I don't care what "experts" say about TV.

Cade doesn't watch a lot of TV. He does like Sesame Street. When he was a baby and he woke up while I was getting ready for work, I would put him in his swing. His swing happened to be near the TV. While he was still pretty young, I decided that maybe he could be watching an educational kids show while swinging. At least he might learn something, right? An infant shouldn't be watching the news.

Anyway, Cade quickly became a Sesame Street junkie. That is the one show he will sit still for. He now can recite lines from the shows....if it's one he's seen several times. He can also sing songs from that show. He knows his alphabet and can count now and so when they do that on the show, he will do it with them.

Where I'm going with this is, my not quite 2 year old nows an octagon has 8 sides. He likes the episode named The Golden Triangle of Destiny. He will tell me how Telly looks for the golden triangle. On the way, Telly finds other shapes. So we talk about those other shapes. One of them is the octagon. So I told him the octagon has 8 sides. He says that often now.

While I like to take credit for him learning what he has to this point, I know some of what he's learned has been from the TV and Sesame Street. I'm glad he's learning good stuff! And that he's as smart as he is.

Christmas Train

I started last weekend to get out the Christmas decorations. I say started because I wasn't able to get it finished. I forgot how tiring being 7 months pregnant can be. And with an almost 2 year old involved, it's not a few hours project like it normally would be. The tree is up and partly decorated (hooray for prelit trees!).

Grandma Griffith gave Cade a Christmas train last year. It can be set up to go around under the tree. When we got home last night, I told Cade that we would get the train out. Talk about an excited 22 month old. All he kept saying was train, train. Mike got home when we were in the middle of it and helped us get it together. We finally got it together and turned it on. Cade had to have said it 45 times at least "Momma, Dada, Train!" He was so excited about this train.

That is what makes Christmas so much fun! Even though I am 7 months pregnant and tired a lot of the time, I really don't mind doing all the decorating and stuff (just wish I could get it donw a little quicker) because Cade makes it all worth it. He's finally at the age where he understands what toys are and he knows what he likes. I think Christmas morning will be fun at our house!

He's a singer.

Cade has been singing more and more. He sings with Sesame Street. He sings the ABC song. He sings with certain parts of the Cars Movie. It's actually pretty cute. He now knows the whole ABC song. Before he was hit and miss on some of the letters. But he knows them all. And not only does he sing it, he actually sings it in tune. I don't know if this is advanced for a kid that isn't quite 2. He also sings Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and the theme song to Elmo's World. I love to hear him sing.

Yesterday whenever he'd fall or fall and hurt himself, he'd say "Oh sorry." I couldn't quite figure out where that came from. But I do remember Yurie saying she has been trying to get him to say sorry when he's acting out. And I suspect if he's too rough with Lily she tells him to tell her he's sorry. He was also saying "No, no, Cade." Whenever he was doing something he knows he shouldn't. That was pretty funny as well.

He was helping me with laundry yesterday. He likes to put stuff in the washer and dryer. This is actually very helpful for me because it's hard on my back these days to do much bending over. We have front loaders and we didn't buy the pedestals (big mistake in retrospect). Anyway, I would hand him the clothes to put in the dryer and he'd put them in. I would put a pile of clothes on the floor that needed to go in the washer and he would put those in. He likes to push the button to turn them on too. I just hope he never outgrows that. My next task is to teach him to fold...

Terrible Two's are a few months early!

Cade is showing his temper in full force. He can be the sweetest kid and in a second change to the devil! He likes to argue with me. It's hard not to laugh at him when he has that defiant look on his face.... but it's frustrating all the same. We had quite an argument this morning. He was demanding and cranky....(yes, he gets that from Mike- hahahahaha). He got mad at me and threw his cracker down the stairs. Then he said "uh oh, cracker." I told him too bad he threw it down the stairs. An argument broke out between us. Him screaming at me, me telling him that's what happens when we have a temper, blah, blah, blah. I'm sure it was a comical site seeing a 21 month old arguing with his mother. I'm sure it was more funny the site of me arguing with him than the site of him arguing with me. Does he really understand what I'm saying? I seem to think so because he reacts when I tell him stuff.

