Singing and talking

I know it's been forever since I posted, but I have to get down some of the things Oscar's been doing the last few weeks as he gets to 22 months old. So much talking, signing, and singing - so much personality. First, he definitely likes having my attention. Even his brothers get exasperated because he will say loudly, "MAAAAA-ma," over and over (talking over them) until I reply (and sometimes even if I already have been replying). His main question lately is "Where _____?" with his hands open. Asking where Dada, where Michael, where Joe, where Papi, where Grandma, where Malcolm. He loves playing outside, in the backyard or at playgrounds, and has gotten into the routine of going outside with Michael for his snack after we get home in the afternoons. He really likes playing with his big brothers, and seems to really like sharing his room with Joseph. I can hear them talking most nights after the lights are out.  If Joseph sneaks out to talk to us again, Oscar will start yelling, "JOOOOOE-Joe" until he comes back.

Oscar pulled up a stool and grabbed some note paper at the library to help me search for a few books

Oscar really likes the picture of the pony in his animals book so he was excited to sit on this at the children's museum

I know Oscar has always liked music, but the past month he's really started trying to sing himself. He just started singing "Baa Baa, Black Sheep" and the ABC song this week. He's been singing our "Good Day" song a lot, and when we sing other children's or Signing Time songs, he listens along and chimes in on certain words he knows.  He requests "Sigh Time Mudic" for the Treeschooler CDs a lot when he's not allowed to actually watch a movie.  One of his favorite songs from our Making Music CD is the regular chant version of Agnus Dei.  Unfortunately the whole song only lasts 30 seconds, so you have to sing it a lot of times when he demands, "Ag-uh De-ih!"  He starts singing quietly to himself when we go for walks in the stroller or drive in the car, so you can tell the music is on his mind :)  In the car he, along with Joseph, have liked the Holy Heroes Stations of the Cross CD we have, so he frequently requests "Stay-shuh Craw!" This does not translate into great behavior at Mass or anything - we have been spending a fair amount of time in the vestibule when he starts acting up, usually right around Communion time.


Oscar knows which shoe basket is his, knows how to turn on his sleep sounds, knows several letters (A, B, D, H, K, J, L, M, O, P, U), knows to get (and use) a "poon" for his food, and knows exactly how to get into trouble by getting into things he's not supposed to :) (Yesterday he snuck into my closet, found a leftover Halloween bucket, and located a lollipop, which he proudly displayed and announced about sixteen times.) He can cry or whine on a dime but shut it off just as fast. He is just a delightful and exhausting and cheerful little guy, and we are all so happy he's a part of our family :)

Meeting the chimpanzee at the zoo

Lounging in bed

Oscar signs "play" every time we go by a playground - he LOVES being outside

Signing and playing at 14 months

We have had a bit of a language explosion this month.  In addition to more, eat, milk, hot, cold, hungry, please, all done, and dog, Oscar has also picked up flower, agua, shoes, Jesus, sun, fish, hat, apple, rain, and baby in the past two weeks. It is so wonderful to see how much he is learning and how happy he is to be able to communicate all these words, mostly without talking. (For talking we have hot, uh-oh, dah (down), ah-duh (all done), and an approximation of Jesus.) He also likes to do our Making Music versions of Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho and Humpty Dumpty, where you make the beat by slapping on your leg and then fall down at the appropriate times - he will start patting his leg with a hopeful look and come wiggle right up to sit down with me so I'll sing. He also tries to sign "sun" for Itsy Bitsy Spider. And he still thinks every phone will show him a picture of a dog, or if it's my phone, will let him talk to Dad. It's pretty great.

Concrete bleachers in background: conquered

I didn't think he could back down stairs but he climbed all the way up the concrete bleachers at Malcolm's baseball game and backed all the way back down last weekend, so I guess he's pretty good on that now? He can slide off our bed and the fireplace hearth also. He's pretty cautious - if he can't reach down with his hand he'll turn around and scoot backwards - but extremely determined.

Finally, Oscar also likes to play swords or lightsabers with his brothers (a little, at least), and to bang cups and everything else he can find on the ground. Loudly. If you ask him to be quiet he usually screeches in reply. But he mostly behaves at church if you let him go back and forth in the pew.

