I have been such a slacker in the blogging world and I super sorry for that! Summer just took off like crazy and then starting to chase after a toddler came right after and things haven't slowed down since! But I have been really wanting to blog, so I can of course catch all our family and friends up on our happenings and Ezekiel's growing up, but I to also have documentation of all that he is doing these days!
After Ezekiel took off running (literally) shortly after his 1st birthday so did his vocabulary both verbally and in signs! For those that don't know sign language is something that is commonly taught to babies and toddlers these days as it has been discovered that they can and want to communicate with us, but their verbal language just hasn't caught up. So they can catch on to sign language a lot easier and then are able to communicate!
We started by teaching Ezekiel just a couple signs, more and eat. I tried for a long time to get him to sign drink but he wasn't getting it. Then as his love for books took over he became so intersted in these sign language books that Mike's cousin gave to us; he literally studied those books! And one day as we were reading them he started to do almost all of the signs that are in the books! I was so amazed!
Around the same time frame he became infatuated with the garbage truck as it would come every Monday during breakfast, he quickly became so excited over every truck he saw. So we taught him the sign for truck and he quickly caught onto that one! It was so neat to go for walks and have him sign truck and then look up and surely enough there would be a truck coming! He also seemed to like motorcycles, so we taught him the sign for motorcycle and taught him to say "Vroom vroom!" We then got him a book of trucks and in that book was also a tractor and he has since become obsessed with tractors! Never in my life did I ever think I would have a kid that would love tractors SO much! We were just at Fleet Farm (I know, right!) the other day and of course their toy section has a whole aisle of tractors, so he was totally in heaven running up and down the aisle grabbing a tractor and continuously saying "Tractor, tractor, tractor!" He even broke down Grandma enough to buy him one, surprise surprise! ;-P And it was a toy tractor and book in one, he LOVES it!
There will be days when every book will b out of the basket and have been read and every single toy is still in place! I am telling you thise boy loves books SO much! He will run and get a book and bring it back to us and want to sit on our lap as we read it and then there are other times where he will just go over to his basket and start reading them himself! I love the cuddle time, but I also love to hear him read! We never really pushed reading on him, but we are both so happy now that he has developed a love for it and are definetly going to continue to encourage it. Leaders are readers and we would rather have him be a leader than a follower!
We also believe because of his love for reading that it has jump started his vocabulary imensly! When we went in for his 15 month appt the doctor asked how many words he knew and I sd maybe 10-20 and then 10-15 signs and he said he would of been very happy with 3 or 4! I had no idea what the norm was for his age, so I was quite impressed with our little man!
And speaking of 15 month appt, his stats came in at 28 pounds 4 ounces and 33 3/4 inches both are at the 95%! Which means we are finally back on the chart for height and weight! LOL! The doctor said he is very impressed with his growth and he is perfect, of course!
He is crawling on all the furniture, goes down the stairs facing forward while holding on the wall and goes up the stairs the same way, LOVES to dance, LOVES his big brother Jaxon Bear! He loves to do anything and everything outside, which is started to get hard now that winter is coming. He is really good about putting his coat and shoes on, hat not so much, thank gooness for hoodies! Gives the best hugs and kisses, but only on his terms, unless your name is Jaxon Bear then they come countlessly! And I have been working on nose kisses with him too, he just laughs when I do it! He doesn't watch much TV but when he does he loves Word World and neighborhood animals! He loves to clean the floor with either the broom, swiffer, or a wet wipe and he also loves to help vaccum, mow the lawn (with his lawn mower), and push the cart at the store. He is an expert at brushing his teeth and combing his hair, and speaking of hair, we are working on growing out a mullet! (not on purpose of course, I just can't bare the cut his hair!) When you give him a football he runs (it in for a touchdown) and then spikes the ball and spins in a circle with his fingers point up (giving God the glory) says "whoooo"! (I'll let u guess who taught him that!) When we turn onto the road to go to Target he says "nana?" and has we pull into the Target parking lot he says "nana!" and we let him down as we are going through the doors and he runs in and runs right to the bananas! And actually when we pulled into the parking lot of a different Target he said "nana!"
I know most of you don't really care the specifics of the words and signs that he knows, but I am going to list them because I want to have the documentation for his baby book! So here it goes first with the words he can actually say:
hi, mama, dada, truck, tractor, nana (banana), Bigsby, moon, cheese, peas, grandpa, grandma, bye, night night, more, no (unfortunately), boop (which means sit), tickle tickle, yes, Ellie, dog, fish, zebra, Ezekiel, car, football, E I E I O. There are probably more, but these are all that come to mind right now.
And the signs that he knows:
more, please (so happy about this one!), drink, eat, moon, stars, light, bath, book, blanket, truck, motorcycle, hear, airplane (kind of, we are still working on this one), apple, all done, hi/bye, ice cream, hot, cheerio, bird, motorcycle, elephant, gorilla, I think there are more but that is all that I can remember for right now.
The sounds that he knows are:
motorcycle, rocketship, dog, elephant, eagle, owl, lion, monkey, gorilla, firetruck, cow, horse. Again, there are probably more.
Everyday he is growing and changing so much and he continues to impress us so much! I know that every kid is so smart and I know every parent feels like their kid is the smartest kid in the world and I too feel the same way! I think its because you see them develope from this teeny tiny little blob (an adorable blob of course) to a functioning person! It truly blows my mind every time I see him do or learn something new! We have loved every stage that he has gone through and that is still the case right now. I am just trying so hard to make the most of every moment I have with him (while still being a responsible adult) because he is already going up too quickly! I just try my best to remember to put down the things that don't need to be done now and just sit and read books with him and kiss his cheeks! I just love everything about him, we are beyond blessed with the most amazing little boy!
We have had such a fun fall, I hope to blog more about our trip to the apple orchard and pumpkin patch and playing in the leaves!
