22 months old!

it's been a really fun summer...with playdates, outdoor activities - we're LOVING waterparks!, bbq's, and everything else that comes our way.

progress with words! gabe's added words to his vocabulary...last week chris' dad came out to dinner with us, and gabe started calling him "yeh-yeh"! once he decided he could say it, he wouldn't stop :P and a new word gabe's created is "da-ma". my mom was hopeful that he was trying to say "grandma", whereas i thought gabe was getting confused when i was teaching him to say "ta (thank-you) mama" but "da-ma" definitely refers to me and/or chris somehow. and the dreaded "no" has returned to his vocabulary :P

his first boo-boo! a few weeks ago, gabe was running along the sidewalk, tripped over his toe, took a flying leap through the air, and scraped his knee. ugly :( a few days later, a similar incident occured and he scraped his OTHER knee. this one was less ugly because his round little tummy broke his fall :) and since gabe hates having dirty hands, he lay there, perfectly balanced on his belly, legs and arms spread eagle so nothing else touched the yucky ground...just waiting for mom or dad to rescue him! hahaha :)

his first suntan! with our weekend outdoors, gabe was in his crocs a lot, and he has a really funny tan from his holey shoes...my mom's calling them foot freckles :) i also took gabe to the beach for the first time in his life...a far cry from the little sandbox at our neighbourhood playground!

outings with the grandparents! my parents have been taking gabe out and about a lot this summer - burnaby heritage museum, the airport (to watch planes land), burkeville, steveston, playdates with other grandbabies, etc. etc. when they head out, my mom tries to pack a picnic lunch and they make an entire morning of it, and i'm the jealous mama who gets to see the fun pictures afterwards :(

diaper-free...one day! one small observation i've noted is gabe quite often has a dry diaper in the morning. we even have days my parents will bring gabe home and he's still wearing his cloth diaper from the morning - 100% success rate with the potty! that's not to say that gabe's potty-trained...far from it. i've given myself the xmas holidays while i'm off work to fully potty-train him, assuming he's talking by then so he can actually verbalize his pee'ing needs. i refuse to teach him any more signs...the last thing i need is to delay his speech further. at the very least, he'll be trained by next summer before he starts preschool!

i LOVE this age! gabe understands what we're saying to him and will respond to our questions with his own quirky "yes" or "no" responses. he's becoming a good little helper, a great sharer, and overall just a cute little man :-) i'm trying to enjoy the non-verbal side of him, but i can't wait to hear what he has to say. it'll be a nice change from the grunting and pointing that he's so fond of :P