Another year has passed and Caleb is now 3 years old. No more a baby or even a toddler, he's our little boy and it's been so exciting to watch him grow and change and learn. Here are some things about Caleb...
Caleb has amazed us with his vocabulary and how quickly he jumped from making only animal sounds to speaking in sentences, reciting songs and even books. He loves singing and can often be heard up in his room singing "Take me out to the ballgame" or most recently "Rise and Shine and give God the glory" (a storybook that illustrates the song). He continues to love his books and now at naptime and bedtime brings at least 10 books into bed with him. Andy and I tried to limit the number of books but he would just go over to his shelf and take more, we decided to let him be. I don't know how many nights we've gone to check on him and found him asleep with a book on his chest. Once he can read, we'll really be in trouble. And speaking of reading, he's on his way. He can read STOP and even today pulled letters out of a puzzle and spelled STOP on the table. It's not going to take him long to pick it up. He also knows his numbers and happily counts to 20 when asked. And to think June of 2007, he wasn't really talking at all.
Caleb also continues to LOVE puzzles and I really wish we could find a small puzzle for him to do between with 50-75 pieces. He easily puts the 48 piece floor puzzles together and has even gone so far as to be able to use the picture on the box to figure out where a piece might go without actually connecting it to the other pieces. One good thing is that he never seems to get bored with his puzzles even though he's done them at least a hundred times. He still happily put them together and even likes it when Sadie hands him pieces.
Now we are trying to keep him from being too much of a bookworm. :-) He does love playing outside and with the recent addition of a sandbox to the backyard, he's always asking to go out. He loves digging in the sand and the dirt, looking for wiggle-worms, and running races aroudn the yard with Sadie. When we're out front, he is most often found riding in the Cozy Coupe and parking behing our car to get gas. It's been so fun seeing the kids play together outside and seeing Caleb beginning to pretend and make up games.
The big news this year is that Caleb is starting pre-school. He'll be going 2 mornings a week to a little pre-school in Shadyside. Yesterday was his first orientation day and tomorrow he goes for real. We're hoping that he gets some more opportunities to be with other kids and I'm looking forward to getting him more art opportunities. We'll see how this goes. He did like storytime yesterday and of course enjoyed exploring the new toys and puzzles in the classroom.
Now unfortunately potty-training has not been going so well. We've been working on this, it seems like forever, and seemed to be getting the hang of it in August. Then he started having stomach issues. I got tired of the huge messes and being confined to the house so I started putting him in pull-ups. That was a big mistake. Now his stomach seems to be settling a little but he no longer goes on the potty and I'm left with tons of accidents. We've been trying to watch his diet and had him tested for celiac and now we're just waiting for the results. I'm praying that the pre-school will continue to be understanding about all this while we get it straightened out.
Caleb is still a very picky eater and continues to vomit when trying new foods but we are seeing some improvements. Most recently he's been enjoying corn muffins and peanut butter bread. It's taking a lot of patience and is so challenging trying to decided when to be firm with him and when to let his eating go. But then again, I'm finding that with just about every aspect as these kids get older. I want to be consistant and yet it can be so hard to maintain the energy for being consistant. Then there's wanting to be firm but not so strict that you're constantly battling. Now I look back on the days when they were infants and think "my word, they were so easy."
I still feel so blessed to have this amazing little boy who says the sweetest things and has the most amazing smile. I'm looking forward to all the discoveries he'll be making this year and can't wait to watch him continue to grow.
Caleb singing along with the songs on his toy radio.
We ended our summer with one final trip across the street from my mom's to Barkley's, a little ice cream stand that we've been visiting for just about as long as I can remember and it's there that I get my favorite treat- a twist in a cup with rainbow sprinkles. What makes this so good is that they put a little bit of ice cream in the cup, then a scoop of sprinkles then more ice cream and finally sprinkles on the top. In my opinion this is the only way you can really enjoy this treat... but as always I'm off on my own little tangent.
Since we were headed back into Pittsburgh we thought we would stop and get this final treat, keeping the kids in their car seats. As Andy went out to get the treats, Caleb right away knew what was coming and announced that since we all finished our dinners, we could all have a special treat. There was no getting around giving the kids their own cups- they've started strongly objecting to the thought of sharing an ice cream with the 2 of them.
Andy brought back a paper bag full of treats and started slowly pulling out the items one by one, teasing the kids a bit. Caleb played along as we asked what each of the items were- is this a spoon and such. Then I thought I would keep the game going pulling out their styrofoam cup and saying, "hmm, is this coffee?" Caleb knew right away it was his ice cream and happily dug in. Sadie got her cup and we started enjoying our treat. Then, little Sadie pipes up "yummy, coffee" holding her spoon high and taking a big bite of ice cream.