Baby Jedi

Summer afternoon

 We had a little picnic at the apartment yesterday before Malcolm's baseball game, to celebrate my, my mom's, and my dad's birthdays this month.  It was a hot summer afternoon but we tried to stay cool and enjoy the nice weather.

Me and Oscar beating the heat at Malcolm's baseball game

Oscar and Papi

Holding my sweet little newest niece

Oscar signing "flower"!

13 months

Oscar is thirteen months old!  Accomplishments this month include: walking, standing up from sitting (without holding on to a wall or chair), banging things loudly on the floors and tables, begging for food, peeking over the edge of the table to see if he can reach any food, and putting small bits of food from the floor in his mouth. He sure does like food.  He can sign "eat" very well, along with "cold," "hungry," and "please" (kind of).  He learned how to sign "dog" last week and now he very cutely thinks every animal is a dog.  He really likes watching "Signing Time" and kind of makes the "signing" sign to ask for the DVD.  But he also learned how to say one new word: "Uh oh!"

Oscar also loves looking at picture books and snuggling with me and Mike - and sometimes even Malcolm. And finally, he can climb.  Eek!  None of the other children were really climbers as I recall, but Oscar can climb on the couches, Joseph's bed, and the fireplace, and can quickly make it up a whole flight of stairs.  He knows how to slide off our bed or a couch on his belly, but he is definitely NOT safe to back down stairs yet.  So, we are fully in follow-the-baby-around mode.

Rocking some shades

Loves pulling books off the shelf and checking them out

Result of a successful raid on the kitchen table

We REALLY like food around here

A very merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!  We've really been enjoying Advent around here this year and are so happy to be in the Christmas season now.  I feel like December was ridiculously busy at work, with at least ten loan closings between Thanksgiving and last Friday, when I proceeded to pick up another four on behalf of my colleague who's out on leave for a few weeks, plus one of my own.  It's a lot for "part-time" (even though it mostly works out...).  But despite the hectic nature of the season, I think we did a nice job of getting out to Christmas activities, like the city parade and the ND Club brunch, and doing fun things at home like decorating the house, singing carols, doing the Advent wreath each week, reading Christmas stories, and watching the new DVDs that St. Nicholas brought on his feast day: the new Signing Time Christmas special and the Brother Francis Christmas story.  You always wonder what the kids will key in on.  In our case this year, Malcolm was particularly focused on the soldiers.  "How come they wanted to kill baby Jesus??"  Not the part you usually focus on, but I guess it grabbed their interest!  They also liked the detail of Zechariah not being able to speak until John the Baptist was born.  For his part, Joseph was very attentive to some of the new signs.  When Christmas trees popped up on the altar last week at Mass he tried to sign "Christmas tree" - so cool.  He also got the sign for "Mary" and "candy cane." 

For Christmas morning, we had one false start at first.  The boys snuck into the living room before we were up and had quietly started tearing open presents, including one for Joseph, before we caught them.  We said, "Didn't you know that you were supposed to get us before you opened anything?" and Michael said, "I did know, but I decided we should just go ahead."  Admirably direct, I suppose.  We took a couple of minute to reset while I rewapped Joseph's present, then started again with everyone, and had a wonderful morning.  We Skyped with some family members and managed to make it out the door on time.

Mom and the boys

Malcolm holding Dad's present for him

Walkie-talkies!

Malcolm likes watching the old Disney three little pigs cartoon so he was excited about the book

New movie about St. Augustine that I have wanted to watch for a long time - cool!

Say cheese, Joseph!  He loved his Thomas books.

Benjamin Bunny story for Malcolm

Reading new books with Dad

Nice present from Michael I to Michael II

Malcolm loved his new Cubs outfit from Uncle Ryan

At church everyone was pretty well-behaved, but when I tried to get a family picture before we left, Malcolm threw himself down at the altar rail and did the dead-weight routine, refusing to look.  I suppose that's in character for him so the picture is accurate!  Later in the day, though, Malcolm took at least a hundred pictures on his own new kids' digital camera, including some lovely blurry shots of the roof, the carpet, his shoe, and Joseph's hat.  He also took his first selfie.  He had a grand old time.  We got a kick out of it and are very happy he likes the new present :)  We enjoyed some play time in the backyard (LOVE this Texas weather) and had a family dinner of ham, carrots and potatoes, and rolls, which surprisingly, everyone ate.  A few more stories and the exhausted kiddos were down for the count.  Merry Christmas!!

