Gerry's big strides

Gerry has had some huge developments lately too, so it only seems fair that he should get an update too! First of all he is diaper free and by that I mean uses the potty 99.9% of the time. Yay! We also are experimenting with going diaper-free at night - this week he hasn't worn one at all and had no accidents, so keep your fingers crossed. I distinctly remember his first weekend out without diapers because Nonna Gigi was visiting and he was exactly 2 1/2 years old that weekend. I loved the philosophy of Elimination Communication even though we didn't do it full time. It definitely helped us so much get to this point.

The other huge thing is that he is talking SO MUCH now. It is so fun! He turned 2 last July and had only a handful of words. But in the past few months his speech has exploded! Some of my favorite expressions right now are, "Be rea-wy rea-wy cayful." on the stairs, stopping at driveways to say "wook bofe ways!" and "I luv __________" fill in the blank. I keep waiting for him to grow out of the painfully, amazingly adorable phase but it hasn't happened yet! I have to be very careful to be fair when dealing with him and Marisol because he still can't really do any wrong in his mama's eyes. ;-) I *think* I'm doing a good job because she still declares her love for me daily and they are getting along well, as well as brothers and sisters can I think anyways.

He still loves to climb and jump and has daily courage badges to prove it. He also still loves his "muk" (nursing) but is eating more and more other foods. (I made sure not to say "real" food - breast milk is very REAL after-all! Actually, with his sweet tooth I'm really glad that he still does nurse.)

And there you have it. A little Gerry to brighten your day. Here's a video so you can hear some actual Gerry conversation.

Baby Sort

A little Marisol update. One project we did this week was sorting all of her babies (stuffed animals). We put them on our bed in groups. Then we counted them up and made a list. A few of our groups were: primates (apes and monkeys), sea mammals (whale, manatee), birds, reptiles (dragon, dinosaur, and turtle) and the biggest piles were Dogs (22), Horse family - including zebras and unicorns - (16), and the biggest of all Bears (27). Bears included Care Bears, polar bears, a panda bear, and lots of teddy bears.

For a grand total of 145 babies! Wowza :-)

Marisol is way into math. We can't stop her. Counting, adding, multiplying... also loves setting her timer and measuring lengths with rulers and tape measures. Grandma is, of course, every excited about this.

She is also into writing and her letters and numbers are getting more legible and orderly all the time.

Go Marisol! :-)