Monkey

When Lucero came over on Tuesday to play while her mama enjoyed some crafting time, she brought over monkey hats. She didn't wear hers, but Linus loves his. He even insisted on wearing it when he went down for his nap later in the day. The two wanted to play in Linus' crib and next thing I knew, they were jumping up and down. With Linus wearing the monkey hat, I couldn't help but sing, "Two little monkeys jumping on the bed."

When they were snacking together, Linus said thank you every single time Lucero handed him a piece of cereal. Every single time. He also says thank you when he hands something to someone. When Lucero fell down and cried, Linus became distraught. I cuddled him and said we should give Lucero a hug. He gives hugs to his little friends by resting his head on their chest. It looks awkward because he has to bend down to accomplish it, but it is very sweet. He appears to be a sensitive kid.

Haircut

Linus' first professional haircut experience went great! I felt so relieved when he was done, as I had been stressing out about him making a scene. I should have known better, because Linus really is a mellow kid. I took him to LolliLocks, a locally- owned chain of kids salons. The place is little diva girl heaven. They sell tons of pretty hair things. They have a play area and fun chairs for the younger kids to sit in while getting their hair cut. Linus chose to sit on the dragon. The stylist apologized that she only had a pink cape for Linus to wear because the blue ones weren't dry yet. I said I had nothing against Linus wearing a pink cape. She worked efficiently, talked nicely to him, and gave him books to look at while she worked. She asked what I wanted and I said I wanted it trimmed up and for him to look like a sweet little boy, no buzz cut. Voila!

Keys

I don't remember posting about the set of keys I bought Linus at a neighborhood hardware store. He showed no interest whatsoever in his toy keys, but loved playing with mine. When I told the guys at the hardware store what I wanted keys for, they got very excited and involved in coming up with the best solution. One suggested giving us keys that they had cut wrong for other customers. They said I could have them for free. Then the one guy was worried that the edges were too sharp. I said I'd buy blanks. When I asked if they had colored bands to put on the keys to help with teaching Linus colors, they were so excited to pull out colored keys. Linus has a set of red, blue, yellow, green, and purple keys on a real key chain. Every now and then he plays a game of running around the house "locking" all of the doors. Fortunately, we live in an older house with skeleton key locks in each door. Here he is locking our bedroom door at night.

Notice how long his hair is? He will no longer let me trim it, so I'm taking him in on Thursday for his first professional haircut.

Child Development

Here are some random things about Linus at 19 3/4 months:
--He has started saying thank you without being prompted. At the library on Saturday an older boy was handing him plastic animals and Linus thanked him. I was so very proud of him. Reminds me yet again of Brandon's early courtesy development.
--He now tells us when he has pooed. He'll say, "Poo," and point to his diaper, or he'll say, "Diaper." I'll say, "Should I change you?" and he heads to his changing table. This is the first step toward his being potty trained. Every little boy I know hasn't mastered it until he was three, so I'm under no delusion that Linus will potty train any earlier. Sometimes he says poo and he hasn't. Maybe he felt the urge? Who knows? Today he said poo right before he very obviously pooed. Getting there kiddo, step by step.
--He has become aware of gender. He has correctly identified people as boys and girls. Lucero points out that boys have penises and girls have vaginas, but Linus hasn't started asking about that yet.

We had to mail Flat Stanley back to Wisconsin today. We'll miss him. Here is a picture of him posing with Matthew and Linus at a public art installation outside the library.

Thanksgiving Wrap Up

We had an enjoyable holiday at Martha and Bill's. That morning he kept saying, "Pahty," for party. The food and conversation were great. We put a little piece of turkey on Linus' plate, but he didn't even taste it. He didn't eat much other than butter off of his roll. It was past his nap time and he was getting a bit worn out. He rebounded in time for pumpkin pie later in the afternoon. He enjoyed running around the house, playing with Bill's stuffed eagle, and trying to feed the dog that was a guest at the gathering.