The little ears hear everything and we never know when it's going to come back to us. :-)
BTW, we will be cleaning sprinkles out of the car and car seats for the rest of the year but they enjoyed their treats.
Our summer came to a busy end this weekend as we celebrated Labor Day with our first camping trip. Now, I've considered myself to be a somewhat outdoorsy kind of girl. Growing up I was frequently covered in dirt, with my long hair hanging in messy tangles. Dad would take me hiking and fishing. With Mom and Joe, we spent many many many weekends camping in our pop-up camper all over western PA. Andy's a great sport about it but really prefers that the great outdoors stay out doors.
Mom and Joe wished to encourage Andy and I to go on our own adventures when we first got married so that Christmas they got us a tent, a camp stove, a light and camp chairs. Almost 8 years later the tent had remained happily fit in its bag, the stove in its box and we kind of lost track of the light between moving from Baltimore back to PA. (But the camp chairs have gotten lots of use :-)
But back to the real story.
We organized a little overnight camping trip to Keystone State Park (Derry, PA) about 45 min from Pittsburgh. One of the other families that went had a 2 yr old little boy so we thought since this would be a first time thing for all the kids we shouldn't do too much. I suggested the location knowing that my parents were only 10 min from the park should we run into problems with the kids. (So so so so so glad we went there)
Andy and I tried our best to plan and pack for the trip. We had a practice run on putting up the tent in the backyard so we wouldn't look like complete fools at the site and learned that a 7 person tent is very big. Yep, the tent barely fit in our backyard, not that the yard is small but when you factor in the swingset, sandbox and clothes line, you don't have a lot of space to work with. We went out in search of a sleeping bag for the Sadie-girl and ended up getting little blow-up beds for each of the kids (probably the biggest hit of the entire trip). And then began packing.
You would be surprised at how much stuff you need for two toddlers on an overnight trip-especially when you have no idea what to expect. We had the honda packed full and still had to borrow some things from my mom.
We got out to the site and began unloading. I took the kids to my mom's to pick up a cooler and the mountain pie irons while Andy set up the tent. They happily sent me back with what we needed (including the missing camp light) and some camp chairs. That's when we learned our first mistake. We packed up our little cooler with a few things and then left it sitting on the counter in the kitchen. I called my mom and she happily raided her fridge and brought us a few things to get us through the next day. (I was so glad they were only a few minutes away)
The rest of the evening went well. Our friends were so generous with their food and sharing with us. We cooked hot dogs on the fire and later made pizza mountain pies. The kids enjoyed PB sandwiches. After dinner the kids played a little while and toasted marshmellows for s'mores but then they were ready for bed. Caleb was so eager to sleep in his new bed, he insisted on putting on his pjs before it was even 8. We put the kids to bed and after some time they finally went to sleep. The adults played board games then and waited for the concert across the lake to end before going to sleep. The concert didn't seem to want to end. The band played until after midnight but we were too tired and decided to try to sleep with the loud music anyways. Andy joked, "I could have stayed home and listened to loud music like this" with the college students back on our block.
The music finally ended and then the real fun began.
It is amazing the noises you hear sleeping in a tent. It's not just the gentle hooting of an owl or hum of crickets. No way. I woke to her growling and snarling and the screeching of a small animal meeting a very painful demise and it sounded to be only a few yards away from our tent. Then there were the sounds of critters around the campsite. We had put all the food (including the trash in our car) but left out a couple of plastic coolers. Well, raccoons are not stupid animals and after a summer of scavenging campsites they have figured out how to open some coolers. (Our friends found their bread in the weeds above the campsite in the morning) I would love to say that I enjoyed hearing all these noises and slept peacefully but in the middle of the night I'm rarely capable of any rational thought so there was little sleeping on my part. Even after the noises of nature, I was kept awake but the kids where would take turns needing covered the rest of the night.
In the morning we discovered the pawprints from the visitors but still had plenty for breakfast. Then we had to begin the chore of packing up.
To top off the summer we spent Labor Day at Idlewild Park. It was a really nice day and the kids had a blast. Caleb climbed the big cargo net in Jumpin' Jungle with Andy and both Caleb and Sadie enjoyed playing in the ball pit. We lasted until 4:30 and then had enough. It was time to head for home. Caleb was passed out before we even left the parking lot.
