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Snips, Snails and Puppy Dog Tails

I don't know what a snip is, but I do know that our little boy is made of some interesting things!  The other day he picked up a piece of rubbish (su-prise!) and brought it up to his face like he was going to put it in his mouth.  The whole time he was doing it he was looking at me very sheepishly.  I, of course, freaked out saying, "Koa, no, that's yucky."  He got the biggest grin on his face and said, "Yuck-y.  Yuck.  Yuck-y," like he knew all along that's what I was going to say and he was just waiting to repeat it.

Koa has his own swiffer duster that he keeps in his own little pocket in the closet so he can get it out and help me clean.  Today he got it out and was "cleaning" the floor with it for a while.  Then he started "combing" his hair with it.  I thought it was pretty funny, but I was trying to hide my amusement as I told him to stop it.  He saw right through me, though, and kept doing it as he laughed and laughed.   Of course, that made it much harder for me to be serious.  Needless to say he didn't take my scolding very seriously and I don't think I accomplished much.  I finally just asked him to put it away in hopes he will forget about my amusement by the next time he gets it out--yeah right!

He has a little plastic wagon that usually stays in his bathtub to house his bath toys but we take it out when it is bath time and it usually stays out for a while afterward for him to play with it.  Well, it has been out since Sunday this week and he has just loved that!  Tonight after his bath he immediately grabbed it and started pushing and pulling it around the house.  The next thing I knew he was buck naked curled up in bed with his blanket ....and his wagon!

What a silly little boy.  Emphasis on boy!

Lots of Holidays!

Since I last made a post we have had several notable occasions.  First was our fifth wedding anniversary!  Congratulations to us for making it this far!  Fortunately we have been able to spend a lot more of the past two years together than we did the first three!  Thank God for shore duty!!  We made the trek downtown for some fine dining at Cassis, a chef Mavro restaurant.  You may remember a post about us celebrating Zak's birthday last year at the restaurant Chef Mavro.  Cassis was a nice time, but a little bit disappointing.  We had really been looking forward to going because of the chef, but also because it replaced a restaurant that I had grown very fond of--Palomino.    Our friends, the Bookers, took me there a lot when Zak was deployed the last time.  That was where I fell in love with Creme Brulee.

Unfortunately Cassis was kind of a let down.  The changes they had made in the decor just made it look kind of cheap.  The selection on the menu was pretty limited, and not really all that enticing--not what you'd expect from a guy named Chef Mavrothalassitis, I guess.  The deserts were especially disappointing.  What was not disappointing, however, was the company.  We did have a lovely time in spite of not loving the restaurant.  One of the things that I was most impressed with was the fact that we spent the entire evening without once mentioning the Wee One.  Now, don't get me wrong, I love the boy and I love talking about him, but it was nice to know that we still have plenty of other things to talk about.  That's one of the things I love the most about my husband (except when I'm ready to sleep and he's ready for an all night slumber party) is our conversation!  I'm looking forward to several more years of it!

I also missed commenting on Father's Day since I am a negligent blogger.  I guess Zak should be the one to tell if it was a nice day or not, but Koa and I tried to make it a nice weekend for him.  We got up on Saturday morning and made him breakfast with homemade biscuits and eggs and bacon.  Unfortunately it was a new biscuit recipe and it won't be a repeat, but they were edible.  Zak came home from DC on Friday night so while we were at the airport to pick him up Koa and I ordered a special lei for Father's Day.  We also got him a new aloha shirt so he looked nice and spiffy for church on Sunday.  We took a few pictures while we were at Starbucks that day.  You can check them out in Koa's fifteen month photo album.  All in all I think it was a nice day together.  Mostly we're just thankful that Koa has such a great Daddy to look up to and it was good to have a day to commit to that.

Zak leaves again tomorrow for Orlando for a week.  After he gets back Koa and I will be preparing for a trip to Colorado to see my family.  We were all supposed to go, but after my mom had purchased the tickets Zak found out he couldn't take leave from work.   We are hoping the airlines will let Koa fly in his place.  At least that way the ticket won't go to waste and Koa might be a little more comfortable for such a long flight.  It's a bummer that Zak doesn't get to go with us, though!  That was a big disappointment!   

Koa will get to meet more of his cousins since my sister, Becky, will be there with her kids.  We are also having a family reunion so he will get to meet the extended family, as well.  That will be a lot of fun!  They are all older and will have lots of things to teach him, I'm sure! 

Before we go, we are also working on moving Koa into a big boy bed so we won't need to take the Pack 'n Play.  He's doing pretty well.  We just put his mattress on the floor until he gets the idea of the mattress boundaries.  He still tends to fall off the mattress about once a night or he ends up sleeping half on and half off the mattress.  He does seem to have a love-hate relationship with the new freedom it affords him.  He loves the new freedom to come and go as he pleases except when we tell him to stay on the mattress and he can't take advantage of said freedom--then he hates it.

