Happy Earth Day!

Many Words

Last week one morning, from the moment he woke up, I wrote down each unique word that Gabe said. He was up to 40 words by the time we dropped him at daycare. Days later, he started pairing words together: "big ball", "more milk". Today he said "two airplane" and "my turn". The latter is particularly exciting, because those are two particularly abstract words, and he put them together himself.

Gabe added another mondo-mashup word to his vocabulary as well: ah-bah-dee-doh. It took us a week to unravel this particular mystery. It's Gabe-speak for "I'm gonna get you." I.e. it's what Chris says while chasing a giggling Gabe around the house with wiggly tickle fingers.

Gabe loves to tell us "get down" when he climbs on to things. He now moves a pillow in order to use it as a stepping-stool onto the couch. In the bathroom, he puts his stepping stool precisely in front of the sink for hand-washing. The stool has to be moved about because it blocks the door. Gabe usually gets angry at it when it blocks his door-closing fun, but today, after pondering the matter, he picked it up and moved it out of the door's way.

Speaking of stool, we had no intention of starting potty training so early, but since Gabe has been pooping by the clock, I tried plunking him on the potty first thing in the morning, and met with unexpected success two days in a row. In the evenings, bath time has three steps: get naked, make pee pee in the potty, and shower. Gabe calls the first step, with much glee, "nay nay!" and he has to be watched around the little toy potty, because he is apt to wear it like a hat.

Chew Your Food Song

I came up with this as we were trying to teach Gabe to always chew his food. It is to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

Chew your, Chew your, Chew your Food
If you don't its very Rude!
Chew until its nice and small,
That way you won't choke at all!

Chew your, Chew your, Chew your Food
If you don't its very Rude!

Pee Pee in the Potty

We've been acclimating Gabe to his potty by letting him sit on it prior to getting into the tub or shower and tonight he finally went pee pee in it. We're not pressuring him or anything, it was more a happy accident, but we're hoping that gentle positive reinforcement will click in over time.

Fearless Explorer

Wall vs Gabe - Wall Wins

Gabe was spinning around and around. Then, dizzy, he fell into the corner of the wall and clonked his head good.

He's still feeling well enough to ham it up for the camera though, so I'm not too worried. Still, he's going to have an impressive bruise to show off at day-care tomorrow.

Recent Videos of Gabe's Activities

Gabe's been learning new stuff all the time.

Important stuff like how to climb ladders

How to play the cymbals

How to ask for more water when he's thirsty

How to order up diaper time comic relief

How to answer the phone and hang up