McDaniel Family Journal

Wow are you talking now! You say or try to say just about everything we ask you to! You don’t say them all perfectly, but your little voice is the sweetest thing we’ve ever heard. You say “Aaabowl” for Apple, “Baaow” for Ball, you make all of the animal sounds like Roar and Moo, Eeeh-Aww and Baaaa 😉 You are adorable.  We love it that you are talking so much now. You still mostly just fuss when you need something instead of using your words, but we’re sure you’ll use them more soon. I don’t know if I mentioned it above, but you’ve been saying lots of words since you about 18 months old. Before that you had a few, but that’s when you really started absorbing more.  The animal sounds are still the best. When we say “what does a lion say?” you’ll throw your little head back, close your eyes, and let out a “Roooooar!” When we go on our walks with Laura and Thomas, we get you too a going with all the animal sounds.

You also are still in love with the birds, and planes, and when we go home you HAVE to play with your cars. The other day I said “can you say car?”, and in stead of sayingthat, you said “bummm, bummm” or vroom vroom in your version, and I said, “no baby, say car”, and you looked at me, sighed, and said “cah”, then said “ bumm bummm” 🙂 Like, duh I know how to say Car, but it’s so much more fun to sound like a car instead, mom! 😉

Temper tantrums have begun to be an issue more so than they were before. Just like the books say, you have them more when you are tired or getting hungry, but it’s not always easy to foresee those times. They vary with you 😉  Now, when you are angry you immediately go to hit me, aiming for the face of course, if hitting me on my leg or arm doesn’t get the reaction you’d like. You had stopped that for a month or so, but it’s back 🙁  You also really like to climb up on all kinds of things that you’re not supposed to, and you usually do those things when you’re tired too. It’s funny, cause you do it, then you look at me like you’re trying to pick a fight. Timeouts weren’t really curbing anything, mainly because I couldn’t make you stay in one, so last weekend I bought a “timeout chair”. It’s just a travel booster seat that I affixed to a chair in the living room. Now, when you get in trouble, I can strap you in and make you stay there for your 30 or 60 seconds. Obviously you don’t like it, but we’ve only had to use it a couple of times. For the most part you will be nice if we threaten the seat 😉

In terms of health…you have been pretty well these days. You had a nasty stomach bug last weekend and slept from about 3:30pm on Saturday to 7:00am on Sunday. You also have had a couple more ear infections. Cold season is almost over, so we are going to try to wait it out so as to not get you the ear tubes. We don’t know. We don’t what the right decision is, and it tears us up whenever you get sick. I am so incredibly worried about your hearing. The ear infections frighten me and so does the surgery. Which is more detrimental?

You’ve been getting up in the middle of the night more frequently. You don’t call out for us…you just scream and shriek. Even when you get up in the morning and are in a good mood. Why don’t you call out “Mama” or “Dada”? Who knows….screaming just seems to be your way. Also, since you know all these words, you repeat everything (very well, I might add), and you know what they mean, I wonder why you don’t use them when you need something. You just whine and scream. Weird 🙂

School is going very well still. They love you there and tell us everyday what at wonderful boy you are 😉

Daddy and I took you to Friendship park the other day, and had a blast! You love the slides and you’re fearless…you like to go down head first on your belly 🙂 It’s very cute, but even though you are tall like a big kid, you are still a baby and of course, I get worried. 🙂

Fun Facts:
First Smile – the day you were born
First Tooth – 8 ½ months
First time you rolled over: 8 ½ months
First steps: 9 ¾ months
Full on walking: 11 ½ months
First word: “Go” and “Go Dog” at 6 months (sounded like “ga” and ga-gog”)
Started talking: Started speaking more at 18 ½ months, really started trying to say everything at 20 months.
First solid food: At rice cereal at 4 months. Hated it, so that didn’t last long, and you also didn’t like baby food. Tasted pumpkin pie at 5 ½ months, ate a whole French fry at 8 ½ months, and started eating solid food pretty regularly at 12 months.
Said “Da-da” – 7 months
Stopped breastfeeding – 6 months
Stopped drinking from a bottle – 15 months (cold turkey, I might add 🙂 )
Said “Ma-Ma” – 9 months
Learned your colors: 21 months
Went to only taking one nap a day: 14 months
Got your first cold: 14 months
Went on your first vacation: 6 weeks
Got your first haircut (given by mommy): 12 months

Filed under: What Brighton is up to now on March 7th, 2008