Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Dorian at 16 mos - a long overdue update

He's just not a baby anymore. Mostly. He's such a little boy.

He's walking. Running. Talking. Signing.

He says:

  • No. - but thankfully not always in context. So it's still kinda cute. He shakes his head "no" also, but I'm not sure he knows what that indicates yet. When he means it, his tone is very curt. Recently, he's starting pointing to things he knows he's not supposed to touch and says a long drawn out "nooo" as he's touching them with his pointer finger.
  • Up. - This one is pretty new, but he's getting the hang of it. It's used when he wants to be picked up or to have help climbing onto something. We're practicing "down" but that one hasn't sunk in yet.
  • Nose (but sounds like "no").
  • Eye (but sounds like "ah"). He loves to say this as he pokes you in the eye.
  • Dog (but sounds like "dah"). Everything is a dog. The cat. A cow. Goats at the petting zoo.  Every animal is a dog, but at least that means he's making associations.
  • Meow (but sounds like "ow"). It's pretty funny when he follows Weezul around the living room yelling "ow" every time the cat yowls to be let outside and away from the baby.
  • Dada. Kind of. He's said it a couple of times, but he's not using it regularly. He makes the "da" sound a lot, but not in context. 
  • Ball (but sounds like "bah"). This was actually his first *real* word. Dog may have actually been first but we didn't catch it.
That's all I can think of. He understands so much more. He's also signing "milk", "more" and "eat" (or for us, it's "bite"). 

He's running. He loves to be chased, but plays the "I'm gonna get you" game backwards. When I say it, he runs towards me instead of away from me, which is actually very helpful when I'm trying to get him to do something. Recently, he's started hiding behind the curtains to play "Where is Dorian?" as well as using his hands to play peek-a-boo. Occasionally he gets too excited and smacks himself in the face when covering his eyes. 

He likes to walk the dog. For a couple of months now, he grabs hold of the ring on the dog's harness and walks her around the living room. He's started to help me hold the leash when we go for walks. There is a house around the corner that has a couple of large dogs behind a chain link fence at the end of their driveway (in the back yard). They bark every time we walk by, and Dojo stops to yell at them. As we walk down the sidewalk, he stops and turns back to yell at them some more. That seems to be his MO when things scare him - he yells at them. He took on the train on the Mr Toad's Wild Ride at Disneyland. Just yelled at it. 

On one walk, he found a potato-sized rock on the sidewalk and carried it home. It lived on the front porch for a while, then on one of the stairs, then on the bumper of the car, now back on the stairs. 

He loves Sesame Street. He dances when the song comes on. It started with a DVD my mom bought for him called "Let's Make Music". It is a Sesame Street DVD from 2001 that features members of STOMP. It has snippets of music from old episodes and is all about making music without instruments - singing, drumming, stomping, etc. There is a song where Bert sings about his oatmeal box and how it is a great drum. "Chicka-boom Chicka-boom!" It gets stuck in my head for days. Dojo loves that DVD and it evolved into full episode Sesame Street love.  And anything with music. Hubbs has been playing short videos of military drum lines and Dojo is mesmerized by them. 

He's climbing. On everything. Can't seem to find a toddler-friendly playground close by, though. 

Oh, and pandas! He's carrying around his (my) pands stuffed animals and pointing out their eyes and noses, and mouths and feet.. We took him to the zoo a couple of weeks ago and he lost his $h!t when he saw the panda. He started squealing and pointing and saying "Da!", which is what he says when he sees something he knows but cannot say, or when he's asking what something is. 

He's discovered the song "head, shoulders, knees and toes" on his singing puppy doll, and will play it over and over and over and over. He learned where his head is, so he throws his hands up and holds his head then touches his toes.   He can point out his head, eyes, ears, nose, mouth, belly button, feet and toes. 

He's a busy little guy and I just can't keep up with him some days.