The Dancing Fiend

Carson loves to dance. If we ask him if he wants to dance, he says "DANCE!" and starts bopping. He bends his knees and bops up and down. Sometimes he turns on the radio first. Other times he just dances to the song in his heart or his own song usually - "doot, doot, doot!"



He has two other signature moves besides the bopping. He will do the step from side to side, and what I like to call the "I'm washing the table." In this intricate move, he sticks out one hand at waist level a little out from his body. He puts his other hand behind his back, and then he swings his waist level hand back and forth, like he's washing a table. He sometimes gets his head going too. It looks like he is shaking his head, "No."



I so wish I could get it on video, but he is the opposite of camera shy, he's camera hungry, so most of the time we have to hide the camera so that he doesn't eat it. We did manage to get one recent picture.



In this picture, he is enjoying his blow-up ball pit. It's where he, and sometimes the cat, like to hang out. The best thing about this toy is that we got it for free from some friends who wanted to get rid of it. Carson's dancing show is free too. It just proves that the best things in life really are free. Now I wonder why Carson has now started saying, "money"?

Word of the Week

He has so many new words since the last time I wrote that I am just going to share his most recent one: strawberry! He asks for them, and he says that word better than most!

I Love You E-I-E-I-OOOO

Carson is a funny kid, and very good at language, very smart. He mimics what he hears us say and what he sees us do. The other day I told him that I loved him and he said "yi-yi-yoh" which is how he sings the refrain of the "Old MacDonald" song. To him that sounded just like what I said.


He also has picked up saying "shhhh" and putting his finger to his lips. That comes from when we play - "We are sneaking up on Daddy now." Although, he squeals with delight right after, so I don't think he quite grasps the quiet part of it. The first time he shhhh-ed me, he smiled right after and crawled away. I was cracking up!


There are many gestures that he has picked up from me (the poor kid). He sings "doot, doot, doot" when he dances. He blows raspberries when he sees pictures of elephants (that's the closest he can come to imitating the sound that I tell him they make), and he uses the same sound to laugh in disbelief like I do when his Daddy is telling some tall tale.


So I guess we have one answer to the "nature vs. nurture" question, and that is your children's gestures can be learned, so I know now to be extra careful in what I say and do because someone is always watching!

Weaning Meanie or Weanie?

Ok, I have heard everything from you should wean them at 9 months to some babies aren't weaned until they are 4 years old. I know there are some reasons why to wean him as soon as possible such as...the longer you wait, the harder it will be...and the concern over teeth development, but I am still confused.

We give Carson solid food, but the fact is that he just doesn't eat as much as the "books" say he should be eating. With his milk allergy, it's hard to give him the foods many moms rely on (like cheese) for getting their kids to eat more solid food. The formula is his mainstay.

That doesn't mean I am giving up. I guess I'm just whining about weaning. There are many foods he does eat without worry such as fruit, chicken, and beans. Also, I am going to give him his formula in a sippy cup at least once a day from now on. Even though he knows it's not a "bottle" and sometimes throws it because it isn't (I guess I am in for a battle over this bottle issue.) Maybe I should have started this before he could say "bottle."

I just wish I knew if what he is eating is enough. I was looking for a free online food diary to track his food intake like I used to use at fitday.com, however, it is impossible to put in the nutrition information for five Cheerios and other such small amounts of food that he eats. I hope someone invents a nutrition tracking website for toddlers some day. I'm probably not the only crazy mom out there who would use it.

Three new unrelated developments:

• Carson can say "horse" and he knows what it is.
• Carson knows how to say George (as in Curious George) although, this morning he tried to tell me that George was "Bob"
• I invented a "double door wedge" to secure our swinging door in any position. I used two rubber doorstops duct-taped to a painting stirring stick. It's not pretty, but it works.
  
  

This picture shows Carson's horse and the double door wedge.

.

Videos!

Two of the latest videos (for some reason they wouldn't upload to the blog).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5sB6jDtBuY
This one is Carson eating with a spoon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0v34UGNXbgE
This one is Carson calling "dada".
Enjoy!

Bunny Doodle

Yesterday as we were walking, we met our neighbor and her two kids. Her older boy is 2 years old and the baby is 8 months old. The two year old invited Carson to his Grandma's house for cookies to which Carson laughed as if he understood the invitation. It made me smile, but it also made me kind of sad that Carson would probably not be able to eat those cookies, and so today I was determined to make some cookies that Carson and his friend could share some day, and this is the recipe that I found. I love that Go Dairy Free website!!!! I made those cookies in the picture.

Bunny Doodle Cookies
Go Dairy Free - Tuesday, 16 June 2009

© Go Dairy Free

I only did two things different from the recipe - I used Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal and I flattened the cookies with a glass before baking. They turned out awesome, and Carson liked them. However, I am beginning to think that he doesn't have much of a sweet tooth because he goes more crazy over salty snacks. I would still consider this a success! I can't wait to try more of their recipes. Oh, and "dada" liked these cookies too.

Little Mr. Know-It-All

I love this picture. It shows his stubborn side!

It's amazing what a little baby knows and can learn. We think our son is the smartest baby ever, but we may be a little biased. One thing I do know that he knows is how to confound me. Someone once said to me, "Little babies are like parrots. They will repeat what you say."

My response to that is, "WRONG!" My little Mr. Know-It-All says what he wants to say. For example, for the longest time I have been trying to get him to say "nose", so what does he do? Last week he pointed to his eye and said "eye."

I try to get him to say "mama" so he says "dada" twenty times a day at varying levels of excitement. "Mama" only comes out every once in a while when he's trying to ask for "more" food or when he's making a kissing sound "mmmm-ma." I use this to my advantage sometimes. If I ask Carson who he wants to change his diaper, he almost always asks for, "Dada!" Which is also funny because Dada wanted to be called "PaPa," but Carson decided on his own that Dada was what he would call him.

Our latest adventure is that he likes to say "bus" however, his "s" is a "t", so he is calling that big yellow thing a "butttt" instead. When I tried to tell him to say it with an "s", it came out "butts". Oh well, at least he tried.

Last night we were singing "Old MacDonald", and when I paused, he filled in the "E-i-e-i-o". It was cute because it sounded more like "yi-yi-yoo". The adventures never end, and while he is learning all he is learning, he's teaching me a thing or two - such as not to be upset by the lack of "mama" in his regular vocabulary. It just means he knows who I am and doesn't feel the need to say my name when I'm right there. On top of that, there is a reason why he kisses and says "mmmmm-ma" while he is doing it. It's because most of his kisses are for me!

Words Carson can say...

• hi and bye bye
• mama and dada
• ball
• car
• bus (butt)
• walk and go walk
• bike
• hot (he uses for hot/cold and when things hurt)
• hat (this morning he put a diaper on his head and said "hat")
• Bob or Bop (this is what he calls Elmo and our cat, RickyBobby)
• kitty
• bird
• dog
• more
• water
• bottle
• banana
• book