Month 20 brought a
WORD EXPLOSION!!! James is now repeating a lot of words we say (and still laughing when they are ones that he doesn't think he can spit out, which cracks me up)...every day it seems I say something and he just busts it out (i.e. I asked him if he was going to walk up the stairs to go to bed...his response :: "walk"...didn't know he knew that word)! He knows a ton of body parts :: head, mouth, teeth, eyeballs, nose, ears, belly button, forearm, foot and toes. He can't really say "I love you" yet, but he definitely has his own sign-version of it -- sticks both hands out at us (video attached below) -- we just can't get enough of it :-) He is enjoying some independent reading time when he's not trying to beat me up (don't know why I'm the lucky one). He attended Lincoln Park Zoo lights for the first time -- he enjoyed the art project with Aunt MJ and Uncle Ed. He can help count -- almost always gets "one, two" and sometimes throws "three" in there and "five" if I say four...I've also heard "A,B,C". He loves to do art projects at school -- but freaks out if any of the glue gets on his hands, so he has to go wash them in between each part (I think it's just to play in the water more, hehe). James got all dressed up (took about 10 minutes) to go play in the snow (about 10 minutes) until he got upset about there being snow on his new boots -- I showed him how to "stomp" it off and he was relieved, but still ready to go back inside (it was also pretty darn chilly). He has added to some moves to his dance repertoire :: a wiggle and his version of the running man :-) If we put on the "Puddle Jumping Elmo" Sesame Street episode, we have to watch the puddle song at least 15 times before we can turn it off without tears! He's a dancing maniac!
The crew at Zoo lights
James was so bundled up that I couldn't get his stroller straps attached at first!
Dani and Jamie
Uncle Ed pretty much stole James for the night, which is cool because they get along so great :-)
Art project with Aunt MJ and Uncle Ed
Laura and James smiling pretty
James was OK w/ the gorillas until one yawned and showed all his big teeth
Pretty Lights
Family photo ops
Slide show of Month 20
Signing "I love you"
Showing off his new "running man" move and the "spin-bounce" to a song from Glee -- we did "more" of the song for about 10 minutes before bed
