Cole's Monthly Digest

Cole is getting more verbal every day. He now says the following things:
Ball
Mommaw
Dada
Car
Hi (and if you don't say "hi" back, he will say it even louder...even if it is to a stranger in Target)
ByeBye
He says buh-buh-buh for the Nick TV show "Bubble Guppies"
Chee=Cheese
Eggie=Veggietales (But he is over those now; all he wants is Toy Story currently)
Ca-Cow=both Grammie and Grandad (I don't know why he interprets those words that way, but it is consistently what he calls them)
He has a toy that plays the alphabet and he grunts along with each letter up until about "G", where he gets bored and restarts the song.

He gets sad when we drive past the gym without going inside.

He is pacified when he asks to do something and I respond with "Just a Minute" or "In a little while". He just (usually) nods his head and moves on to something else. I'm thinking this phase will be entirely too short-lived...:)

He will walk around the house saying "No, no, no..." for several minutes.

He responds with a resounding "Ya" which often sounds like "Da" whenever he likes something that you say.

He no longer has much stranger anxiety, but when I leave him with Lee to go do something, he screams. And then gets over it.

He is very sensitive and gets his feelings hurt easily. He was helping me cook and I needed to chop something up with a big knife. So I explained to him beforehand that the knife was a "no" and that he could not touch it. I tried to use my best "teaching" voice, positive, but firm. However, his lip started to quiver and those eyes took on the appearance of a puppy who had just been kicked. I had to pick him up and apologize for making him sad. I guess he thought he was getting into trouble for something he hadn't even had the chance to do yet. Poor thing. And yet, when I started the chopping, he didn't even try to touch the knife...so I guess he learned...:)

I found out today that a pregnant friend had lost her baby at 16ish weeks. After I got off the phone I looked at my child, playing quietly on his new chair, and my eyes filled with tears of blessing, and of heartache for the child my friend would never know. It is those lessons in life, the way someone else's pain teaches you something about yourself. No matter the angst that Cole can put me through, I can't imagine my little world without the sweet face of God's greatest blessing shining back at me everyday.