Words!!

Words!!! Buster can communicate (albeit a little haphazardly and needing a translator i.e. me). When we went to his last well check-up the nurse asked how many words Buster can say, which had me panicked. I never counted, I never thought about it. How many words is he supposed to say? Once I started paying attention, he can say a lot! And he learns new words every day! He can understand about 99% of what we say (which means no more swearing), but he can't quite form all the words. Below is a list of the words he can say and the rough meaning behind them. Most of the meaning behind is speaking has to do with where he puts the inflection as well as how long he holds out a syllable:

1. Teeth (said when he wants to brush his teeth and/or needs Tylenol)
2. Kitty (said while maniacally chasing the cats around)
3. mmmmma (milk)
4. Mama (either me or one of the grandma)
5. Dada (Jim - he gets his own name without sharing)
6. Bu-pa (Grandpa Neumann)
7. Bum-pa (Grandpa Mason)
8. no
9. again
10. yes
11. this
12. puppy
13. Out
14. Cheese (Cheers - I taught him how to toast - it's very cute)
15. nom-nom (food, he's hungry)
16. Raisin
17. Cheeerrss (Cheerios)
18. TV
19. tree (learned after we put up the Christmas tree)
20. shoes
21. boots
22. juice
23. book
24. ball
25. Big Bird
26. Bert
27. Elmo (which sounds like Melmo)
28. bye
29. bed
30. night night
31. Hot!!

This never happens on the Housewives of Orange County

Oy! What a weekend. The terrible twos have overtaken our home much like the snow outside has taken over the roads. I am so glad to be back at work and have some quiet, non-Buster time. Where to begin? Well...the biting has begun again. We're doing everythign we can to curb it, but it seems Buster has other plans. He's also teething again. The cool thing, though, is that he can tell us now that his teeth hurt so we can give him Tylenol. Gone are the days of trying to magically figure out what's wrong! It's very helpful that he's so communicative. On Friday, during my first snow day of the year (which I usually love), Buster and I did nothing but fight. I'm pretty sure he purposely did everything which he knows he shouldn't do. Cognitively, this is a huge step - he's learning and pushing his boundaries and seeing what he can and cant' get away with. Parentively (not a real word, I just made it up), it's a nightmare. Both Jim and I hate ourselves. It seems like the only things we said this weekend were "no" "please stop" "don't do that", etc. Let's just say that both of us were extremely grateful to go to work today.

The title of the blog comes from Jim who said it when we were all in the kitchen and Buster was yelling and throwing stuff around.

Publish or perish

Ahhh...it's as true in the blogging world as it is in academia. I have gotten yelled at twice over the weekend for not blogging. There will be updates soon!