whispering and picture day

i've got to tell you, though nearly every single thing boden does is fascinating (i could do without the poopy diapers), some are just more precious to me than others. what makes them rank higher and pull at my heart strings? i have absolutely no idea why. but, i think it was thursday night, he put another thing on my top ten list. we were sitting at the kitchen table eating supper, and he started whispering! i'm not totally sure how it started and wonder if eric and i whisper that much around him (it was a daycare day, so maybe he picked it up there? one of the many things he is bound to pick up from other kids..... at least this one is cute :) ). we'd whisper back to him and he would just start going to town whispering in his own little language of his. i've tried it out in the last few days and it has stuck. i have no idea why, but i feel like hearing him whisper is one of the most precious things he has done so far. maybe because it was so unexpected. i didn't know they started to whisper yet at this age. we did know that he could sure talk loud :).

speaking of daycare... friday was picture day, and because that is a day i don't work, we made a special trip in just to pose :). boden was all happy to be there and even lunged a couple times at one of the daycare girls before deciding he'd rather just get down on the floor. that was a very weird feeling for me as boden hasn't really wanted to go out of my arms to other people much besides eric.

the pictures were being taken in a very small room and so not many people could be in it at once. boden saw all these stuffed animals, a big white umbrella for lighting, kids talking in the room, and flashes of light. it was about more than he could take, he HAD to go in there :). he kept pulling on me, leaning way in to try and drag me (he would have most certainly walked in himself if i would have let him).

since there was a line, we decided to find some of the other kids. boden all sorts of lit up for this one little girl when she walked past and followed her. she touched his face a couple times and he thought that was great (totally off the subject, but we were in the new menards the other night and a little girl, maybe 2 or 3, came up to boden and wanted to talk. she gave him a big hug and a kiss on the cheek. boden was all starstruck and when the mom told the girl they had to go and started walking away, boden just started following her. i let him go for a while, but finally picked him up and went the other way. who knows how far he would have followed her :) ). the daycare girl said that all the kids sorta have a thing for this little girl for some reason. i guess she has some kind of throaty laugh that they all like.... is it starting already!?!?!?

anyway, we went back for the pictures and since boden still wanted in so much, the picture lady said boden could sit in one of the kiddie chairs by the wall and watch. we have not put him in many little chairs, for sure not recently, so this was a new experience for him and he thought it was something special! he sat there hardly moving with this half smile on his face, looking like - is it ok to like sitting in this little chair so much???

so then his turn came to take his picture. i was anticipating him doing great because he was so interested in getting in there before hand. i don't know if it was because i had to take him out of the little chair, or because all of a sudden all this looked a lot more scary up close, but his started crying up a storm (payback from my mother i'm sure :) ). they had this little velvet settee type chair (isn't that what you call that big yellow lounge chair at grammy's?) for him to sit on and he wanted nothing to do with it. he kept clinging to me as i'm trying to make him calm down and sit there and back away. the picture lady was all kinds of entertaining, throwing him this clown nose, but to no avail. finally, she asks if i wouldn't mind stepping out of the room and letting one of the daycare ladies deal with him. i was a little surprised, but said sure. nearly as soon as i left the room he stopped crying and started throwing the clown nose back at her and reportedly giving her a few smiles!!! now, in all my years of teaching i have known and witnessed that children act differently for their parents than they do others, but never did i imagine that my own sweet little boy, not even 16 months yet, would be better for someone else than me!!!!!!!!!!!

eat'n breakfast

ohio grandparents

my dad has a crazy work schedule and has not been able to come up to visit boden as often as he would like. currently, his 'weekend' is on monday and tuesday and since one of my part-time off days is monday, he said, "i've had enough! i'm coming up to see the boy!" as luck would have it, or rather God granted it, my mom just happened to unexpectedly have the days off from school as well.

so, they got up here on monday just before boden's nap. at first boden was pretty shy and just cuddled up to me, taking little peaks at them (pretty much at grandpa). of course, grandpa wouldn't let him get away with that, and soon boden was laughing up a storm at the silly faces and noises he was making. by the end of the time they were here, it was boden that was following grandpa around the house :). we speculated that boden was confused seeing an older uncle robbie with gramma, instead of the younger version of uncle robbie he saw just three weeks earlier.

on tuesday, i had to work and my parents needed to go home because my mom had to work early the next day. i told them that they could drop boden off at daycare if they wanted to spend a little more time with him before they left. my mom was shocked! why should they send him to daycare when they could spend all day with him!?!? they would rather drive through the night. so, boden got to spend all day tuesday with gramma and grandpa getting spoiled rotten :).

below are some fun pics of their visit.

playing on the floor with grandpa.

boden brought books to gramma to read the whole time they were here.

the adoring grandparents...

we've been working on getting boden to blow kisses. this is one of the first times he actually brought his hand up to his mouth. he would put his hand on his mouth and then put his hand on my mouth :).

banging on the window as he watched
gramma and grandpa get into their car.

yellow?

some cute pictures of boden pretending the banana is a phone :) the scab on his forehead is from when he wiped out on the cement the other day while chasing after daddy raking the leaves. his big 'ol head just got ahead of him and he skidded across the driveway. we thought for sure he was gunna cry long and hard, which he did cry for a few seconds, but decided it was much more fun to play in the leaves.

