What's your name?

On April 12, I didn't write a post about Ian like I have been doing on the 12th of every month. I thought I'd focus on him tonight since I'll be doing one on Nadia in two days. For several weeks Nadia has been in this phase of asking everyone she crosses paths with "what's your name?" She also often gives these strangers (adults and children alike) a compliment of some sort such as "that's a pretty name" or "I like your shirt." No one is a stranger to Nadia. Here at the RMH and feeding clinic she's had far more opportunities than usual to ask that question. I attributed this in part to her very social, outgoing personality. Ever since she could wave as an infant, she's been communicating with strangers that we come in contact with (such as at the grocery store). Ian, on the other hand, doesn't have an extrovert type personality. I really didn't expect him to ever go through this phase of asking everybody and their brother "what's your name?". I was wrong. He has heard his sister say it so many times that he has begun to do the same! I'm going to start hearing that question in my sleep, ha ha! Ian doesn't give anyone any compliments, and he will ask the same person the question over and over and over again. Some of the kids get annoyed with him for asking so many times in a row. It's nice to see his sister's friendly nature rubbing off on him a bit!

I need to take a video of him talking ASAP. I have been super delinquent in taking videos lately. I love hearing his sweet little voice. One phrase I hear SO many times a day from him is "okay, Mommy." He'll make a request of some sort. I'll repeat it back to him (making sure I've understood him correctly), and then he says "okay, Mommy" (in other words, yes, let's do it!). If I wanted to embarass him when he's a teenager, I'd take a video of him talking about princesses. He loves them, ha ha! Ariel is his favorite. I'm sure his taste in movies will diverge from Nadia's in the future, but for now it's convenient that they're both enjoying the same movies.

After each meal is over (the timer has gone off), we are to offer him each food in case he wants more. If he doesn't, he's supposed to say "no, thank you." He now says it without prompting! He always declines the food that's being served by spoon, but sometimes he does want to eat more of the crumbs (cracker or cookies). The first week they taught him to drink from an open cup. He's doing really well with that (the cup is the size of a shot glass). The second and third week the focus was on chewing and swallowing crumbs. This week the focus will be on texture. Everything he eats by spoon is either pureed (like stage one baby food or yogurt). Kathy wants him to be eating "fork mashed food" by Friday (maybe I can put away the Magic Bullet?).

Ian is still very affectionate. When he wakes up in the morning, he has to be snuggled for awhile. I am happy to comply! At the RMH he doesn't cry when he wakes up. In fact one morning he stood up and immediately said "I love you, Mommy." What a nice way to start the day! He loves to hold hands. You can see in the first picture he's holding his cousin Shawn's hand during the show at Reptiland. At the RMH last week he never slept past 6:50am, but this weekend he slept until 7:15-7:45am at our house. He falls asleep REALLY quickly (unlike his sister), and it seems he can sleep about anywhere, but he sleeps in longer in a darker room. His naps were short at the feeding clinic last week, but he took a really long nap (70 minutes) at home this afternoon. The one downside of a long nap is that he sometimes has an accident in his crib when he sleeps longer than 45 minutes. Last night Paul accidently forgot to put a diaper on him. What a mess he had to clean up this morning! That was the first time he ever went to bed in underwear, and we won't be doing that again any time soon! He's doing pretty well with not having accidents. I'd say he's averaging about one accident a week, and it's always poop not pee. He's come a long way since we've been in Hershey with going #2 on toilets other than his froggy potty and also with using adult size toilets in general. He does use a kiddie potty at the feeding clinic, but at the RMH he uses the regular toilet.

Princesses aren't the only things that Ian enjoys. He loves vehicles of all types and animals. I've been showing him animal flash cards at the feeding clinic, and he can now identify by name some of the less common animals such as a meerkat. He really enjoyed our trip to Reptiland today. Gabby gave him a Larryboy stuffed animal yesterday, and he's been loving that! He put it in his pack n play at the RMH this evening so he could sleep with it. He also loves his grandparents very much. When we arrived at the RMH this evening he asked me if Grandma Harton (my mom) was coming. I told him that Grandma and PopPop would be visiting this week. I have more pictures I could post from today, but it's time for me to go to sleep. I'll post more tomorrow!