Koa had his 15 month check up this week.  All is well.  He seems to be doing great developmentally.  Unfortunately we had to change doctors again.  That's getting a little old, but I suppose that's the nature of the military system.  We had to fill out the Denver Test worksheet and I got to the question about how many words he has.  I started counting and I was really surprised by how many words he actually uses.  They still are mostly only understood by Zak and I, but the Dr. said that counts.  I think he's up to like 8-10 words:  keys, steps, stick, blocks, banana, night-night, snack, yes, no, yucky...uh-oh...there are more here and there, but these are the most common, I think.  He seems to be trying to hold a conversation more and more.  He sounds like he is speaking some alien language, but he looks at us like we really ought to know what he is saying.  He will keep repeating the same alien thing over and over, too.  Then he will shift into repeat-back mode.  He will just try to say anything we say.  The other day he repeated me when I said "dryer lint", I guess there is just nothing too mundane to talk about!

Speaking of dryer lint, he loves helping me do the laundry.  I let him stand on the washing machine (ours is a stackable unit) and I open the door for him and put the laundry basket on the floor so he can take the dry clothes out and throw them in the basket.  I figure I am grooming him for a college scholarship in basketball while we get the chores done.

He is still loving to read, and he seems to be figuring out how it all works more and more.  He now knows when he is holding a book up-side-down.  He will turn it over as soon as he picks it up.  He also knows that words mean something, so he will point at a word and then look at us to read it to him.  I think that is just fascinating.  I never thought about the fact that you have to learn that until he started doing it.

Unfortunately Koa's little friend, Mason, just moved back to the Mainland.  So, now we will have to find someone else to play with on Wednesdays.  We will miss Mason's family very much!  Hopefully we will cross paths with them again someday.  We are now accepting applications to be Koa's friend via email! :)

He Does Wear Clothes!!

I just wanted to make a disclaimer about Koa's photo album concerning his lack of clothing this month!  He does, in fact, wear clothes even when we are indoors!  For some reason the camera only comes out when he is naked or close to it!

Part of the reason he has been scantily clad lately is because we are working on the next stage of potty training.  We are trying to get him to tell us when he needs to use the potty.  A lot of information I have found about training little boys says that if you leave them bare bottomed they can feel the sensation of needing to go better.  We have found this to be true!  On the couple of occasions we have been home long enough to try it he has done really well with figuring out that he needs to go.  He usually starts to do a little tell-tale dance and I ask him if he needs to go, he shakes his fist for the potty sign, I say, "OK, go to the potty.", he grabs his book (just like his dad!) and runs and sits down on the potty (all by himself!).  It's an amusing process!

We have started using a reward system at the potty.  I was anti rewards for a while because I figured going to the potty was not something to be rewarded for, and that it might be setting Koa up for failure in the real world.  That's a little bit exaggerated, but I did think that the whole process should be as natural as possible with minimal fan fare.  Recently we hit a stand-still in the process and I was anxious to move things along.  So, I decided to give him one semi-sweet chocolate chip if he tells me when he needs to go and then completes the entire process (potty, flush, wash hands, re-clothe).  He thinks the treats are a fantastic idea but hasn't tried abusing the system yet.  I'm still waiting for that!  He has even started telling me when he needs to go when we are out of the house and he is fully clothed!

In other forms of communication, he is learning to love to sing.  He walks around the house leading singing now, complete with the hand waving.  We haven't been savvy enough to catch it on film, yet, but multiple times a day at our house you may find a scantily clad gentleman walking around the house, book in hand, leading a rousing version of "Row, row, row, row...." He even holds his hand differently when he's "leading singing" than any other time.  He also likes leading singing from his car seat.  Other songs he likes to sing are his ABC's and Pat-a-Cake.  He is presently working on the "roll it up" part of Pat-a-Cake as well.  His "roll it up" still looks more like he is shadow boxing at this point.

The words he is working on right now are "blocks", "steps", and "sticks"--all very important words for a little boy.  They all sound pretty much the same to an untrained ear, but Zak and I are able to distinguish the slight nuances that make each one different.  He loves to play with his bag of wooden blocks and he keeps repeating the word that sounds something like "stekts" while he stacks them and knocks them down.  He's gotten up to six blocks high, but that was a rare occurrence.  He usually can't bare the temptation to knock them over past four blocks.

He's also getting very good about helping pick up his toys.  We have been working on picking them up and putting them away before he takes a nap or goes to bed for the night.  If we ask him to take a book and put it away from the living room he will take it to his bedroom and put it on the shelf where his books are stacked.  He also loads all his toys into his wagon that gets parked in his room at night (with a little coaxing).

However, picking up toys has translated into picking up everything--wherever we are, whatever it is.  Anytime we are out and he sees rubbish on the ground he can't bear to walk past it without picking it up--and he WILL find a trash can.  He's very determined.  Some of this is my fault because when we are out at the park for Stroller Strides I can't stand to run past rubbish on the ground, so I will usually stop and get it and carry it to the next rubbish can.  So, when you combine that with his father's OCD to always have clean surfaces....well, that's what you get.  The other day we went to the beach with some of the mom's from Stroller Strides and as I set out the blanket he walked around and picked up anything that he thought was rubbish and threw it away.  Then he proceeded to pick up any toys that had already been scattered by other children and put them on a near-by blanket.  Only then could he relax and play.

I had intended for this post to be nice and short just to update you all on things Koa is doing lately, but I didn't realize just how busy he has been!  No wonder I am tired!  I think I'll nap now....