Nathan is 21 months old!

Today Nathan is 21 months old!  In 3 short months he will be 2!

He's growing and learning so much.  He continues to learn new words every day.  He's even putting words together in short sentences and phrases.  He will hand me a book and say "Book.  Read it!"  He even says "Hand. Soap. Wash." when we are in the bathroom.  Here are few more words he's saying:  wata (water), oh no, snake, choco milk (chocolate milk), school bus, night-night, donut, dolphin, nut, egg, nugget, apple, monkey, and bible.  These are just a few that I can remember! He's also learned to say the names of our neighbors and friends, Rosie, Emily, Lauren, Janna, Amy, Evie, and Stella.  Hearing his little boy voice say new words is one of the things I love most about this age!

His top 2 canines have finally cut through!  So that just leaves the 4 2-year molars to come in and then we will be done with baby teething!  Nathan really loves to do anything and everything that Emma does.  This morning Emma spilled milk on her shirt and took it off so I could wash it.  Nathan immediately started to lift his shirt up saying "eh, eh, eh" as he tried to get it off.  If Emma didn't have a shirt, he didn't want one either!

He's still eating crayons and chalk despite my pleas for him to stop.  In addition to crayons and chalk, he is starting to eat some meat.  He's tried chicken nuggets, and seems ok with them.  I'm sure if he knew they were made of chicken he wouldn't eat them, as he simply adores the chickens that our neighbors (on both sides!) have in their backyards.  Anytime we are outside he starts asking to see the chickens "chickens?? chickens??"

Nathan likes to look at books and is always asking me to read to him.  It's amazing to see how his mind interprets what he sees.  If he sees a picture of a person or animal with eyes closed, he says "night-night".  He likes to play with cars, trains, and animals.  He also loves to chase Emma or be chased by her.  He's learning how to play hide-n-seek and he's very into jumping off of things like furniture.  He'll even stand at the top of the stairs and call for me, and when I'm only a step or two away he will jump to me.  If he wasn't so into jumping I'd say he was completely ready to be on the stairs unsupervised, because he can go up and down just fine on his own.  But until he is passed the jumping stage I think we will leave the gates up!

We are keeping busy this summer playing with friends and swimming!  It has still been cool enough in the mornings to play in the shaded front yard, although that may be changing soon. Afternoons are generally too hot to be outside now, unless we are in the small pool in the backyard.  I'll be posting an update on Emma soon, she's having a busy summer!