Forgive the quality of the picture, but this is what happens when you point a camera into a dark room - in the vicinity of where you want a picture - and push the button with the flash and hope for the best. The photo is not of a corpse, but of Kole in the spot where he has put himself to sleep for the second time in a week. On the floor.
We still have the baby video monitor where we can see what's going on in the room. Of course, it's not a very wide angle and can't show too much, but we point it at his bed and at least know when he's not there. Normally, it means we need to turn the volume up and listen. He gets in his drawers and pulls his clothes out. That's his favorite thing to do. One of his previous favorites was climbing up his changing table. Yes - one minute he's rooting around the floor, then three minutes later you come in and he's on top of his changing table. So, now his changing table resides in the front hallway of our house, as does his sister's new dresser. A room is ready to become a nursery, and will soon, but until then the house is very much in a transition stage. Pardon the faux pas, "Better Homes & Gardens".
So in another month he'll be two. At the moment, his size is often mistaken as being that of a 3-year-old. He continues to be a very big boy, but healthy and strong. His vocabulary continues to expand, his knowledge keeps developing. He thumbs through his books now to find an apple he can point out and point and tell you what it is. It takes him maybe a full three seconds to get out both syllables of his version of the word: "aaaahhhh-poo".
His favorite word now, without a doubt, is "No". It was just a few weeks or days ago that all he knew how to do was vigorously shake his head back and forth. Now he punctuates the shake with a hearty "No!". And he'll say it to anything, even when he means yes.
Us: "Kole - do you want to wash your hands?"
Kole: "NO!" (then walks to the bathroom door)
Us: "Kole, do you want to play outside?"
Kole: "No! No! No!" (then sprints to the back door)
On the language front, it should also be noted that "Mama" is now a favorite word to. He hasn't said Maggie's name without prompting, but when he pets her we'll ask him if he loves his Maggie and he'll say "Ga-KEE!"
What's cool is when he forms the structure of a sentence. Last week before I left for out of town he had some crackers. He wanted more, and was in a routine of saying please. So, out of nowhere, he suddenly put everything together: "Moo (more) ... ca-cuh (cracker) ... PEESH!"
With a birthday approaching I'll just end by saying that he's growing out of his T2 clothes and is now T3. Toys? I don't know. It's hard to think about when we have a house full of crap - and much of it has to go; and when I say go, I mean there are heavy-duty items that need to be garage sale or tossed, as we clear out this office room and turn it into a nursery. I need to get a back yard storage shed up and going very soon. Anybody want an entire library of John Grisham or John Sandford novels? I'm not being facecious. You can have them, or I can take the trouble to run them up to half-price books for maybe $10 total. They're all hardback and in like-new condition.