Friday night we went to our first holiday party for the season. One of the families from the Congress Park play group invited folks over for food, drink, and play. The plan was for the whole group of us to head downtown to see the lighting of the city county building, but when we got to the party the host said it was too cold to go. My first thought was that they were pretty wimpy. We'd come prepared with warm clothes, coats, boots, scarves, etc. So after the party we went down to see the lights on our own. Saturday we took Flat Stanley downtown to see some sights. This morning we went for dim sum and Linus kept trying to drink from his chopstick, like it were a straw. He liked the sweet little rolls we gave him.

The pictures are from Thanksgiving: Linus posing with Flat Stanley and the turkey and him reading a book with Thomas.

Verbosity

Linus has started using verbs. He uses them to tell me what to do: sit, stand, hug, run, eat. He also says, "Come on," in the cutest way. He says, "Swim, swim," as he makes his stuffed animals pretend swim. Yesterday he said, "Would like that."

After clearing up my clogged head with a decongestant, Linus and I worked together to put plastic over some windows this morning. Mostly he just climbed the ladder with me on it.

Flat Stanley

We received a Flat Stanley in the mail yesterday. We've been instructed to take it places and take pictures to document his visit here, then send it all back to an elementary classroom in Wisconsin. He must have come from Brandon's classroom. Linus took Flat Stanley in the stroller for our walk yesterday and let him go down the slide into the leaves at Lucero's house.

Linus was sick with a temperature of 104 over the weekend. He is feeling much better, but Matthew and I have scratchy throats. I keep plugging along, because I can't tell Linus that I don't feel well.

First Shot at Video

Here is my first attempt at attaching video taken in Photo Booth on my Mac.

Dishpan Hands

Linus had a blast playing at washing dishes. When I boosted him up onto the chair in front of the sink, he seemed confused; until I said, "Can you wash these dishes for me?" He dove right in and washed with gusto. When he dripped water on the chair, he'd let me know and I would dry it off. When water splashed into his eyes he would exclaim, "Eye. Eye," and I'd come over and dab at his face with a towel. His clothes got soaked, as did the floor under him, and he had the time of his life. He played at it for over an hour, leaving me time to sweep and mop the kitchen floor and start dinner. A rousing success!

Fun and Games

We joined Chase and her mom at the Museum of Nature and Science this morning. The place was a madhouse with field trip kids. Even the Discovery Zone was full with toddlers. Linus spent about 15 minutes playing with wood cylinders. They are designed for older kids to pick them up and try to pair them up based on weight. Linus had fun stacking them, dumping them out of their box, putting them back in, and dropping them into another activity. The volunteer behind the counter said that Linus has an amazing attention span for someone his age. I beamed with pride, of course. When we parted from Chase and Langley, Chase blew Linus a kiss and he blew one back. He has never done that before!

After his nap I'm going to introduce him to a new game to see if he likes it. I read that toddlers like to play at washing dishes. I'm going to put a chair up to the kitchen sink and fill it with plastic bowls and dish soap and let him play.

Here is Linus "playing" at the computer. I set the font size to be rather large and let him type. The Waldorf school people would disdain this game because they don't think kids should use computers at all until they are in high school or something like that. While I don't let Linus play computer games yet, I think typing is a good way for him to experience the alphabet.

Language Update

Linus' vocabulary is growing rapidly. For example: I was getting dressed this morning and I asked him what I should put on next. He held up my bra and said "bra." Then he pointed at my chest and said "breasts." (He will be embarrassed when he reads this in 12 years.) He has also started catching on to the furnace operation. He was intrigued by the heat coming out of one vent and cooler air moving by another. I explained that the furnace sucks air in from one vent and blows warm air out another. Now, when the furnace kicks in, he says "heater."

