- Caedmon is turning out to be QUITE the entertainer! He is very shy, but loves being the center of attention once he’s comfortable.
- He jabbers up a storm all day long and is developing quite the vocabulary as of late. Most recent words include: knock knock, moo, cow, boom boom (all thanks to “Mr. Brown can Moo, can you?”)
“fall down” “again” (with signing), door, “a car” “a truck” “a bus”, ‘deeno’ (dino/dinosaur), ‘Cay’ (as he pats his hand on his chest – assuming “caedmon”) ‘gup’ (cup), yes & no (w/ appropriate head nods), ‘gah’ (graham cracker or goldfish — or just food in general, haha!) I can’t type it, but he has his own profane version of “fork” (ahem). …I’m sure there is more, he’s pretty much copying everything we say this past week. - He had a pretty serious injury this week – something tells me it will not be wild man’s last injury. On Monday, he developed what looked like a rash on his leg. By early afternoon, it was bruising. By Tuesday morning, it was peeling. Wednesday morning, it made my stomach turn to look at it and nothing we seemed to be doing was helping – so we ran to the pedi. Sure enough, a burn (from a space heater)
We have to change the dressing 2x a day, and a friend who worked in a burn unit gave me all sorts of tips, tricks, advice, knowledge, etc…and prepared us for the worst. This tough dude didn’t flinch a muscle as I wiped down his peeling leg and put soap and wet cloth on very raw, tender skin. Me? I about threw up thinking about the pain he must be in - He is trying ever so hard to run as fast as the big boys, even trying to jump like they do!
- He loves books, especially ones about trucks, cars or animals. If there are hiding pictures (lift-a-flaps), even better!
- he LOVES to dance – he’ll walk around bobbing his lil head to the music and shaking his heiny.
- He eats everything we put in front of him, and uses a fork and spoon about 99% perfectly. He wanted a cup of OJ this week, and Zach gave him a little cup and he used it pretty much correctly too.
- He gives the best hugs and kisses
- He is terrified of new people, or even ‘not in our life everyday’ people (He willingly goes to Keaton’s preschool teachers though…and has charmed them completely!)
- He still loves being in the Beco (which is great for preschool pick up, as we get there a few mins early to get a good parking spot, so it’s easier to keep him in one spot than chase him all over the church!) Just today we were at the library and I asked, “Are you ready to get in the carrier?” And he started clapping and squealing.
- He finally has all of his teeth (except 2 year molars) – I shouldn’t say finally, but that was a long few months of one coming in every time we turned around!
I know I’m forgetting a thousand things I want to save and remember, but he is totally distracting me now, so I have to end it here.
was the last time I posted…wow. winter makes me lazy, what can I say? Instead of updating each week on who has the latest crud, I just assume ignore it
Instead, let’s see what the boys are up to…
Keaton is on Christmas break from preschool and very upset, every day, about missing his friends. He might be a little bit of a social butterfly He thinks I’m keeping him from school, and is very worried that his teachers and friends are missing him. He is very excited about his upcoming 5th birthday and talks nearly every day about what kind of party he wants. He is slowly learning to read and it is pretty exciting to hear. Zach and I have also started talking about Zach doing piano lessons with Keaton and Keaton is pretty excited about this!
Benjamin is working on letter sounds and picking it up faster than I can manage. He adores Caedmon and always wants to be right near him. He and Keaton are now sharing a room and it’s going SO much better than last time. Keaton sleeps (if he sleeps) in our room for nap time and that helps a lot. Most days he doesn’t want to nap, so he just looks at books and stays quiet. Benjamin is all about the naptime though, so this partial separation works best!
Caedmon cut all 4 eye teeth in the past 2 weeks, poor guy. He is trying to talk up a storm, he likes “B” words – ball, book, box, and bye, but other favorites include: stuck, “fall down”, “go outside”, door, car, truck. He is finally starting to run and keep up with the big boys and this thrills him to no end 
He loves cars/trucks, rolling a ball and is starting to show off some serious soccer skills!
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We had 2 great Christmases so far. We went to VA the weekend before Christmas to celebrate with Zach’s family. We had to be here Christmas weekend because Zach had the opportunity to lead worship on Christmas morning – what a treat! This was the first time we were able to be at our church for Christmas Sunday and it was wonderful. We only have one service, and no children’s classes. Our senior pastor has all the kids come up and he reads a story. It was great. We followed it up with a trip to IHOP for lunch (with half of Raleigh!) and finished up lunch with a flat tire We came home (eventually) and opened gifts. We have two more Christmases to go – one with my mom and then with Zach’s sisters family…whenever kids aren’t sick :-/
We kept it low key like we like…
Started with breakfast at IHOP with a SLEW of people – everyone must have thought it a great idea! Our waitress was awesome – super sweet and totally happy to be working on thanksgiving day.
We came home, watched a bit of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade,
put up Christmas decor
and then headed to dinner at a friends house (with a handful of other friends).
