It has been a long time

I am so behind on this. As A gets older and is constantly doing new awesome and amazing stuff, I fall more behind on the blog. Anderson is 2 years and 4 months and seems to be passing through the toddler phase so fast and becoming a kid. We haven't had too many terrible two fiasco's yet, and the ones we have are usually at home, so I am grateful for that. Anderson is talking up a storm now. I was a little worried at first when other kids his age were already talking pretty well, and A wasn't. But now there is no stopping him. It is so fun to hear him answer you and repeat some 3-5 word sentences. Now I really have to start watching my language. Luckily even though I have let a few curse words slip, he has not repeated them yet. It is so neat to see Craig and my traits in Anderson. But it also turns my hair grey when A acts exactly like his mother, stubborn and strong willed. He has also began helping with absolutely everything. And if we forget to ask him to help with something and he sees we are doing something, like filling up his water glass, opening the front door, or sweeping, he almost has a meltdown since he wants to help so much. I hope he keeps this up and starts doing the dishes soon, we need some help there! Like always we are having so much fun with him. With Anderson being able to converse more with us it is so much easier to figure out what he wants. We are heading back to Texas this summer for our summer vacation and time to visit family. I am going to totally take advantage of my parents being grandparents and have them hang out with A as much as possible! I love being with my son of course, but I will take some free babysitting any time so that I can hang out with my husband for some adult time.

Almost 2 years!

It has been a really long time since I last wrote on here, but really there is not much to update, we are pretty boring. But I will give an update a shot.

I cannot believe in a little over a month I will have a 2 year old, what?!?! How did this happen, where did the time go. It seems like yesterday I could hold him with just one arm and when I put him down, he actually stayed in the same spot. Now I get tired holding him after a few minutes and he hits the ground running/climbing/jumping when I put him down. Looking back on older pictures it is just amazing how much they change in such a short amount of time.




We are just enjoying everyday as it comes, and we seem to just roll with the punches on what Anderson does. Haven't really found any discipline tactic that seems to work on him, so this may end up bad! But for the most part he hasn't gotten into too much trouble yet. He is just one crazy little boy that loves to play inside, outside, with the dogs, with his cars and trains, and with his food.



Like I said, we are pretty boring. Next post will be after the holidays. Anderson and I are travelling back to the States, to Texas and Kansas, for our first Christmas back since being in Grenada. Hopefully we will get some snow in Kansas and get a picture with Santa. Here are a few more pictures until next time.

Play Time

My day consists of waking up as soon as the sun comes up, around 6, since Anderson cannot seem to sleep in when the sun is up. Then we sit in the living room and watch some of a Disney movie before breakfast. After breakfast I usually get led by my little man into his room to play with his cars. We play a lot of cars lately. Anderson's favorite thing to do now is run his cars down his Fisher-Price car ramp over, and over, and over, and over. In between the cars going down the ramp we read books, look for lizards outside with the dogs, slide down the slide Craig made, and then back to cars.



I am loving this age so far. We play a lot and there have not yet been too many meltdowns. He is always grumpy though after his nap, and I am the same way. I know I need my sleep and not happy if I don't get enough (which I still don't get enough of). Luckily, Anderson sleeps great over night, but that waking up for 6 for me is not what I prefer.

Anderson still has not really said a word I understand. But he sometimes sounds like he is making a sentence. He will say a string of words, and I can tell he isn't just repeating the same word, but I cannot tell what he is saying. Sometimes I think I hear a word come out, but never really sure. I think he has said bear and one time it sounded like baseball, but doubtful that he actually said that big of a word. Hopefully he is just a late bloomer on talking and that there is nothing wrong with his speech.





On a sad note, we had to put one of our dogs down due to lymphoma. We found out the diagnosis a few days ago and decided we didn't want her to suffer at all and went ahead and put her down. I had to do all this by myself since currently Craig and Anderson are in Texas for the 4th. Even though Craig got Bonnie before I met him, I have been with her for almost 8 years, so it was tough. I am not sure if Anderson will notice that she is gone when they get back since Bonnie did not let Anderson interact with her that much.

Amazed

I am sure every parent goes through this same amazement of what your child does, but since this is so new to me, I thought I would write about it. I am simply amazed every day how much Anderson is learning. Even though he has not yet said a real word, he somehow can understand almost everything we are saying. Here are a few things he has done that simply amaze me.




1. We have a water cooler for drinking water since sometimes the water here is iffy. Now when his water cup is empty he will take his cup to the water cooler and place it on the little ledge for us to fill up his cup.

2. We give him a bath almost every night since he loves to play outside and gets really dirty and sweaty, plus it is a great start to his bedtime routine. After his bath at night I hang up his washcloths over the shower rod to dry out for the next bath. During his bath, once he feels he is done playing and ready to be done, he points up to the wash cloths so I know to finish with his bath time and clean him off.

3. Whenever he is ready to eat his breakfast, lunch, or dinner, he walks over to his high chair and wants in it. Or if he forgets it is time to eat, but I mention those words, he will go over to the chair too.




