this little guy comes in with the shoes and says "I need help." I had no idea he knew how to say this. He sat on the floor while I helped him put his shoes on. This is what I mean by head-first!

The other morning, I went in to get him and said "it's kind of early to be up." He looked at me and said "it's not early." And he said it very plainly. He said early, well....r's, and l's very plainly.

Something else he said last night...
Mike teases him and tells him "I'm going to punch you in the nose." Last night Cade told DADA, "punch your nose." I'm quite sure he's passing us in intelligence quickly! And he's not even 2 yet.

He's also attempting to count to twenty. He misses some numbers here and there. But I'm quite impressed that a 20 month old can even count at all, much less to twenty!

I'm afraid the days are fast approaching of Cade thinking his parents are idiots. I thought I had several years to worry about that....but it doesn't appear that is going to be the case at the rate he's going!

Say "CHEESE"

I've got Cade saying "cheese" when I get the camera out. He has the cutest smile anyway but when he does his "cheese" smile, it's even cuter (as if that's possible). Here are a few pictures from yesterday. He got to ride on the 4-wheeler with DADA. He loved it. He had the biggest grin on his face the whole time. We thought he'd have a major meltdown when it was time to get off. Not so, he got right off all on his own. As a matter of fact, getting off the 4-wheeler was his idea.

In this picture, he was playing outside with Coleman and an airplane flew overhead. He was telling me about it here. In the one below it, he was looking for the airplane.

I love his laugh

Cade has the best laugh. I love to hear it. It always makes my day. Every evening at bedtime, I rock him for a few minutes. When he was a baby this is what put him to sleep....well, that and nursing. Now, he has a bottle of milk (and yes, I'm going to start working on getting that away from him) and we rock. When he's done drinking the milk, we'll sit there and talk. We may sing, count, or say our alphabet. Or he'll talk about what he's done that day. I don't always understand what he's talking about but he's telling a good story and I love to listen. There are usually giggles involved at some point.

Last night, we were rocking and talking. He was a in a great mood. I've had this allergy/cold thing and even though I'm much better I still have this cough. While we were rocking, I got to coughing pretty hard. Being pregnant and coughing or sneezing is always scary....I've wet my pants more than I care to count at this point. :) Anyway, I would lean up a little while I was coughing and Cade would grip my shoulders and just laugh hysterically while I was coughing. This got me to laughing and the laughing and coughing combo was difficult. We did that for a few minutes....very funny.

What's even better...no matter what kind of day I'm having, that little guy always makes me smile and puts me in a good mood. There's nothing better than seeing his little face.

Change of Seasons

I've found that Cade is mostly easy-going. But there are certain things about change he does not like. We've had some cooler weather lately. And because of that, I've needed to dress him in warmer clothes. He doesn't like the long pants or the long sleeve shirts. This morning he had to wear one or the other. I decided I wouldn't torture him with both. I decided on long pants and a short sleeve shirt because last time I tried a long sleeve shirt, he was able to get it off one of his arms. He hasn't figured out how to take jeans off yet....

Well, he threw quite a fit this morning because he did not want to wear pants. He'll tug on the legs and just scream. This makes it very difficult to get him dressed. He flails and carries on. I don't have time in the mornings to let him throw his fit so we do lots of wrestling and carrying on those days. After a few minutes, he's fine. He was fine this morning after he got his Elmo fix. :)

Hopefully he will get use to the long pants and sleeves soon. Otherwise my mornings might become very interesting!!! I'm lucky he's a shoe-freak because so far, it's never a fight to put shoes on him even though he hasn't worn shoes much in the house this summer.

New skills:
He turned circles yesterday for the first time. He was watching Sesame Street (this is his morning entertainment while I try to get ready for work). They were singing and dancing and he started dancing around and turned in circles. He was pretty proud of himself and kept doing it until he made himself dizzy and fell down. It was very cute though! Who knew turning circles would be so exciting!

Timeouts have started

Cade is really testing us now. Let me clarify, he's testing me a little harder than he's testing DADA. DADA can for the most part tell him no or to stop and Cade will stop what he's doing and not look at DADA. Or he'll stick out his bottom lip a little. But for me, the tantrums are in full swing. If I make him do something he just doesn't want to do, he flails his body, throws himself on the floor, all the classic tantrum moves.

Swatting his behind doesn't get his attention. I've been reading a discipline book. One of their suggestions is timeout but the timeout means isolation. They say to put them in their room. If they still have a crib (and he does) to put him in there and close the door. The idea is to remove them from the situation and isolate them from the parents. We tried this over the weekend. It does work to calm him down.... Don't get me wrong, he spends several minutes in there screaming but he'll finally stop. He likes his crib quite a bit. He's like a little Jekyll and Hyde. One minute he is just a little monster and the next he's all smiles and hugging and kissing. And the toddler years are just starting....the book says a toddler is defined as a toddler through 4 years old!

Once the new baby is a toddler....that means we'll have 2 toddlers for about a year and a half. I just hope we get a handle on Cade's tantrums before the new baby starts with the tantrums!