Peyton in a Nutshell

The tough thing about not posting for two months is figuring out what to write about. I can’t write about everything Peyton has done, so how do I pick? I think every move he makes and every word out of his mouth is adorable and priceless, but what do other people actually care about? Well, I’m just going to go for it, so don’t expect much in the way of structure or anything.

Peyton’s favorite words are Hi and Bye. He says it to everyone we see on walks, in the grocery store, or wherever we are. He says “Hi!” to his flash cards, then he turns them over and says, “Bye!” The other morning he had a bit of oatmeal on his hand, gave it a big smile and said, “Hi!” Then he turned his hand over so he couldn’t see it anymore and said, “Bye!” He repeated this process about twenty times.

Another favorite game is the “P, Mama, Daddy” game. A side note, Peyton refers to himself as P. He does this either to indicate that something is his, or he would like it to be his, or he wants to do something he sees someone else doing. If he’s particularly excited about whatever it is he says it with great feeling, a strong, guttural, “PUUUUHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” So anyway, he loves to assign ownership to things. If all our shoes are sitting out he’ll point to each in turn saying, “Mama! Daddy! P!” over and over again. If we’re eating together he’ll do the same thing with forks. He likes to look at everyone’s feet and tally up who’s wearing “huocks” That’s the best spelling I could come up with for how he says sock, but it really has a throat clearing quality to it that you just can’t properly convey in writing. He’ll do the same thing with hats. If he sees someone wearing a hat he points at them and exclaims, “Hat!” Then he points to my head, says in a rueful voice, “hat” and shakes his head. Then he points at his own head and says the same. He’ll go back and forth with that for awhile.

We have two supporting beams by the front door and somehow one has becomes “P’s Post” and the other is “Daddy’s Post”. When Dave’s around Peyton will run over to his post and say, “P!” then point to the other and say, “Daddy!” Then they play a Simon Says type of game where they put different body parts on the post. It’s very cute.

Head on the Post!

Peyton is a regular parrot and tries to repeat everything. As I was going through the looooong process that is putting him to sleep these days I tried to count the number of word I’ve heard him say. I thought of 105 and I’m sure I’m forgetting some. Included on the list was “poo bag”. That’s right, poo bag! We have well entered the time where we need to watch what we say around him and thank goodness Dave didn’t choose choicer words to describe the bag of dirty diapers.

So the sleep isn’t going great. We’re working on it. For some reason it’s taking him literally hours to fall asleep at night. And he wants me to be in the room with him the whole time. Up until a few months ago he would always fall asleep while nursing and now it’s just not doing the trick. I think he doesn’t know any other way to fall asleep, though, so that’s giving him problems. He’s only nursing twice a day, at nap time and bed time. He still falls asleep easily at naptime and I’m reluctant to try to make him fall asleep then without nursing because if it takes hours to fall asleep for his nap he won’t wake up until 5 and then he won’t go to bed at night until midnight. Even though it doesn’t put him to sleep he still seems he wants the bedtime nursing. I really think it’s more out of habit than anything, though. I am totally ready to wean, but at the same time this low level of nursing doesn’t really bother me much so it’s hard to muster the motivation to go through all the trouble it would be to stop. When it comes down to it, the main reason I’d like to stop is that now that Peyton is 18 months old I’m a little self conscious about what other people think about it. (What better thing than to write about it on my blog, then, right?) Since I know that  I shouldn’t worry about what other people think when it comes to what’s best for me and my family and that the health benefits supposedly continue through 2 years I ultimately feel comfortable continuing for now. I can’t justify the obvious stress and unhappiness it causes Peyton to refuse him when he’s still not able to understand why now I’m taking something away from him that he’s been doing every day of his life. I feel like to him it just seems random and mean. And maybe this pseudo night time weaning he’s doing is the first step of self weaning, which would just be great for everyone.

Another thing affecting his sleep is that I think his brain is going a mile a minute. We’ll be rocking in the chair and I’ll think he’s starting to fade and then his eyes pop open, his finger shoots up into the air, and he says, “bird! caw caw! up up! bye bye! Daddy! work! wait!” or just “Ellllllboooooow!!!!!!”

Peyton loves Elmo. This started long before he’d ever seen him on TV because we have this book. It was his absolute favorite for weeks. Then I put Sesame Street on the TIVO season pass and it was all over. He calls the television remote Elmo. What is it about that guy? So he usually watches some Sesame Street during his afternoon snack or while I’m cooking his dinner each day. At first I was kind of paranoid about him watching too much TV, but Sesame Street really does seem good. He dances during music segments and talks about the animals he sees on there. He really likes anything about letters, too.

Peyton is definitely cuddly and loves hugs and kisses. Sometimes Dave and I will sit on the floor across the room from each other and Peyton will run back and forth between us giving us big hugs. Like most kids he likes to get kisses when he hurts himself, but when he’s really upset about something he also likes to give kisses, which is adorable. He will also fake hurt himself just to get kisses. Several times I’ve seen him walk up to a wall and very very slowly touch his head to it. Then he’ll make and exaggerated fake cry and say, “bunk” (a hybrid of bump and bonk) while pointing to his head. Once he did the same thing with his heads after gleefully banging them on a pillow.

Well we’re off to the park now. We’ve been going almost every day in an attempt to wear him out so he’ll fall asleep at night!