January Memories

I want to try and record our fun times with Caedon in order to share the stories with him as an older child/adult.  So sorry to all of you readers, who may find this blog a jumbled mess of events!

A couple of weeks ago, right after Caedon turned two, we decided to play Hide-and-Seek with him.  First Chase hid behind the arm of the loveseat, with all of the toys.  Caedon did a good job of being patient and looking around for him.  Next, I hid Caedon in his own closet with the door open while Chase pretended to look for him.  Caedon stayed in there for about 20 seconds, and then tried to come out.  I scooped him up and returned him to the closet.  Then Chase asked loudly, "Is Caedon hiding in bathroom?" and flipped on the bathroom light.  From Caedon's room, you could hear a little voice reply, "No."  I was standing by Caedon at the time, and he was also shaking his head no.  Then Chase went to our bedroom and I had to quickly return Caedon again to his closet.  Chase asked, "Is Caedon hiding in the bedroom?" And Caedon, thinking that Chase was talking about Caedon's room and not our room, replied loudly, "YES!"  Chase and I were trying really hard not to laugh at our cutie pie.  Next, I hid in the shower and Caedon had a little trouble finding me. That was the end of our Hide-and-Seek for the night.

Caedon is getting really good trying to sing songs.  He currently loves "5 Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed."  He will jump, gently bump his head on something (like the couch or wall), and sternly point his finger and say, "NO more monkeys jumping on the bed!"  Adorable.  He also likes Row Row Row Your Boat, Itsy Bitsy Spider, ABCs, I'm Bringing Home My Baby Bumble Bee, Old McDonald, If You're Happy and You Know It, and others I know I'm forgetting.

Almost daily, we dance together.  Sometimes we play our Dance Central on the XBox, but a lot of the time we just dance to music on Spotify.  Caedon has begun to memorize some of those songs, too.  This made me realize I better watch what we are listening to a little more closely!  Mostly, Caedon runs around in a circle, waving his arms for his dance moves.  Every now and then he will stop running and stomp from side to side and nod his head to the beat.

This smart boy is an expert on all the letters, and can tell you almost two things that every letter stands for.  For example, H is for Hat and Hippo, N is for No and Newt, C is for Cat and Caedon, M is for Monkey and Mommy, etc.  He sang his alphabet before he was two, but I think he is starting to come into vocal tune with the song now too haha. It still needs a lot of work!  He counts to eleven, then usually skips to fourteen, hits most of the upper-teens in order, and then will either say "Twenty!" or my favorite, "Twentyteen!"  We probably read about 10 books a day to Caedon between Heidi, Chase, and myself.  He now enjoys reading them to himself as well.  I like it when he requests certain books "Green Ham, Mommy, Green Ham?" or reads/acts out part of a story before I get to that part.

Right now we are working on stringing large beads - I think that is supposed to help with hand-eye coordination?  We are also working on matching games.  For a few months, Caedon has been finding matches with the pieces all turned up.  This last month, we started turning over 6 pieces and learning to take turns to find the matches.  He really enjoys it, but it is still a lot of reminding him that it is not his turn to flip over the pieces.

This month has been amazing weather for January - lots of upper 50 to 60 degree weather.  So we actually got to play outside for much of the past week.  Caedon practiced riding his Strider bike.  I really enjoyed that he got to play with a lot of friends outside again.  Most importantly, he wore himself out and went to bed REALLY well last week.

Sunday morning, we were snuggling in bed before I had to go to work.  Caedon looked at me, smiled and put his arms around my neck, and said, "Mommy pretty!"  AWWWW!!!  He is sooo sweet!  That was actually the second time he said that, but this time it felt like he really meant it!

Tonight Caedon helped me cook some oatmeal/chocolate/peanut butter bars I found on pinterest.  I would give him each ingredient pre-measured and he would dump it in the mixing bowl.  He was supposed to be dumping a sack of chocolate chips in the pot on the stove, but somehow quite a few ended up in his mouth!  They are supposed to be refrigerated overnight, so I am really excited to eat them tomorrow!  Thanks to my neighbor Jenny for supplying me with the peanut butter - I thought I had all the ingredients, but somehow that one disappeared over the past month!  I think I will blame it on the Banana/Peanut Butter/Honey sandwiches that Chase has mentioned they had for dinner when I was at work.

Baby is doing well.  I am 19 weeks and feeling kicks all the time.  We are going in for the big ultrasound in the next couple of weeks, but NO WE ARE NOT FINDING OUT.  hahaha.  The unfortunate thing is that I am 19 weeks and still not feeling the best.  I get sick about 3 times a week still and feel nauseated about 1/4 of each day.  I never know which 1/4 of the day that will be, it always changes, and sometimes comes and goes for about 20 minutes at a time.  Hopefully that will be gone any day now.

These next two weeks will be tough, but when they are over I will feel like we are on the home stretch to graduation!  Chase is on his last two weeks of internal medicine, the busiest rotation of residency.  I basically plan on not seeing him.  For example, he left around 6 this morning, worked, then went to the walk-in-clinic from 5 to 8, came home to eat supper from 8:30 to 9:15, and went back into clinic to work on notes.  I have no idea when he will be back. This will probably be a good idea of what every day will look like for the next 14 straight days with no break.  That brings me to another January memory - Caedon has started noticing when we yawn and will say, "Mommy yawn" or more frequently "Mommy tired!"  Yes boy, yes I am!

After February, we need to start thinking about Chase's trip to Honduras for 10 days in March to deliver babies!  Exciting!