Oh my goodness, this kid is so much fun these days.
1) He loves doing chores.
It started with the broom. He loved carrying the broom around. He’d have a fit if we actually took the broom to do some sweeping. Last weekend we were at Chris’ parent’s house, and Lincoln spent the majority of his time carrying their broom and dustpan combo from room to room. He was so mad when we got in the car to go home.
Also funny, the first thing he ever pointed out in a picture book was Cosette’s broom. 😀
Then it was the duster. Lincoln likes to go into the cabinet under the sink where he knows the microfiber duster lives. He dusts the floor and the bottom of bookcases for us. If we point out something specific, he’ll dust that.
Third, he loves helping with the dishwasher. We can hand him small items like utensils for him to put in the basket, and I just found out that Chris has been letting him pull the utensils out when the washer is done. (Ew. Baby hands all over my spoons!) The other day I tried to quickly unload the dishwasher without him, and when he came toddling around the corner and saw what I was doing, man was he irate. He basically pushed me out of the way to take over. Silly boy.
2) He LOVES books now.
Something switched about a month and a half ago and all of the sudden he is all about his little library. Whereas before the books were just good for pulling off shelves to make a mess, now we actually read them- all the way to the end! He has favorites, too. Notably is “The Hand Book,” which I think he loves for the “dum ditty dum ditty dum dum dum” part. Somewhere along the way he made up his own hand motions for the part of the book where two characters meet and they “shake hands, shake hands, shake, shake, shake!” My favorite part of his newfound love for books is when I find him sitting with a book in his lap, “reading” out loud. He’s starting to add inflections into his babble, so it really sounds like reading!
3) He communicates with us.
Teaching him sign language is finally paying off! He can sign please, all done, yes, and again. His most used are definitely please and again. He signs please if we ask him if he wants something and he does indeed want it, and of course as soon as food comes out. Again is used when I sing songs to him, or we count the mice in a picture book, or when daddy flies him around the room. Yes is a sign that we’re very excited to see coming out a lot, because it’s helped us so much in figuring out what he wants or needs at the moment. He still will not sign milk, even though it’s the one sign I’ve used with him since he was four weeks old!
4) He loves to slide.
This just happened in the last couple of weeks. Chris took him to a playground a bit ago and came back with reports that Lincoln had a blast when daddy put him up on the slide and helped slide him down. Just a couple weeks later, we were doing a family photo shoot with the Holzes at a playground near their house, and Lincoln was climbing up the play structure and going right down the slide all on his own. Like 20 times. I took a video of it, and Chris says it gives him “the feels” for some reason. I think we both are seeing how are little baby is suddenly not so much a baby anymore!