Signs and words

Joseph's communication is really taking off this month and we are loving it.  This month has seen the arrival of a lot of two-word phrases and one sort-of four-word one: "All done appa joo!")  Some of them include, "Bye-bye playground" (comes out like puh-goun), "Mama up," "Dada car," "Pooh stuck" (looking at the picture in his room of Pooh stuck in Rabbit's front door).  But by far the most common combination of words is anything involving the word MY, which is now crystal clear.  My agua, my appa joo, my appa, my nana, my car, my cup, my shoe, my Elmo, my playground, my cracker.  MINE!!!  Hahah.  This child must be a third child or something.  It's hilarious.  He is actively defending his turf.

Joseph also says "truck" whenever he hears a fire engine, "buh" when he sees the school buses go by, "spoon" and "plate" when he helps unload the dishwasher, and "duck" and "quack quack" when we walk by the creek.  He vigorously signs and says baby, girl, boy, rain, wind, cracker, plane, help, and go.  I have so much delight in this age as he learns to communicate something new almost every day.

Help, help

Go!!

Trying to sign "bug"

Fifteen months

Joseph makes us smile every day.  He is a very active little guy who is always busy trying to figure things out - getting on and off little riding toys, opening cabinets, carefully turning board book pages ... and studying how to open the refrigerator.  As soon as he can figure that one out, I think he thinks he's got it made.  In the meantime, his communication skills keep on growing.  His favorite sign and word is "Da!" while touching his forehead with his thumb (sign for Dad).  He always wants to know where Dad is and coming running to the door whenever Mike gets home from work.  Joseph can also sign "grapes," (says "vas" for "uvas"), "please," "girl," "milk," "book," and "water" (says "awa" for "agua" while putting fingers up to his chin).  He's working on the signs for "outside," "cracker," "baby," and "car."  I LOVE how he tries to imitate everything now even if he can't quite get it.  For a little board book called "Where is the Green Sheep?" that title question is the refrain.  Every time I ask it I shrug my shoulders a little bit and hold my hands up.  At the end when we find the green sheep fast asleep, I close my eyes and put my hands next to my face like I'm sleeping on a pillow.  These are not, of course, ASL signs, but Joseph has been imitating them every time we read :)  If I show him how to pour water into a cup at the water table, he will pay close attention and then practice doing the same thing.  He's making progress with a fork already, which seems early to me.  He's a fast learner!  He can also now shake his head (which he does very clearly if he doesn't want someone to hold him or he's rejecting your food offer) and wave bye-bye on cue.

The most effective communication method, however, especially when it comes to his brothers, is a loud screech.  It's the only way he can keep Malcolm from smooching him to death when he's in his car seat or sitting next to him on the couch.  In a possible sign of things to come, though, we have noted a few times where Joseph has screeched in protest ... while Malcolm is innocently sitting off to the side.  Are we being played already?  It's a reminder that you can't jump to conclusions and sometimes even babies appear to want to get their siblings in trouble.  Ha.  Joseph does play animals and hide-and-seek with Michael, and likes to play ball with Malcolm.

Joseph is the master of his little domain around here.  I rearranged some of the toys on one of our shelves so he can reach things more easily, and now he has no trouble selecting exactly what he wants: rubber animal toys (he likes to growl for the tiger and lion), a pop-up toy with five animals (he can push the button for the panda in the middle, and uses the handle to bring this one right to you so you will help him open the others), some race cars (he thinks it's fun to see them go down the slides), books and balls.  Current favorite books are "God Made Wonderful Me," for which he can now point to his hair, nose, eyes, ears and mouth, "Where is the Green Sheep?" and a big book of numbers.