He has pretty much mastered the pointing at what he wants or at least in that general direction for us to figure it out. He is trying so hard to talk, he babbles a lot and will grunt, but no words have really formed yet, but I think he is close. I have a feeling his first word is going to be "woof" because every time the dogs start barking at something outside, Anderson has to go out, and start barking with them. He doesn't actually bark, but he goes "uhh, uhh". It is quite funny.



Like I said, I am sure every other parent has already been through this, but I am just so happy to see him learning and understanding the world around him. We are having such a great time with him, but it is really exhausting, but I wouldn't have it any other way!

No longer a baby, now a toddler

I am sorry it has been so long since I last posted. There is so much that has happened in the past few months. We now have a 1 year old! It is so hard to believe it has already been a year since he entered our lives and changed us forever. We went swimming for his birthday party with some friends. Anderson always has a great time in the pool. Even though he has no idea it was his birthday, it seems like he had a great day. I made some cupcakes, but he was not that interested in eating it. (It will be really weird if he does not like sweets since both Craig and I love sweets. Also, I have tried giving him juice, which he does not prefer either.) We gave him a few bites of the cupcake and then he threw it on the floor for the dogs to gobble up. Feeding the dogs from his high chair is one of his favorite things to do.

Christmas here was pretty uneventful. We went to a local resort for a lunch buffet which was not that great. At least we went with some good friends and still had a good time.

We moved in the middle of December which was pretty much a nightmare. We found out we have A LOT of stuff. We moved to a smaller house since it is WAY cheaper in rent, but now we don't have room for all of our stuff. We are still slowly trying to find a place for everything. Luckily we have friends here with extra space where we can store some of our things. It was also really hard moving with a toddler. We could never really work as a team, it always had to be one of us working, packing, or cleaning, while the other made sure Anderson wasn't in the way. But now that we are all moved in, this place is turning out to be great. It is on the ground unlike the previous place, which now there is no fear of Anderson falling off steps. We have a view of the ocean and a great breeze, you can't ask for much more.

Okay, so now after writing some of our happenings, I am realizing even though I haven't posted in a while, I really do not have much to say. We have just been keeping busy chasing Anderson around and enjoying the holiday break.

I hope everyone has a great new year!

Running around like a mad man

So Anderson is full on walking now, sometimes speeding up to a slow run. It is amazing how much ground he can cover in a short amount of time. Who knew those little legs could move so fast.

His favorite way to pass the time away is to walk around the entire yard, walk in the dirt under the house, and walk up and down our driveway. We learned that you never try to pick him up when he is playing downstairs because he will throw a fit. For some reason he always needs to be carrying something in one of his hands while walking. He will pick anything up to use, a piece of grass or a pointy stick (his favorite thing to find). The only bad thing about playing in the dirt is that there are a lot of rocks for him to chew on. He thinks it is pretty funny to put a rock in his mouth and chomp down while running away from us as we try to get it out of his mouth. He is really sneaky too about eating rocks, sometimes you don't realize it until it has been in there a while, which is kind of scary.

He knows how to climb upstairs and knows how to get off of our bed (which is on the ground) and out the door safely, but he has not mastered going down more than one step.

His personality is really coming through now. He is such an active little boy and doesn't like things like dogs or us standing in his way. He barely takes the time to eat or sleep during the day since all he wants to do is play. He laughs a lot, which I love, and will look at me when he knows he is about to do something wrong and then smile. The best sound in the world is him laughing when Craig tickles his side with his beard. Anderson also likes to get his way. He has already started a short tantrum and new noise expression when I take something away from him that he cannot have or pull him away from the dog water bowls he loves splashing in. I have a feeling the terrible 2's are going to be really bad!

Even though he is quite a hand full, we are loving every minute of it. It is so much fun to interact with him, make him laugh, and cuddle with him in the morning. We are so blessed to have such a great little guy! Hopefully I can still say that when he becomes a teenager.

Chasing the little one

Welcome to the next step in parenting, chasing after a crawling baby. Sometimes he is ninja like, one minute he is right next to me, the next he has made it completely across the room to the dog bowls. He enjoys trying to get the dogs, which they do not enjoy as much. But, Sorrel, the youngest dog, also Grenadian, has started to play with him some. It may actually be she is just trying to get away from him, but Anderson loves it either way. Within a week of him learning how to crawl, he also started pulling himself up on whatever he can. So not only do we have to watch where he goes, now we have to watch and make sure he doesn't do a face plant into the tile from higher up. Luckily he has sort of mastered simply falling on his butt from standing, but we still have the occasional fall followed by a loud thunk and then crying. Hopefully he doesn't get too battered and bruised.

We have not totally baby proofed the house, but we are working on it. Craig installed all the cabinet door locks in the kitchen, placed plug covers, and tried to hide our computer wires. And somehow he still finds ways to get into trouble. I am a little worried that he is going to be just like me. Anytime we take him away from a trouble spot, which he thoroughly enjoys, he makes a fuss or growls. Craig believes that those reactions are exactly like me. My parents always said I was a stubborn little shit, and now karma is a bitch.

In some ways I wish he would just stay in one spot when we put him down, but I do love seeing him smile while crawling up to his toys, after the dogs, or up to one of us.