I woke up with an ear infection and paid an emergency visit to the chiro…
good times.
Zach had to work Wednesday and today…
Boys are down for naps
and I’m partaking in a few Black Friday online, all-day-long giveaways
trying to win some cloth diapers, baby carriers and an ipad 2
Benjamin somehow learned there was a Christmas-only station in the area (you know. All Christmas! All the time!) If you know me, you know that I *might* listen to this for about 5 minutes Christmas morning and call it done. Well, Benjamin went into hysterics the other day demanding Christmas music. I figured he’d get about 5 minutes in and we’d be done…He is my child, right? Well, a week later, and he still asks for Christmas music as soon as I’m done cleaning the kitchen in the morning. Well, on this 24/7 Christmas station, he heard, “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas” and every time I oblige and turn on the Hillsong Christmas station on Pandora, he says, “I want the Hippopotamus song!!!!!” I told him the other day, “Benjamin, I prefer my Christmas songs to be about Jesus and talk about his birth…” He looked at me for about 5 seconds and then said, “I prefer my Christmas songs to be about hippopotamuses…” sigh.
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Another Christmas music funny: The song Sleigh Ride. You probably only know it if you were involved with band in some way, but at the end there is a trumpet that makes a horse sound. Benjamin laughed himself to tears the first time he heard it. Keaton was finally in the van for it yesterday and heard it. I thought for certain he too would get a kick out of it.
Wrong. He looked at me and said, “Mom, that was an elephant, not a horse.”
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There’s a college near here that is strictly for arts/technology and it has some pretty cool dome-shaped buildings. It’s not on our usual course of driving, but we passed it the other day and the boys thought it was very cool. I told Benjamin that I thought they had cooking classes there where he could learn to be a chef if he wanted (he always talks about being a “cooker-man”). Well, he immediately responded with, “I don’t want to do that!” So I asked what he DID want to do. He said, “I just want to eat lunch…” I said, “Well, when you have a job, you will be able to eat…but what do you want to do when you grow up?” His response? “I just want to stay at home all day and eat.” I told him, “good luck with that”
When I asked Keaton what he wanted to be, he told me, “A race car driver!!” (Too much NASCAR in our house??)
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This morning, it was cloudy out after we came back from getting Keaton’s chest x-rays (more on that later). There were some breaks in the clouds and Benjamin screamed, “Mommy!!! Look!!! The clouds are coming apart!” hahaha!
Caedmon turned 15 months on Saturday. I’m still trying to figure out how.
At his last appt (follow-up visit on the 19th from having a double ear infection) he weighed in at 26lbs2oz. (length was not checked)
New tricks:
- trying to talk so much – car, truck, mama, dada, go, outside (‘ah-si’ while pointing to the door), cup, book, ball, more (and signs ‘more’ at the same time), please (‘puh’), phone (“pha” while pointing to Zach’s phone. He has a ‘drawing’ app that Caedmon is addicted too), toes (‘tas’ while pointing to toes), five (“five” or ‘fi’ while giving high five), blocks (‘blac’)
- He’s VERY good at showing you what he wants by pointing or by bringing you/it to it/you
- So cute. When I say, “We need to be quiet, brothers are sleeping!” if he wakes up before them at naptime, he sticks his fat little finger over his mouth and goes “shhhhh”
- He managed to stay through an entire Sunday school class for the first time on Sunday
- Giving high fives (we’re working on “punch it” or “knuckles” as our pedi calls it)
- He has started stacking very small blocks (for a few months he has enjoyed stacking books in a pile)
- Getting Mega Blocks to ‘stick’ together
- Gives great big hugs & kisses when you ask
Still:
- a hambone – thrives on being the center of attention, but new situations still terrify him and only mama or daddy will do
- loves all food, especially meats, but can put away fruits & veggies like no other. He also had the pleasure (?) of discovering goldfish and is addicted
- is nursing
- adores his big brothers
- loves music and claps & dances all the time
- makes the goofiest of faces
Wearing:
- 18month or 2T pants/shorts (yes, shorts – it was nearly a gorgeous 80 degrees yesterday!)
- 18month or 2T shirts
- He hates hard-soled shoes due to the way he walks, but we got him some PRESH soft-soled shoes from Baby O Designs and he adores them
- Medium cloth diapers (didn’t think we’d EVER graduate out of smalls, haha!)
Some favorites:
- Books: Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? and Polar Bear, Polar Bear What Do You Hear? He also loves any “touchy-feely” books (ones with different textures)
- Toys: Pop up toy (has 5 different actions – turning key, sliding key, pushing, etc… each makes an animal pop up), mega blocks, cars
- Food: Beef, goldfish, any fruit or veggie – really, any food.
- Every night Zach and I watch an episode of MacGyver on Netflix and Caedmon LOVES this too
I’m too tired and lazy to upload and make pictures fit in here, so just click here to see the latest.