Linus wants very much for me to partake in whatever he has or is doing. Last night I was done eating my dinner, but he was having seconds of stewed apples. He was upset that I wasn't eating any apples and he put one of his apple pieces in my bowl. Then he resumed eating with a satisfied face. When he was having his morning snack today he wanted me to also have apple cider and cheddar bunny crackers. I was leaning against the counter while drinking my cider and he brought his cup over and stood next to me, also leaning against the counter. It is little moments like these that make parenting great.

Last night Linus was all about doing the boogie woogie. You should hear him say boogie. He puts the emphasis on the second syllable -- boo GEE. The three of us were putting away clean laundry and he bounced around on our bed saying, "Boogie, boogie," and laughing up a storm.

Mountain Hike

Yesterday afternoon we went on an impromptu hike at Gennessee Park. This is one of the mountain parks owned by Denver. It was the first one purchased back in 1913. Great foresight! Matthew said let's go to the mountains and I googled for a place to go and within a few minutes we were on our way. We saw bison in an enclosure there, but they were pretty far away. We spent our time walking a one-mile trail. It took quite a while because Linus mostly wanted to pick up rocks to toss down the embankment on one side of the trail and up the embankment on the other. It was pretty amusing to watch him. At the trailhead there were signs warning of bears and mountain lions. Then Matthew reminded me we had to watch out for rattlesnakes. I'd forgotten about that. We got out without any predator sightings. We did see deer on our way out of the park.

Major Developmental Leap

Since turning 18 months, Linus has become a new kid. It seems as though he is always doing or saying something new. For example, on Monday I ran out of room to write down his new things on the calendar. He pointed to the cd player and wanted me to turn on music. That is the first time he requested music. He said sticker for the first time. The sticker game goes like this: I pull out a sheet of stickers I'm willing to share. He points to the stickers he wants, I pull them off the sheet, and he puts the stickers on a shoe box that I gave him. We call it his treasure box. His treasures are buttons from my button stash, a little glass jar, and sea shells. He also started saying "peep peep" for little bird sounds. I say peep, peep and cheep, cheep for chicks and other little birds.

On Wednesday he did imaginative play with his stuffed bear from Peter and Betsy. He brought it into the kitchen and showed it the trash can, the pictures on the refrigerator, and gave it a pretend drink of water from his cup. Linus started dancing and I asked if the bear could dance. He bounced it around. This morning he was stacking his stuffed animals on his shelf and decided they all needed to lay down and sleep. He only just recently started playing with the stuffed animals that live on the shelf. I guess he thought they weren't for playing with until one evening I spread a blanket on the floor and pulled all of the animals down on top of it. I showed Linus how to pull up the corners of the blanket over them. Since this impromptu game he has played with the animals in different ways. Yesterday he pulled them all down onto his lap and wanted me to read books to all of them.

Linus' most recent skill is twirling. He twirls around to music and says "twirl." The first time he did it he invited me to join him.

My Little Helper

I've been giving Linus more little jobs to do because it makes him so happy to do "big people" tasks and because it will teach him to help out around the house. He likes putting his dishes in the dishwasher and putting his laundry away. The dishes are sometimes put in diagonally and the clothes become unfolded, but he has done his part and feels important.

When I gave Linus his bath one night last week he proceeded to scoot around the tub, washing down the sides of the tub and the faucet. Then he wanted me to put my feet in so he could wash those, too. Good training, huh?

Here he is enjoying my birthday cake and wearing the apron I sewed for him.

Spaghetti

We had spaghetti for dinner recently, which is a rarity in our household. I don't know why; I just don't make it very often. While eating, it suddenly occurred to me to teach Linus how to slurp spaghetti. He thought it was hysterical and dinner quickly turned into a giggle fest by all of us.

I had a wonderful birthday yesterday. The sweetest moment was when Linus came into our bedroom saying, "Carrrd, carrrrd." I rolled over in bed and he handed me a card. When I pulled him up onto the bed, he grabbed the card and said, "Open." So sweet. Matthew had sent him in with the card, but even so, it was adorable and touching.

