These past few months have been crazy. Linda & I have put a bid on a house last August - it's a short-sale - and are still waiting on word if it's gonna go through or not. In doing so, we were attempting to rent our condo out, but have kinda put that on the back burner until we know something about this other house. We took our much anticipated cruise last month too.
Evan is definitely on the go constantly. While we were gone on our cruise, we had to leave Evan with my cousin, his sitter, then Linda's mom for a few days since we were gone a total of 8 days. (Getting someone to commit to watching an active 17 month old for that long is near impossible!) And lemme tell you, he wasn't happy with us for a whole week after we got back. He did great staying with everyone, but was not happy with us and was a total hellion. His epic temper tantrums have reached their zenith, and I hope the start declining.
For a week straight after our cruise, he was prone to outburst. He has a habit of head-butting different objects, depending on why he's angry - the door if one of us leaves; the floor if we tell him no; the coffee table if we scold him; etc. Linda had had Evan into see his pediatrician awhile back and explained this to him. His pediatrician said it's completely normal and that he himself had 4 sons, and one of them was a head-butter. Evan was upset at this doctor's visit, and demonstrated his head-butting abilities for him. It's a phase that will pass, hopefully sooner rather than later. He also has gotten into the habit of hitting and throwing his toys when he's upset. We're working on getting him to stop that altogether, and we've implemented a time-out program for him.
In our living room, we have a ten-paned glass door that leads out to our porch. The hell-week after we got back from our cruise, Evan was in a mood one day. I went to close the door, and for some reason that pissed him off. He promptly ran over to it and put his head through one of the bottom panes of glass. It happened so quickly, before I really knew what happened, I heard glass breaking. I ran over there, snatched him up, looked him over and thankfully no cuts on him. He did get a couple shards of glass in his hair that did cause a few tiny cuts, and I rushed him to the kitchen sink, bent him over backwards, turned on the sprayer, and rinsed out his hair. Needless to say, he didn't like that... And I didn't even wait for the water to warm up. So, I'm sure that was shock to get sprayed off with cool water. Since then, his head-butting tantrums have subsided. Later that week, he started playing and being silly again...and it was so nice to have our son 'back'.
Evan had his 18 month checkup a few weeks ago, and he's still growing and on track with everything. He amazes me everyday with the things he is learning. He points to something and I'll tell him what it is, and he'll try to say it. I really noticed that awhile ago. I was loading groceries into the car and a yellow car had pulled in. One of Evan's most favorite things in the world are cars. He pointed at this yellow car and exclaimed "caaa! caaa!". I told him that was correct and it was a yellow car. He studied it for a second and said "yah-yoo". Just yesterday we were at the grocery store and he pointed to the cantaloupes. He loves cantaloupe, but always calls them "baas" (for balls). I told him that was a cantaloupe, and he tried to say it, "caah-ooop". One of the funniest things he says - when he sees Frank (our cat), he'll say "catttt" (he enunciates the T very matter-of-factly). When I ask him what the cat says, he says "cowww", which is his way of saying "meow". He did bust out a full sentence last week. He likes to hide his toys in the end table and coffee table drawers... He would close the door and say what sounded like "Where did it go?", and came out kinda like "weer-iid-tt-ooo". We also play the body parts game, and we'll ask him where his nose, eyes, ears, mouth, head, hair, knees, toes, foot, tummy, butt, hands and fingers are, and he'll correctly point to each - then sometimes do the same on us!
Evan loves gadgets, just like his mom & dad. We had downloaded a few learning apps to the iPad, one of which was pretty cool. It's an interactive alphabet and Evan quickly got the hang of it, knowing what to press and how to go to the next screen. Also, to quell his temper tantrums, we downloaded a few movies onto the iPad for him... We created a monster with the iPad though. We have to hide it now. It was getting to the point that the first thing he'd do in the morning was go look for the iPad and demanded to play with it or watch a movie on it. It's now out of sight, out of mind.
As I mentioned earlier, he loves cars...and his favorite movie happens to be "Cars". Surprise, huh? If he's throwing a fit and we can't get him to chill out, we'll start that up. I'm afraid to admit I know practically every word to that movie now. He also loves "Toy Story" and "Toy Story 2".
I've been trying to get Evan out and about more often, besides runs to the grocery store or the pet store, and to the park more often, and more socially stimulated. At first when I started taking him to the park, he was shy and didn't really know how to interact with other toddlers. But now, it still takes him some time to get warmed up, but soon though, he's up there in the action and making new friends.
Crazy how fast time does fly though. It's hard to believe in less than 6 short months, he'll be two years old.
