A Creature of Habit

Colin seems to thrive on the routine and predictable. Every morning, one of the first 3 words he says is banana ("nanny"). That's what he eats every morning if we have bananas. If we don't, he eats a cinnamon Eggo waffle. Every morning on our way to daycare, we pass a farm with cows. We say "moo" to them, and then Colin says, "more." I tell him to keep watching for more cows, even though we both know we won't see any more.

Every afternoon on our drive home, we pass a parking lot that used to house a big, bright blue truck. We're not sure what happened to it, but every day we talk about it. At some point, Colin asks, "Daddy?" and I say that Daddy's at work. Then Colin says, "bye bye." When we pass by the construction site by our house, we check to see if the dig-digs are working. They usually aren't, so Colin says "done."

At 5:00, crankiness sets in and dinner is made. He's feeling good again at 5:30 when food is on the table. At 7:00 he's ready to take a bath and he likes to make the children in Africa who have no clean water cringe because he likes to keep the water running.

At 7:15 or so, he's out of the tub, into his pjs and ready to climb into his crib. He puts his puppy on his right, and seahorse is to his left. He turns seahorse's music on, gets covered up with a blanket and says, "bye bye" to us. Then, as we're walking out, he'll say, "Mama!" to try to get me to play games with him. I've learned it's best if I walk away. He stops after saying it about 3 times, and then crashes. But if I respond, he gets cranky and doesn't fall asleep quickly.

He usually wakes up at 4-something. Kevin works his magic and Colin goes back to sleep. 60% of the time, he wakes up at 5-something and comes to sleep in our bed with us, although he is getting better at sleeping later in his own crib these days.

Predictability makes life a little easier because you know what to expect. As a teacher, I know that routines are very important to some kids. Others could care less about them.

Colin's newest words are:
Daddy (instead of Dada)
down
no ("mo")
done
snow ("mo")
puppy ("buddy")
banana ("nanny"<--that's his new word for banana. His old word was "nana.")
Sandy ("DeeDee")
play ("pay")
choo choo ("doo-doo" with the arm going up and down too, sometimes)
bubble ("bubbo")
puzzle ("bubbo")
piece ("petes")
ice
plate ("bate")
seat
please ("peese")
apple ("appo")
waffle ("wabbo")
more ("mo")
on
spoon ("boon")
cut ("dut")
boots
hat
mittens ("minis")
socks ("ots")
bounce
boing
ear
feet ("beet")
Grandma ("Amma")
books ("buts" <--with an accent of some sort over the u so it sounds like the /oo/ in books.)
home

In addition, he tends to repeat the last word of whatever we say. So if I say, "Let's go potty," He'll say "potty."

Every day, it seems like he says one more new word. It's amazing this explosion of words that we're seeing right before our eyes. I love it.