Nathan Updates

Things have been a little busy to say the least! I decided I want to finish my masters degree by spring 2011 (maybe summer 2011) and so I started taking classes while teaching. I have found it to be kind of difficult to balance classes with my job only because there were days that I wanted to work on my homework at work when I had papers to grade or planning to do. The good thing is it is making me manage my time better. Enough about me though...onto the important person.

Nathan has been very busy in more ways than one since I last (truly) blogged. He LOVES bears. He hugs his stuffed bears and says "ohhhh!" as he does it. Nathan loves the bear my cousin Mallory got him for his birthday. The bear's name is "Okie" because they are from Oklahoma and Nathan sleeps with him every night. He doesn't insist on taking Okie with him everywhere, which I am thankful for just because he is pretty big. He will walk around carrying his bear saying "bear, bear!" He is also working on eating with a spoon/fork. He is getting better, but for the most part we have to put the food on the spoon and give it to him to put in his mouth. 'm sure the days of him only wanting to feed himself are coming really soon! Nathan loves to brush his teeth. When we go into his bathroom he immediately stands on his tippy-toes and looks for his toothbrush on the counter, all the while saying "ahhhh, ahhhh!" Then, if Joe or I are brushing our teeth he walks around saying "ahhhhh, ahhhh!" It's really funny. After brushing his teeth he gets to drink out of a real cup and he does a great job of not spilling water everywhere. After he takes a few drinks he dumps the rest out in the sink. He thinks it's fun to dump out the water, sometimes he laughs. He also started climbing! YIKES! Last Saturday I put together a tent with a tunnel that my cousin Adrienne and her family gave him for Christmas and he was having fun in the tunnel. I ran out to the car to get my camera, for literally 15 seconds. I came back in and he was on the dining room table playing with my (non-burning) candles. Over spring break I plan to move those chairs to the basement for sure! Tonight he was helping Joe vacuum and he touched his diaper champ. I was in the kitchen loading the dishwasher and Nathan came in shaking his hands and holding his hands with his palms facing up saying "Oh, no oh, no!" I thought he might have touched something that hurt his hand or hit his hand on something so I went to ask Joe. Turns out he had just touched the diaper champ, which he knows immediately results in hand-washing. It was so cute that he was trying to tell me he needed his hands washed! He can say "wa-wa" which started out as meaning bath. I would say "Nathan, let's take a bath" and he'd run to the bathroom saying "wa-wa, wa-wa!" After a while he would say wa-wa when he wanted water, and now wa-wa means anything to drink (which is really only milk or water). Nathan learned to say "nana" (banana) last month, but it now means pretty much any food. He loves bananas so much, he might always mean banana, because he will usually look for them on the counter when he is hungry. He loves them so much that one day I took out a cucumber to make Joe a salad and he said "nana?" One of my favorite things that he is doing now is shutting doors. I am really bad about shutting doors/cabinets/drawers, so Nathan is my little helper. He literally follows me around shutting doors, even when they don't need to be. It's still funny though. Nathan can say a lot of words but a few he doesn't use a lot and really has only said them a few times. He can say bye-bye, Mama, Mommy, Dada (or Dado as he calls Joe sometimes), Daddy, uh-oh, Papa, bird, oh man, cheese (shhh), baby, bear, oh wow, no, wa-wa, 0h no, meow, yeah (like yipee!), night night, nana, yeah (for yes), mine, duck, bite, bubbles and up. He said bubbles and up today for the first time.

Nathan went to the Magic House for the first time yesterday. He has so much fun and I really enjoyed just letting him explore without having to say no, no every five seconds! His favorite part was the water and the light switches. He wasn't too sure of the slide or the mesh tunnel, but he did end up walking across the balance beam from one side to the other even though he was scared at first.

Today we took Nathan to Ted Drewes. He got his own scoop of frozen custard which I made myself eat part of so that he wouldn't eat too much. It was definitely a sacrifice. :) He enjoyed it and I know we will be taking many trips there this summer!

I really can't think of any more updates, so I will just post a bunch of pictures of what we've been up to over the last couple of months.

Nathan studying up on torts or crim law, or game theory...

I had a snow day in early February and Joe didn't have anything either so we took Nathan sledding. It sure is a workout pulling the sled around the neighborhood!Nathan with his many bears!Nathan was so proud of himself because he climbed up on the toy box. He just sat there and "read" for about 10 minutes! It was really cute.Nathan and OkieHis first climb onto the dining room table. I'm sure glad my photoshop project was saved and closed when he did this!Climbing through the tunnel my cousin Adrienne gave him for his birthday. (Creepy eyes, I know)I know this is blurry, but it was so funny. He was walking around the house with his hands over his ears because he didn't like the sound on t.v. At first I thought it was an ear infection, but then I realized what he was doing.He is such a ham! I was baking yesterday morning and he saw me put the oven mitt on, so he decided he needed to wear it, too. These are all from the Magic House. I don't think they need much explanation.He could have opened those doors all day long!Just posing...he didn't actually go down. I started him 1/2 way down the slide.light switch heaven."wa-wa!"Nathan's hands on the left, Joe's face in the middle, Joe's hands on the right. Nathan's hands look so big!This shows you how thick my hair is. I am touching the electric ball, my hair isn't sticking up. Nathan isn't touching the ball, but his hair is sticking up because I am touching it and holding him! "night, night."