Because he was demanding and cranky this morning, I had to sneak out of the babysitter's house without my morning kiss. I hate that...but I guess that's what a mom has to do sometimes to keep her child from throwing a huge tantrum!

Could he really know what's coming?

The last week, Cade has been particularly crabby but mostly around me. I think some of his problem might be that he's getting his 2-year molars. There aren't any bumps back there yet. But from what I've read, the symptoms can start as much as a week or two before you notice any teeth. He wasn't really very crabby when his other teeth came in. So this cranky stuff is kind of new for me.

This week everytime I've dropped him off at the sitter's, he's thrown a fit. He doesn't want me to leave. While a mother likes to be wanted, she also doesn't want to leave her child screaming on the floor. He normally loves going to the sitter. There is a little girl there that he loves to play with. This week, he hasn't wanted me to leave him. I told the sitter..." you know he's 21 months old and has been coming here since he was tiny and he's never had an issue with this before. Why now?" She said she thinks he knows there is a baby coming and he's about to compete for my attention. I was kind of surprised by this. She said her oldest did it too.

I never really thought about it. We talk about the baby in mommy's belly all the time but I didn't figure he really knew what that meant. But I guess he's smarter than I give him credit for. Maybe he does know what it means and he's letting me know that he's not at all happy about it!

Or it could just be the terrible twos coming on very strongly.....

Playground

Mike and I took Cade to the playground yesterday. He loved it. When I took him to the doctor a week ago, they have those little slides in there. So I put him on it and he would say "wee" as he went down. I figured he might like the slides at the playground.

Some of the slides there are a lot bigger than the ones at the doctor's office. But Cade wasn't at all intimated by them. We would put him at the top and he would slide down with a big grin on his face. They had all different kinds....straight ones, curvy ones, ones with bumps in the middle. Cade went on them all! The only time he got freaked out was when Mike tried to put him on his stomach so he could slide down that way. Cade didn't want any part of that. My battery wasn't charged in my camera so I didn't get any pictures. I guess I'll need to take that next time.

He also went on the swings. These are the "baby" swings. They are big kid swings. And he seemed to know how to move his body to get the swing to work. He fell out once. I freaked out a little but he didn't cry and Mike had to remind me that he needs to fall every once in awhile to learn....(as a mother I say, yeah, whatever, I'll still be there to pick him up and brush him off whenever he needs me. :) )

The best picture of all would have been Mike on the swings on his stomach. Because the swings at the elementary school playground are not made for 39 year old men to swing on their stomachs! LOL! And no, I didn't attempt to get on any of the playground equipment. I'm clumsy enough when I'm not 6 months pregnant!!

"Hi Momma"

All the baby/toddler books I've read have said that when your child wakes in the middle of the night, that you aren't to make eye-contact and to do the diaper changing (if necessary), rocking, etc. quickly and not to make it like play-time or talk too much to them because they are to know that night time is for sleeping. This has worked really well for me until Cade started talking. The books don't say how to handle a toddler who says "hi momma" in a very sweet voice when you walk in the room. That just melts your heart and you can't help but talk back! :)

Cade did this to me last night. It was 3:30am and I was up to go the bathroom. I heard him in their rolling around. I figured he needed his diaper changed and I thought I'd let him have the rest of the milk he didn't drink at bedtime. I walked in his room and heard "hi momma" from the crib. I tried to talk to him in a whisper and tell him that he needed to go back to sleep. We rocked while he drank the rest of the milk. He asked about DADA. I told him DADA was sleeping. He thought that was funny. We rocked for a few more minutes and I laid him down.

I didn't hear him again but I imagine he rolled around in his bed for a while longer before going back to sleep. We are so lucky that he likes his bed and goes to sleep well on his own. I think the fact that he's a thumb-sucker has helped in that area. He can soothe himself. The thumb-sucking may become an issue as he gets older... I just hope the new baby is as good a sleeper as Cade has been! I don't know if we can be that lucky!

Something else funny he's started doing is when you are holding him and talking to someone else. If he wants your attention, he will grab your face and drag it to look at him or at whatever it is he wants to talk to you about. We're not sure where he learned how to do this.