Cranky Caden

It's been a pretty cranky week for Caden. I think getting four teeth at once has been catching up to him and he's been a lot more whiny than usual. Going two days without Daddy didn't help either. It's become very obvious that Greg is the fun parent and Caden does not like being stuck with me nonstop without his favorite playmate! He has been a lot better today.

Last night Caden got this whopper of a bump above his eye tripping near the stairs and hitting his head on the base of the railing. It looked a lot worse last night!

Here is Caden telling me he's hungry and very angry that I'm taking a picture instead of immediately getting him some food.

This boy has no patience. (Notice the new blue shutters on the house!)

Still angry. I gave him some snacks to put in his pocket and now he can't get them out.

Okay, I've tortured him enough. Time to enjoy some fruit snacks while swinging his legs back and forth.

Back to the update... Caden has not yet tired of his little brother Lenny. Every day they have to do a number of activities together. While Greg was gone Caden seemed to be especially attached to Lenny. He shares his drinks and snacks with him, even trying to put beans in Lenny's hand. Then we strapped Lenny in the stroller and buckled him into the car to take him to the park with us. Caden was so excited to reach over and pat Lenny's leg the entire trip. Lenny had to join us for bedtime stories that night too. It was pretty cute!

Caden is finally interested in a lot more variety in books. He's even listening to the big books now! And sadly he's tired of Sandra Boynton. His current favorites are "Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?" and "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?" He wants me to read them over and over again. In fact, after weeks of going to sleep at night without a hitch he now cries when I tell him we finally have to stop reading. Bedtime has definitely been a struggle this week.

Here's some exciting news - Caden now knows a lot of animal noises! He says moo, ah ah ah (monkey), baa, quack (sort of), neigh, and pants for a dog noise. We can't get him to say anything close to meow, but he always does the sign for cat instead. This morning it was raining and he very excitedly ran to the window and showed me the sign for rain and then ran to show Greg too. I just showed him that sign yesterday and he didn't seem too interested. I guess he was really paying attention! Anyway, I'm excited about the animal noises because I've heard that a real vocabulary should be soon to follow!

Caden helped Greg weed the garden for a few minutes today. He sure loves imitating absolutely everything we do. He spent about ten minutes putting on makeup this morning. In stores now I have to give him my library card or something so he can "pay" on the credit card machine. He swipes the card over and over across the screen and then grabs the pen and tries to scribble on it. Then he looks at me with a gigantic smile. It really is amazing watching a child learn so much on a daily basis.

Tonight we're going to the neighbors for another bonfire. In case I didn't mention it, we went last week and Caden had an absolute blast playing with the older kids. He's definitely made some friends! On Wednesday we spent three hours at Crea's house playing with everyone. In the afternoon she set up sprinklers and a water table to play in and everyone wore their swimsuits. Caden didn't pay any attention to the sprinkler, but he LOVED the water table. He refused to take his shirt and shoes off, though. So he ended up soaking everything. It was a fun time, though. Pretty soon I'm going to have to set up his swimming pool. There have been some hot days lately!

Well, that's it for now. It's time to start getting ready for our mini vacation coming up this week. We're all looking forward to staying in La Crosse at a hotel with a kids' waterpark indoors. I'm hoping it won't be busy and Caden can loosen up and enjoy the water a little. At any rate, we know Caden is going to have a fun sleepover with Grandma and Grandpa on Friday! :)