Most days now Joseph skips his morning nursing session, but he still asks for milk when we get home every afternoon and before bedtime, and then once or twice at night.  His molars are starting to come in (one and a half out of four so far) and he's been whimpering at bedtime the last week or so in particular.  One day he'll sleep all the way through the night!  It's hard to resist the little guy doing a happy little laugh and saying "Mama" when I come into the room though :)

On the name front, we all mostly call him Joseph or Joe.  Malcolm is the only one who stretches this in multiple ways.  "Joey-Joe," "Joey-Joey," and "Joey B" are his main favorites.  I continue to find it adorable how his older brothers are so solicitous and sweet to him.  Every afternoon when we get in the car, Malcolm says sweetly, "You want MILK, Joey?  And GRAPES?  You want some UVAS??"  Smooch.

Thirteen months

Poor Joseph, who hadn't cut any teeth for a couple of months, is back to teething in earnest.  For the past several days we've noticed he is whimpering in his sleep, being very clingy, turning down most food, and refusing to open his mouth (except for brief intervals after the pain medicine kicks in).  He also went through four bibs today.  So sorry, little guy!  :(  I'm guessing it's his molars.  Hope it doesn't last too long.

Keeping those lips pursed

Sad eyes

Usually Joseph is pretty high-energy, and he's developing quite the personality.  This month has marked the definitive arrival of "Mama" and "Dada" directed at us as names.  I had just recently noted that he doesn't babble so much as just grunt the same "ah-ah-ah" while pointing at specific things, but in the past couple of weeks the babbling has taken off.

Going for Dada's phone

 One really neat thing is that he's taken a sudden interest in board books.  He wouldn't really sit down or let me read to him before but now he is going through everything on the bookshelf, selecting his preferred choices, and yelling at whichever parent is around until we read to him.  (Not that we don't want to read to him -- we may just happen to be in the middle of reading to the other kids, but he doesn't want to wait!)  He LOVES "Brown Bear" and flips through it very intently.

What do you see?

He also like a board book about Holy Week and Easter, "The Busy Little Train," and a seriously beat-up copy of Old MacDonald.  I sing that one to him with different animals, but he keeps turning back to the cow pages and pointing at the cows (and the cats in the corner) until I moo and meow for him.  I think he can make the "moo" sound too.  He claps for himself when I get excited about that.  When I offer other books, he brushes them aside and either goes to get what he wants again or just points and yells until I pick the correct one.  It's pretty funny.  I love it, and I don't mind reading Brown Bear over and over again, but I really don't love singing Old MacDonald so much :)  With respect to animal noises, Mike continues to do a lot of short Starfall segments with Joseph, who watches very carefully and likes to growl when he sees a bear or a tiger on there.  (But he's scared of squirrels.  Little explorer is all over the playground but if a squirrel gets anywhere nearby, he freaks out and hightails it back to me.)

Joseph is learning to sign "please" and "apple."  He uses "all done" very well when he's done with food in his high chair ... but typically he still wanders back to our chairs to beg for whatever food we are eating even though he didn't want to eat any more of his own.  I guess he's got places to go.  :)

Busy baby at eleven months old

Joseph is such a wonderful baby - our whole family really enjoys playing with him. At eleven months, Joseph is pushing his walker around the house, throwing balls, pointing at everything, figuring out all his baby toys, and exploring the house. It's really fun to see see the light bulb click on for him when he learns new baby signs (more, dada, all done, ball, dog), and to see his enthusiasm for all the signs that he can't do yet, but is very attentive to when he's watching Signing Time with Dad. He also will climb up to me, look in my eyes very seriously, and sign "more, more" earnestly when he's looking for milk. I love it.

Sleepy and happy

One funny thing about his eating patterns is that he's still not great with solids, but that's all he really wants - no purees for him. I feel like the other boys liked the variety of purees we made early on, but Joseph only wants to eat things he can pick up himself. I think this is because the preschool serves all the babies finger foods. So he likes to try all kinds of things - cereals, crackers, veggie straws, cheese, bits of bread, tortillas, pasta, and peas. He's still a baby, of course, so he only wants to eat a few things before he starts he experimenting with gravity and dropping all the pieces of food on the floor one by one.  When I talked to his pediatrician about this, she called it "baby-led weaning" - which doesn't necessarily have to do with weaning from nursing, but just with the process of starting to eat.  Maybe we all do that a bit, but I really don't remember doing it so much with Michael or Malcolm except with puffs, so it's been interesting.

