What the Boys Can Do

I haven't been the best about tracking the milestones lately, but these kids are changing like crazy, and it's wonderful. I figure I'll capture it now so I have a rough time frame of what's been going on in the Vargas household.

Right now, Jack is dancing like crazy to the "scrub, scrub, scrub" song on TV (a Blues Clues snippet) - The guy on the TV says "where are your toes?" and Jack crouches down and tells him "dis is toes". Then he does his nose. ("Dis is nose".) And then the wrists - where Jack flaps his hands and says "deez wists! deez wists!". He also does this when we're in the mall - he runs as fast as he can, flapping his hands, saying "wists! wists!". Ah, but this is not what I meant to write about what the boys can do...

Declan can wave bye-bye (he did this out of the blue one day when we finished lunch with the Lederman family and were saying our goodbyes), he claps when he hears "hooray!" or we finish singing a song - he claps by holding his right hand steady and makes the left hand do all the work, and he can make good sounds by tapping his hand against his mouth while saying "ahhhhhhhhh".

Declan is also starting to walk! It's baby steps, which is appropriate, I guess... He really loves to walk with a push toy of some sort, and gets really frustrated when his clear path is blocked (by a wall, for example) and he can't go any further. So it's really cute but also trying when I have to deal with the fit he has when there's a road block. Jack did this too. In fact, I'm constantly amazed by all of the things Declan does that Jack did at the same age.

Declan is also very proficient at climbing the stairs. He's pretty stealth about it too - we'll be in the basement and I'll see him one second, and then the next thing I know I hear the door slam at the top of the stairs and Declan will be no where in sight. A little scary, actually, but it's nice that he's so good at it. (Not that I can count on this, I know...)

Declan is also SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT!! FINALLY! He's gone through a series of ear infections so for a long time I was bringing him into bed with us since it was taking so long to get him back to sleep at night. But about a week and a half ago, we let him cry it out again when falling asleep. And when he got good at this (falling asleep in less than 5 minutes, which probably took about 4 nights) then we let him cry himself back to sleep in the middle of the night. We had one rough night where he cried for about an hour in the middle of the night (going in every 10 minutes to give him pats and love), but I was refusing to bring him into bed with us (a slippery slope) and ever since then Declan goes down well and sleeps through the night. It's wonderful.

Jack has had amazing steps as well. He's peed in the potty several times - we're not even close to formal potty training yet - but he knows what the potty is for and makes an honest effort every time we put him on it. The trick is to have him try at the right time (since I don't think he fully understands the urge to go, and how to communicate it) - if I notice his diaper is dry when I change him, then I'll take him to his potty and he'll usually go. He also has started telling us when his diaper is dirty. So we're making progress.

Jack can pick out all of the letters and most of the numbers. He can count to 10 no problem, and the other day he shocked me by out the the blue saying "uno, dos, tres..." - he can sometimes make it to "diez" - although he usually forgets "siete", but really, who's counting? (No pun intended!) I'm so proud of him.