I Love You

Matthew has become very good at signing. Even though he is increasing his verbal vocabulary all the time, we continue to teach him signs for various words and phrases. Mostly because it is just so darn cute to watch him sign with his little hands  So our most recent sign we have been working on is the sign for "I love you". There are two ways to sign this. You can sign each word individually or you can put it all together in one sign by folding down your ring and middle finger with your palm facing out, which is what we do.  This requires a bit of dexterity and is hard for a little person who is still developing those fine motor skills and so the best Matthew can do is fold down his index finger. Being a new sign, we usually sign it first and then he copies us. It has become part of our bedtime routine with him and not so much part of our other daily activities.

So the other day, I left Rachel on a blanket on the floor to kick and wiggle while Matthew played around her.  I went into the kitchen for just a moment and when I came back, Matthew was quietly sitting on the blanket beside her, folding down his index finger in his version of the I love you sign.  It was really the sweetest thing to see.

Of course, I couldn't get him to repeat it for me so I could take a picture, so these ones will have to do so you can see that he loves his little sister.

"Hi Rachel!"

*kiss*

100 and counting

We were having a stroll last night with our yuppie-mobile (the chariot) and were enjoying Matthew and his stream on conversation about cars, the various colours of cars, the ownership of said cars etc. That got us to thinking: just how many words does he know anyway? I said that it must be a hundred and Kristine said it was closer to 50. So we started to count. It was pretty fast at first, but then it slowed down around 40, but we steadily climbed past the 50 mark, past 70 and on to 80. We were both pretty amazed at 80, but the words kept coming. We aren't sure if he knew what we were doing, but Matthew started to chime in with obscure words that he doesn't use often, but certainly knows. By the time we got home we were at a solid 96. We executed the bedtime protocol and as I was brushing his teeth I got the last four to push us to 100. Wow. And sure enough, the next day we added more. I think we are at 107 now and still counting. Pretty incredible. Apparently 20 words by 18 months is pretty normal and 50 by 2 years, so clearly language is not going to be an issue for Matthew, or to be clear the lack of language won't be the issue. He is starting to put things together too. He has quite a few 3 word phrases and is getting up into 4 words as well. Of course all this is great except as I write this the little turkey is chatting away in his crib, as he has been doing for the last hour of his "nap".

That's a Great Hat!

Isn't it though? We've had friends, family and even strangers (many strangers) tell us how great it is. Some of those strangers even called from across the street to say so. And why not? He is pretty cute in that hat.

Evelia really likes it too.

We've been everywhere man

Matthew and I have been on some pretty grand adventures during my paternity leave in August. Bike has been our preferred mode of transportation (as Matthew puts it "bie! daddy bie! big bie! bie! bie! reh Bie! bie! BIE! bie!"). We have been through Fort Whyte Alive, out to St. Vital Park, down the Sturgeon creek trail, and checked out the mint. In total we traveled over 200km in August, not bad. Here is a map and some of the pictures of our adventures.

Reading whilst traveling. Standard protocol.

"Gookie!" (which, don't tell him, is actually a rice cracker)

Boardwalk in Assiniboine Forest.

Proof that I was along for the ride too.

BDI Bridge

Out by the Mint.

Over the esplanade Riel

At Fort Gibraltar