Eating finger food

Checking in on Michael at the library

Bundled up for a walk

Me and Joe

More bananas

It's really neat to see how the signing has finally clicked for Joseph.  He is definitely using his signs to communicate with us.  Go, Joe!

Joseph's first sign

Update: In just a couple of days, Joseph has signed more, ball, flower, eat, mom, and dad. Once a day he will crawl over to me at the computer and slap me until I play a Signing Time. He is really an insistent little man.

After two weeks of watching Signing Time and months of working on signs, Joseph is starting to get the hang of it.

Summer starting

We had a fun time after work this evening - all went swimming together for the first time this season. (Michael and I also went in last weekend and he loved it.) We got the same float for Malcolm this summer as Michael has and I think he likes it, but he's obviously a lot younger so he needs help the whole time because he's not used to it yet. He was done after about ten minutes in any event, but had fun playing out on the patio.

Somebody LOVES the swimming pool

Malcolm is signing, "Ready??"

Here's the "Set...." position

I couldn't get the "go" shot because I have to defend myself when Malcolm rushes in to tackle at full speed! :)

Malcolm's First Sign

Below is video of Malcom's first sign, which he started doing a couple of days ago. It was difficult to get him to do the sign while we were filming because he liked mugging for the camera so much.

Smart little guy

Putting things together

We were just having fun this afternoon with his baby signs so I thought I'd put up Michael's 21-month-old post early for Aunt Amanda :)  Amanda, by the way, is the first distinct three-syllable word that Michael can pronounce.  For the last couple of weeks he has been working on saying "A-man-(sometimes long pause)-DA" and now he's a pro.  Whenever there's a knock on the door he says her name since she's been stopping by after her classes or work a lot lately.  She is pretty happy about this.

Michael knows all the people in his life pretty well, though.  He checks for "Ellie" (Elizabeth) out the front window every morning.  He also adds her name to our bedtime prayers every night.  If you ask, "Quien te ama?" he answers "Ellie!"  (I have to say, "Y quien mas?" in order for him to say "Mama!"  It's very sweet. :)  Elizabeth will keep coming for the rest of this week to take him to the park in the mornings, and then she'll go to visit her mother for the next six weeks or so.  She'll be back by the beginning of November when I head back to work, but we are really going to miss her a lot.  Michael always runs to give her a hug in the mornings and tosses off "Ciao!" whenever she leaves.  When Chris, Stefani, Canon, Theresa, Ryan, or Brendan come to visit Michael says all their names (well, he's working on something for Brendan, but he does knows him).  He can't say any word for Lita yet, but Pere is definitely a favorite (they are both in town helping me out this week with the new baby).  He's getting used to there being two babies around -- still calls Malcolm Canon every time he sees him, but I think he is starting to recognize that Malcolm is different.

Today when Michael watched Signing Time at lunch, I noticed he was doing even more signs than before and working them together.  During the song for "bath," for instance, there was a girl taking a bath, a dog getting a bath, and then a boy taking a bath.  Michael wasn't really doing the sign for bath at all, but he told me girl, dog, and boy all in a row.  And he apparently picked up "stop" and "go" also, which we had a lot of fun with.  He says "PA" for stop (which I'm pretty sure is "para" from Spanish) and is pretty close on that sign, and puts both hands forward for "go".  I chased him around a little doing this and he laughed a lot.  Finally, I wasn't sure he had picked up on "hurt" or "sorry" even though I try to show him "sorry" in other contexts, but he did both of those signs before naptime too.  Such a smart little boy!  He is doing great.

