The only real thing I have to update on today is Caden's latest sleeping habits. Fortunately, he's been sleeping through almost every night. Unfortunately, he's decided to give up taking decent naps. Every day for the last week he's taken a 45-75 minute nap and then wakes up screaming. I usually leave him in there for about twenty minutes, hoping that he'll fall back to sleep. It hasn't happened yet! It's frustrating because he used to take on average a two hour nap and wake up in a wonderful mood. Now it's the total opposite. Not only can I get a lot less done during his nap period, then I have to deal with hours of tantrums until Greg gets home and Caden immediately perks up.
Two weeks ago I started a parenting class at church called Love and Logic. So far I'm finding it very helpful in giving me ideas on how to better handle Caden's constant whining and tantrums. When it comes to throwing fits, Love and Logic advises saying, "Uh oh, it's time for bedroom time. You can come out when you're sweet." Or something along those lines. Basically it says to consistently put your child in his room when he's throwing a tantrum or misbehaving until he is calm. Anyway, I won't go into it all, but I've been trying to use this new method. Sometimes it seems to work quite well and other times not at all. It seems that Caden spends most of his afternoon in his crib because every time I go to get him he throws another tantrum before I'm even able to take him out. It seems like nothing ever makes him happy anymore.
In other news, Caden is becoming quite the climber! We need to keep a very close eye on him because he can climb on just about anything now. If we leave chairs pulled out he's on the table before you know it, usually examining the candles. He can also climb on the toilet and get anything he wants off the counter. He likes to crawl onto my desk and grab anything and everything that looks interesting. Basically nothing is out of reach for him anymore.
In the last day or two, Caden has started saying "mama" a lot more often and he seems to actually be calling me it instead of just mumbling it to himself like he used to. So that's exciting for me. Though I read a statistic the other day that said by 18 months toddlers should be able to say 68 words. Greg and I aren't too concerned, though it is getting pretty frustrating when he desperately wants something and won't say anything but "mmm! mmmm!" At least he seems to be trying a little harder to spit words out every day. Earlier today when I was changing his diaper he kept saying "mom, mom!" So I said, "Can you say mom again?" He started laughing and yelled "Daddy!" He thinks he's pretty funny!
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