fun in the leaves

we spend quite a bit of time outside with boden, he is always wanting to go outside, often pulling us to the door. we noticed, as well as boden's babysitter last friday, that boden thinks the leaves are great fun. he loves to stomp around in them. one afternoon eric raked up some small piles for him to play in. super fun times!

eggs

for those of you who were wondering..... i tried eggs out for the first time with boden on wednesday morning and at first he didn't even seem to care that i had put some on his tray. i had made them scrambled as i thought that might be the most appetizing, and then cut it into bite size pieces. a while later i looked and they were gone. he seemed to enjoy them and ate about half the egg. i tried them again this morning, same way, and he wouldn't even touch them. just pushed them to the side of his tray. hmmm

gramma and uncle robbie

i think boden is still trying to adjust to life without uncle robbie and gramma. they were here to visit about a week and a half ago, and boden is still requiring more attention than normal :). he got so used to high energy uncle robbie and gramma, that mom and dad are super boring now. it is hard to detail all the fun and exciting times we all had that weekend, and since there was a ton of pictures taken:), eric put a few together for your viewing pleasure. for they say a picture is worth a thousand words, right?

popsicles are yummy

yes! boden likes popsicles, just like his dad!

doctor doctor

so, we had boden's 15 month doctor appointment today. he is keeping pretty steady with his measurements. he weighs 24 pds 14 oz, which puts him around 55-60%. he is 32.5 inches long, putting him around 85-90%. it is crazy to think that he has grown over 10 inches in length since he was born! and 49cm for head circumference, coming in at a whopping 93%. the boy has a big head :) he is actually down from 95% from last time :) the doctor keeps assuring me that his head measurement is consistent with his other measurements....

today was a much different well doctor experience from the others we have had thus far. as the nurse was leading us into one of the rooms she was telling us that at 15 months kids start to get 'scared' of the doctor visits and for sure by 18 months. well, i'm not so sure boden was scared, but he sure didn't like it one bit this time and let us know about it! a couple of times i thought, so this is what michelle has been talking about when she takes her girls to the doctor. i now understand :) from the first measurement of the head, to the prick of his big toe to check for iron levels, to the band aid on his big toe (didn't stay on for long :) ), to the weighing and measuring, to the doctor checking his ears, listening to his heart, the shots, and so on and so on.... boden acted like, what in the world are you doing to me! all this fun we have in store :)

besides all that (and eric didn't think it was that bad, so some of it may be perception), he passed all the marks. only two things that the doctor asked us that he is not really doing is: pointing and running. the running thing seems funny to me. i suppose he does try to walk really fast sometimes and ends up falling, but he is a far way from running at this point. he probably has better success at jumping than running (he isn't very good at jumping either). the doctor said he wasn't concerned about his lack of pointing because he seems to be developing good verbal skills. he would have been happy with mama and dada plus one other word. boden has three in addition plus mommy, and maybe gramma and robbie which we will have to touch upon later :)

"doggie" and the cow goes "moo"???

so boden is starting to add some more words to his list. the latest and greatest has been to say "doggie." gramma and uncle robbie had the distinct privilege to be the first to hear him say doggie while they were here this past weekend. for a little while i have thought i could link some 'd' sounding gibberish when he would see a dog, but not sure if it was intentional. well, saturday morning eric and i went on our conception day run (those of you that don't know are probably fortunate, those of you that do know probably wish you didn't), otherwise known as 'run thru the rapids' in gr, and when we returned gramma and uncle robbie were super proud to report that boden said doggie that morning. of course, mom and dad were skeptical until later that day while he was playing with one of his stuffed dogs and repeatedly and clearly said doggie. when i tell people that one of boden's first words is doggie (or that he really seems to like dogs), their immediate reply is "do you have a dog?," which of course we don't. there has often been times that i have told eric i would like to get one, and he reminds me that i really don't like dogs.... so, who is he taking after? aunt lynae? she likes cats (one of her first words was kitty).... auntie liz? she has three dogs and dreams of having more. we were over there tonight and boden sure does love them. doesn't mind them licking him all over his face, walks after them, and squeals with delight.

around the same time (i think it was after gramma and uncle robbie left), boden was playing with a plastic cow that goes with his farm wagon and started to 'moo'. later i noticed he was 'mooing' when he saw a cow in a book. seems pretty appropriate that 'mooing' would be his first animal sound. we have been out a few times here recently to look at the cows at the farm and boden has seemed really interested in them. papa would have been very proud if i could have gotten boden to 'moo' for him when he stopped by on monday. of course he didn't want to perform on cue and papa commented that boden seemed out of it and was it soon time for his nap. little did papa know that if we were writing a book, he would have been part of the foreshadowing of things to come. after papa left i put boden down for a nap and when he awoke was burning up with fever. guess he wasn't feeling too good at that point already. anyway, boden loves to 'moo' now and he is so thrilled with his new found animal making abilities that he seems to think that all animals 'moo'. when we see a dog he 'moos', when we see a cat he 'moos', when he sees any of his stuffed animals he 'moos', animals in a book - 'moo'....you get the picture :) actually, it is pretty cute. and i am choosing to think that this shows how smart he really is. what? you may say? well, he is able to categorize animals into the same group right? so far i haven't heard him 'moo' at anything other than animals. it is the same thing with 'car'. he calls a van, a suv, a truck, his toy tractor, a car in a commercial on tv, papa's combine, the sky track down the street, vehicles in his books - all are cars. pretty impressive to recognize that they are all the same type of thing, right? am i a proud mama or what?!?! :)