Winter update

Here are the happenings around here.

Caiden's vocabulary has gotten significantly better over the past month. Well, it's been steadily improving over the last few months, but it recently struck us how much better he is. He's gone from 2-3 word sentences to more complete ones. But despite his increased ability to express his needs/wants, he seems to forget all verbal skills when he hits meltdown mode.

Speaking of meltdowns, this made Dan and I laugh pretty hard: http://jasongood.net/365/2012/12/46-reasons-why-my-three-year-old-might-be-freaking-out/

Caiden is super curious and is always asking questions. Who's that? What's that? What's in it? Where is xyz?  What's that for? He hasn't gotten too big into asking "why" just yet, but I'm sure we'll get there soon.

A slightly questionable thing Caiden is into are bad guys. He always seems to enjoy the villain characters in the movies he sees/books he reads. His favorite Toy Story scenes? The ones with evil emperor Zurg in them. His favorite monster from Monsters Inc? Sneaky Randall. The most discussed character from Finding Nemo? Bruce the Shark. His favorite song? One where an alligator eats a monkey.

In January we went to a party at Caiden's old daycare. I don't think he remembered a thing from his time there, but he had fun exploring the whole building. He had no interest whatsoever in the organized activities though. It was nice at least for me to see his old teachers and friends.

Caiden and I had a serious cold this month. This is how you know Caiden isn't feeling well:

Finally, we had a sleepover visit from Ian and family last weekend. It was great fun! Caiden and Ian played SO well together. I was very impressed. It was funny to hear them talking together in the other room. Lots of "Right Caiden?" from Ian and "YEAH!" from Caiden. It was the easiest parenting experience I've had at home in a long time. Caiden was completely entertained. The adults could spend some quality time catching up.

Dave Mak came too and brought some great books for the kiddos. They are counting books with lots of animals. Big hit with both of them. They wanted to read them over and over. Caiden can recite numbers up to twenty, but he's not so good with actually counting things. He would count 9 boats and Ian would gently correct him: "it's 5".

Caiden also loved spending time with Jane the puppy!

Next up... blizzard Nemo!