Nineteen months

This month we have had fun watching Michael ramp up his energy level (while we try to keep up). He will run through rooms and down the sidewalk yelling the whole way, he likes to spin in circles until he falls down, and he loves jumping up onto the couches, ottomans, and day bed (the one we are trying to get him used to sleeping in, at least at naps). He also has been asserting himself more with preferences -- he likes to pick out which pair of shoes he will wear for the day, including one afternoon when we found him wearing his formal shoes that he insisted on after nap! He pretty much will never let you feed him -- has to do it all by himself.*

He hasn't really added any new words to his vocabulary, except maybe "flower," although he's really trying. He tries to repeat a lot of words we say, but they don't usually come out any differently than words he already has ("Snoopy" sounds pretty much like "baba" as far as we can tell - ?), so we just keep emphasizing the syllables and figure he'll work it out eventually. He has added some new signs, though -- now he can sign "airplane," "ball," "bird," "book," and "shoes." I thought it was great when we were at a store a few weeks ago and Michael followed an older girl around (maybe 8 or 9) for a few steps, then signed "girl" to me. I didn't know he got that distinction! He continues to be a very helpful little boy, too -- he'll get my tennis shoes for me instead of my sandals when we go for a walk.


I like seeing how Michael studies things intently to learn. We got a new DVD player and when I was trying to show Elizabeth how it works, Michael came over and crouched down right in front of her, studying the new machine and the buttons I pushed to figure it out himself. I couldn't help but laugh -- so much for keeping that a mystery for any length of time! Aunt Amanda got Michael a book on being a big brother and that is his new favorite book. He asks to read it several times a day and pays close attention to every page. Hopefully with that, and spending time around his cousin and some new friends, he is getting to understand a little more about babies.

*Of course, after I say this, at dinner tonight he pitched a fit about *not* feeding himself, and wanted us to do it. I guess contrariness is another trait typical of this age!

14 months

I think we have to take back the claim of Michael being able to say "nana" for "banana," because this month he has only said "apple" for both fruits even though we're sure he knows what he means! This month he has added a few other words, though, such as "all done" when he's finished with his food (although sometimes he follows that right up with "mas" so it's a little confusing), "da" for "down," "bye," "pan" (bread) and "baby". He understands everything you say in Spanish for the moment too. And his current favorite word sequence has got to be "Dada!", "Up!" and then a hopeful "Bambi?"

This all started because Mike would show the baby a little snippet of the movie on YouTube on his computer. It's a cute little clip that isn't annoying on repetition, where Thumper is introduced and all the little rabbits teach Bambi how to walk and say bird, butterfly, and pretty flower. (I tried to teach him "irony," since the pretty flower is of course a skunk, but Mike rolled his eyes at me. Heh.) Michael only watches up until Thumper goes home when it starts to rain, so we think he thinks Bambi means Thumper. Ever since we got home from Florida, Michael has become absolutely addicted to this five-minute clip, with a huge smile and attentive posture whenever he succeeds in getting Mike to play it. It really is cute although that is *exactly why* I have not wanted to have any videos around the baby for at least the rest of this year!! But Mike says it's educational since he will learn bird, butterfly and flower. Oh, all right :) (As an aside, it is so hard for me to believe that when we were one year old, there weren't even *VCRs* yet, much less PCs or the Internet to stream videos over, and I completely remember adjusting rabbit ears and getting a grand total of five channels on the analog TV -- no remotes, of course. I am only 29!!)

We also do let Michael watch small segments of the Signing Time DVD that Aunt Amanda got him for Christmas and we're practicing all those signs with him (apple, banana, bread, hungry, cheese, hot). He does seem to be learning some of those. He definitely gets "hungry" and that has already helped him communicate a couple of times when he was frustrated. He pretty much has completely abandoned the "more" sign, though, since he can say the word, and instead he just does the "please" sign emphatically. It's great.

I know every parent thinks their kid is cute, and I also know no kid is cute all the time, least of all mine. But there are still some kids who are just absolutely so cute and adorable (like, and without meaning to exclude anyone here, but Sarah and Minh's boys are just too unbelievably cute all the time and Rachel's baby is completely precious!) that you just want to eat them up or something :) So, as a new mom, I naturally have this feeling a lot with Michael. One thing in particular he does -- carefully stopping way before he gets to the step down to our living room, turning around, getting down on all fours and backing up bit by bit until he makes it back and down the step -- just gets me every time. Way, way too cute. We are pretty blessed.