make fries

It's been so long since my last post that it's hard to figure out where to begin. Cole is an explosion of growth and activity. His jeans that required 3 cuffs in December, no longer need cuffs at all. His vocabulary includes whole sentences and his imagination and expressions are growing just as quickly. Last week while eating a snack of raisin toast with cream cheese, he grabbed a toy dinosaur and pretended it was eating his toast too. He smiled and said, "Dinosaur likes raisin toast too!". That was his longest sentence to date.

My mom and grandmother visited last week and they were amazed by how much more Cole is talking. They had seen him a little over a month ago. I had to do some translating for them, but after a day they were fairly fluent in Colese too. Today Cole started saying "Come on Mommy" a lot in a whiny, pushy voice. He learned that one after a long day with Tony yesterday. Tony has a habit of saying "Come on Cole" when he's completely exasperated. He didn't realize how much he says it until our little parrot started to repeat it.

Cole's favorite game right now is "Make Fries" which translates to Playdoh time. The source of that nickname is Cole's favorite Playdoh tool. I spend a good part of my day proposing alternatives to Make Fries because I'm tired of the game after about 4 months straight of Playdoh. The trouble is Cole doesn't really make anything, instead he wants me or Tony to make things for him and it lasts for at least an hour at a time, oh and he wants to play 2 or 3 times a day. Today I succeeded in distracting him with a couple rounds of Memory, one successful game of Candyland, and few new books. We still had Playdoh time but it wasn't until 6:30 p.m.

We started potty training and after some initial success, we had to back off. Cole started trying to not poop at all in order to avoid the potty, so we've put the process on hold for a little while. I'm trying to get started again, but it takes a lot of discipline on my part too. Also with the frequent hour long car trips, I know traveling is going to become more complicated and I'm not looking forward to that part of things. We'll just take it day by day.

Cole's eating a little better, but lately he's been on a hopeless sweets kick. He knows how to open the pantry door and it's tempting to throw out all the sweets just to avoid the tantrums and temptation. Some of Cole's favorite words are "em-ems" for M&Ms and he can also say "chocolate." We still supplement with some jarred baby food just to sneak meat and veggies into his diet. The only meat he will eat is chicken nuggets and even that is rare. His best meal is still breakfast as long as it's cereal, waffles or pancakes. He won't go near eggs, no matter how I cook them.

He still loves music and dancing and will bob his head to any kind of beat. Tonight we had on American Idol and he clapped and said "good job" at the end of a performance. He could easily replace Paula at the judges table. Cole makes up one word songs all the time by chanting whatever pops into his head. During a recent car trip he serenaded me with "truck, truck, truck, truck, tree, tree, tree, ooooo, bus, bus, bus, bus, look plane, plane, plane..."

Cole has been with me for my recent doctor appointments, and he has been really well behaved at the office. I was worried when I had to put him in my lap during a blood draw. He was scared at first but he just cuddled up to me and watched. When it was over he asked "Mommy, boo boo?". I told him yes, but it was just a small one and I was fine. He gave the band-aid a kiss. When Tony came home he told him, "Mommy, boo, boo. It's fine." with a too-serious for a two-year-old expression. He held my hand during my long ultrasound because he needed comforting, but it was nice for me too. I'm excited about sharing this experience with Cole and seeing it through his eyes.