pace has turned into the expert stacker. stacking is not limited to blocks--this kid thinks "outside the block"--any thing he can put on top of another thing, he'll try. chairs on a box?--why not! binkies on the side of his crib?--brilliant! pieces of his sandwich or banana?--even better! pace gets frustrated very quickly if things don't stack as he'd like them to, or if they fall over prematurely to his completion of the job. he'll start to whine and look at me for help. i just look back and say, "uh-oh, it fell down. try again!" he's caught on and now says "uh-oh" when things fall, and claps with satisfaction when things go according to plan.
a few other fun pace-isms:
consistently signs on his own: please, more, help, all done, prayer, blows a kiss, airplane. often pace will sign "more" and then wait for me to say, "more what?" and then he'll do his next sign, or point to what he wants more of. the two cutest are when he asks for "more music", pointing at the cd player in his room, and "more prayer" over a meal, or when david is ready to leave for work in the morning--pace will run over to the carpet and sit down, folding his arms. he gives a very satisfied nod and grin when you get the right answer.
verbal communication: says "bau" for ball, "buh" for bird, "bau-ooo" for balloon (hasn't gotten the "l" down yet), "mmmen" after prayer, "bowers" for flowers, "up" while pointing up, "nnn" while pointing down (he also uses the vocal intonations with up/down, which is really cute), mama, and david swears he said "airplane" one morning, but he hasn't said it since (i also think i've heard him say a version of spider a couple of times while singing itsy bitsy spider). he also does a few animal noises: "nay-nay" for horse, "mmmm" for cow, sticks his tongue out and pants for dog, "aarrrrr" for dinosaur. we got him a dinosaur bath towel the other day--it has a hood and little claw pockets for his hands. the hood completely covers his face, going down to his chin, but he put it on and walked all around the house saying "aaarrr" over and over--cutest. thing. on. earth.
he has a huge non-verbal vocabulary of 50-100 words at least, if not more, understands double commands (ex: go get the ball and bring it to mama), and has turned into quite the little mama's helper. he loves, loves, loves to help me do laundry (he picks up the clothes from the floor and puts them into the washing machine, or helps me move the loads from the washing machine to the dryer), cook dinner (he sits on the counter while i'm prepping ingredients, and mostly plays with the fruit bowl, taking out all the fruit and then putting them all back in again), and put away clean dishes from the dishwasher--he comes running from another room if he hears me open the dishwasher (he loves to hand me the silverware, and pulls out all his forks and spoons for his drawer, then hands me whatever else is on the bottom rack to put away--this means i don't have to bend over anymore, which is sooo nice with my growing belly! he loves to close the dishwasher door, too. we're still trying to teach him the difference between clean and dirty dishes, as every time he sees the dishwasher open he wants to put away the silverware!).
"reading": it's really more word recognition than reading, but pace has quite the reading vocabulary. when we write the word down, he either points to the item, or does the sign. pointing: hat, head, hair (points to head for all of these), ear, nose, mouth, teeth, tongue, eyes, arm, shoulder, elbow, toes, shoes, spoon, ball, yawn (he makes the noise). signing: wave, arms up, arms down, clap. he also enjoys drawing and knows a few shapes--you draw them and ask him to point them out, he'll point to the correct requested sign every time--triangle, square, circle.
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