SOME LEFT OUT STUFF

A few things we forgot to mention before (mostly for journal-sake):

Shade actually stopped using the binki on his own. We kind of wanted to wean him anyway (we kept losing them), but sometime between 15-16 months he just lost interest and wouldn't really take them anymore.

-Side note- He is getting a lot more interested in the potty-training thing. He now recognizes when he has gone to the bathroom and wants to go sit on the potty afterward. Kind of weird, but you gotta start somewhere.

Also, the day that Kellen was sick, one thing that was pretty cool - he at one point had asked Shade to go get his phone which was out by the computer in case I called or whatever. All Kellen said was 'go get my phone? It's by the computer.' Shade left the room, then a few seconds later brought Kellen his phone. Smart kid.

Shade now notices when Kellen or I aren't there. Sometimes he will walk over to the bed, couch, window, or just out of the blue say "where daddy?" or "where momma?"

Then yesterday Shade and I went to renew our license plates. Of course the line was kind of long and I didn't actually think to bring anything to distract him (I'm kind of out of practice taking him places that require distraction). Of course he wanted to get down on the floor and run around, but I didn't want to lose my place in line, so I told him he needed to stay with me. And he did very well. At one point he saw some writing on a door we were standing by and named almost all the letters. Then he saw some pictures of animals on some sample license plates and named all of them. And of course Shade had to say hi to the man behind us every 3 minutes, and every time someone laughed Shade would try to find the source and join in :) Then he got real excited and started playing with my hair and face - but I quickly turned it into a game so as not to embarrass myself in not being able to calm him down without anything to distract him, and he thought it was hilarious. So he was laughing hysterically for the last 10 minutes we were in line. Sure, it was loud, but I figured it was better than a crying/fussy baby. He was also very nice to the lady who helped us - said hi several times, kept giving her smiles, and even said bye bye to her and everyone else in line on our way out. Oh yeah. And at one point Shade tooted. He thought it was also hilarious. But the two men in front of us did not, and were looking around with disgusted looks on their faces until they noticed the baby behind them - which caused them to step as far ahead in line as possible. I thought the whole thing was pretty funny myself.