20 months: Devon (May)

Most of the new things Devon does now has to do with the ever expanding cuteness of his vocabulary. He loves to go out into the garden to pick tomatoes and help his Daddy water the plants. He says hose for about an hour after they come back into the house since he is still so excited from being such a good helper. He now says "water" (replace the "T" with a "D") and not "wa-wa" which is sort of sad that he has out grown that, but it's cute to hear him say real words. He loves to collect rocks and plays with them for hours putting them into a plastic cup and dumping them out over and over again. Every time we go outside he has to pick up rocks. He is learning his shapes and can identify a circle, heart, star, moon, oval and octagon. If you show him a shape he doesn't know he will default to circle. He has started saying 2 word sentences regularly like,"So good", "Go jeeze", and "Come here" among others.

He loves to eat tomatoes, yogurt, gummy fruit snacks, grilled chicken, hamburgers, grapes, melon, mashed potatoes, tortillas (tias), hard boiled egg whites, pears and red apples. He a rediscovered his love of milk and now prefers it cold which has been so nice to not have to warm it up first.

He found this bottle of protein powder and opened it himself. I have no idea how he does this. It's not the first time he has opened a child proof cap. Remember the Nyquil he dumped out? Oh and when he sees something out of place (like 4 drops of milk on the floor) he will grab a towel and say,"Mess" until it gets cleaned up. He said mess about 50 times by the time I got the powder swept up.

Joe got Devon to paint on a canvas when I was teaching this past Sunday. I thought it would be covered with hand prints, but he hates to get dirty and only wanted to use brushes. Any amount of paint that got on him had to be washed off.

He sometimes asks to be picked up at inconvenient times. I'll say,"Just a second, buddy." and his tactic will change to,"Hug! Hug!" So I, being the sucker that I am, bend down to hug him. He then proceeds to cling to me with vice-like grip with his arms and legs and I have no choice, but to pick him up since he is now attached to my body. I figure, since he was smart enough to trick me the least I can do is reward his ingenuity. He is learning to be a good helper and is excited to throw his diapers away in the garbage. He is getting better at putting away his toys before getting out other toys which is a great thing for him to learn this young.

His new trick is to get down on his belly and do push ups. No joke. It's hilarious. He even makes a grunting sound with every push. He will do this when he feels like he needs an energy boost ;) but he also does it when he sees "lilards" (lizards) in the back yard. Once he's done with push ups he will stay on the floor, stick his arms out and fly. He is so shy when other people are around so I'm sure some of this stuff doesn't resonate with the shy boy they usually see, but I assure you he is quite out going when he's at home.

I don't know if this means that he is ready to potty train or not, but several times a day he will grab his crotch and say, "Pee pee" or touch his bum and say,"Poop", go to the bathroom door and knock on it so I will take him in there. I sit him on the toilet and of course, nothing happens, but I may get him a little toilet and see what he does with it. I think he does it so he can have an actual reason to flush the toilet and wash his hands. He LOVES to wash his hands. I wasn't going to start the potty training process until after he turned 2, but I think it's OK to introduce it to him in teeny, tiny doses since he is showing an interest on his own.

He prefers books over toys any day of the week and will literally have me read to him for hours a day. I'm not exaggerating here. Hours. It gets a little tedious reading "Baby's pumpkin" 20 times in a row, but he loves it and I can always go to the library or Bookman's for some "new" used books. He loves to go to the park to dig (and eat) the dirt, watch the birds and say hi to the dogs. We had some landscaping done and Devon is now fascinated my tractors (tashures). He points them out and says,"Wow! Tashure! Yellow!" (Video on Facebook when it lets me load it).

I don't know that I would say that we are "actively" working on getting rid of the pacifier even though he is past the time of when our pediatrician says we should take it away. Devon calls it a "papash". He only uses it for sleeping and will usually hand it over when I ask for it. He sometimes even gives it to me when I don't ask. I'm sure he will give it up in the next few months ... just in time for the new baby and all her new pacifiers to tempt him back to the dark side ;)

Devon gives out the "Triple threat" of love and affection. It starts with a kiss, then a hug followed up with a "Yove you" (Love you). He will do this all on his own without any coaxing so he really does make you feel loved. He is such a tender little boy. He is starting to pat the baby in my belly and says her name when he does it. I know that he doesn't really know what a baby in my belly actually IS. He's only 1 after all. But I do know that he knows more than I think he does and I hope that doing this small exercise will, at the very least, get him use to hearing her name as well as when I describe him being a brother, getting a little sister, etc. I think he will make a very sweet big brother.