Happy Halloween!

For those of you that have seen "The Grudge," you get the reference (the font is from the zombie movie "28 Days Later"). For anyone who hasn't this is just one damn creepy photo taken of our son earlier this evening.

(For the record, there was no Photoshop trickery done with this photo other than fiddling with the colors. His eyes truly are that huge adding to the frightening quality of the shot.)

Kiss Good Night, Colter

We have a book that Colter enjoys called "Kiss Good Night." It tells the story of a little bear named Sam who goes through his nightly rituals with his Mommy; book, blanket, friends, milk. Sam's nightly rituals are basically the same as Colter's; book, bath, milk, friends.

After Mommy bear has read a book, tucked Sam in, gathered his friends and drank warm milk, she asks "Are you ready now Sam?" He replies, "oh no, I'm waiting." This goes on for a while until Mommy bear realizes Sam is waiting for his kiss good night. I love reading this book to Colter. Not because of the story but because Colter does certain things when I read certain lines in the book. When Sam says "oh no, I'm waiting" Colter will shake his head no and smile. When Mommy bear finally realizes Sam is waiting for his kiss good night she "bends way down, kissing Sam once, then twice, then twice more." This is where Mommy (me Mommy) melts into a million pieces. Colter will bow his head and push it toward my mouth waiting for his kiss good night. I could read this book a hundred times just to freeze this moment.

Now I understand “no touch”

Mommy and Daddy are always saying “don’t touch the stove, hot, no touch.” But dearest Mother and Father there is a light switch on the stove that I must click on and off. I can’t help myself. And at night when I’m getting my jammies on and that darn Pooh light is calling my name at the end of the changing table I can’t help but look under the lamp shade and stare directly into the light. It facinates me. I try to grab the light but all I hear is “don’t touch the light, hot, no touch.” I beat Mommy to the punch last night and touched the light. Yeeeeeoooooow. What the heck just happened. Oh god, it hurts. I’m crying. Hold me. Why do my fingers hurt? Now I understand “no touch!” Evil lights. Oooooh, I love the cold water.

Mommy is happy to report all is well with Colter’s fingers.

And the fork ran away with the spoon

Today was quite a day. Colter stabbed his wild rice meatball (yes, I said wild rice) by himself and put it in his mouth. You would have thought he just scored the winning goal of the Stanley Cup. Mommy and Daddy cheered and clapped and Colter looked at us like, “What? It’s only a meatball and I’ve been feeding myself with this thing for a while now.”

(Almost) 3 Feet High and Rising, or Curious George goes to the vet.

Colter had his 15 month appointment on Wednesday, October 5th. For the first time he freaked out when we walked into the clinic. He saw the receptionist and grabbed onto me and climbed me like a monkey going up a tree. He then proceeded to cry the entire time he was being weighed and measured. It was a very unusual day. Once the nurse left the room it was business as usual. Colter started moving the chairs and tried to open all of the locked drawers. After a few rounds of “this-itis,” someone knocked on the door. It was the Nurse Practitioner (cue the lights and harp music) ready to assess our screaming monkey. I swear, Colter must think this lady is an angel from above because everytime he gets to see her he’s mezmorized by her calming voice. He just stood there and stared at her. After a few moments of poking and prodding and checking for “bunnies” in his ears the development portion of the program was about to begin.

“Colter, can you see the light (he looks up at the lights on the ceiling and points) on my hand?”

“Colter, can you sit (he squats to the ground) on Mommys lap while I check your ears (touches his ears)?”

This is where we had to explain he’s too smart for his own good and knows that “light” is up, “sit” means down and can point to various body parts when asked. She then asked us what else he can do. We told her he knows “up” and “down” (squats and stands when we say “up, down”), runs to the bathroom door and pounds on it when asked, “ready for a bath?”, can undress himself with help, feed himself with a fork, stack blocks (canned goods, actually), can point to animals (“where’s the duck”) or objects (“where’s the little boy”)in a book when asked and put the puzzle pieces in the puzzle. Apparently we have a two year old but no one bothered to tell us.

Stats from the Dr. visit:
33 ¼” tall
25 lbs