Zoo Class

Halloween morning I took Linus to Miss Spider's Tea Party at the zoo. Each kid got a name tag that was a die cut spider made out of orange paper. It was Linus' first name tag! There were hunks of orange play-doh at the tables and kids were instructed to play with it until class started. Linus was more interested in playing with the stuffed zoo animals on a zoo themed rug. He would grab one, run it over to me, then run back for another. He said hippo for the first time when he brought me the hippo one.

Once we got underway, we all gathered on the rug that featured zoo animals reading books. The instructor handed out two laminated bug pictures to each kid. As she read through Miss Spider's Tea Party, the kids with the bug on that page got to run up and stick their bug on the fuzzy board (there was velcro on the backs of the bugs). Linus had one of the bug that got called first. I sent him up on his own with it, figuring the instructor could guide him. She wasn't needed because after seeing what the other kid did, Linus confidently stuck his beetle up there. Then he bent down, grabbed something, and ran back to me. He had a bee puppet. Linus had the second bug that was called up, a lightning bug. After he was done with this task he wasn't interested in the book any longer. There was too much text for him. Instead, we went to the back of the room and played with the stuffed animals and he crawled on and off of the little kid chairs at the tables.

Then there was what was labeled a "take home craft," which turned out to be making a spider out of an Oreo and little red licorice sticks. He gobbled up the cookie as soon as he got it. Curious about how he ate his first Oreo? He separated the halves, ate the one without the filling, then licked off the filling, and ate the other half.

Lastly, the kids got to see a tarantula up close in a little cage. This was the point of my signing Linus up for this. I wanted him to get a good look at a spider. He couldn't see it very well because 2, 3, and 4 year olds were in front of him. As soon as the instructor set the cage down, Linus ran up behind her and plopped down in front of the cage to check out the spider. I was impressed at his confidence to pursue his desire.

I was feeling sad for Stephanie that bee has taken Winthrop-Linus'-Monkey's place and so I asked Linus if he could say Stephanie. He said it two differerent ways: Stemp-hee and Stemp-nee. Stephanie, I hope this makes up for it!

Halloween

Linus was an owl for Halloween and what a full day it was! I took Linus in to Matthew's work to parade him around a bit in his costume. Then we went to Miss Spider's Tea Party at the Zoo, sans costume. Immediately following Linus' nap, we went to a Halloween party at the home of the organizer for the Congress Park play group. There were two monkeys, a cheerleader, cow, bananna, football player, train conductor, and a dinosaur in attendance. Linus gobbled up a cookie and some mulled cider. Then we rushed home and met up with Matthew to commence with trick-or-treating. Our neighbor, Anna, gave Linus his very first trick-or-treat experience. It was here that he figured out the point of carrying around the pumpkin bucket. After this, he wanted to reach into candy bowls multiple times at each house. We took Linus to our friends' houses, so he visited ten houses in about an hour and a half. We spent time visiting at most of the stops.

When we got home, Linus grabbed out the homemade popcorn ball he got at Bennett's house. We let him eat that and then had dinner. We stashed the candy on top of the refrigerator. Matthew and I are in disagreement about how much candy Linus should get to have. I say one piece. Matthew whined that "how would he know what kind of candy he likes?" I retorted, "An 18-month old doesn't need to know what candy he likes." I'm not a sugar nazi in this household, but would rather Linus had home baked goods.

The smallest pumpkin is Linus'. I carved it for him. Matthew's is the bee. Linus' favorite stuffed animal is his bee from Grandma and Grandpa, so that is what inspired Matthew this year. New words in Linus' vocabulary as a result of the holiday:
Ha-WEEN for Halloween, pu-kin for pumpkin, and cos-TOOOM for costume. He was a good sport and tolerated wearing his costume, which I'd sewn from fleece. I made it big enough to go over his jacket so he would be warm enough. When we could get him to flap his wings, he waved them in front of his body.