All About Cash @ 15 Months

Cashman has been a busy bee these days. Colt has had several days off this week, and the week before last, so we've gone on a bunch of really fun excursions!

This week we hit up Busch Gardens. We bought Fun Cards, and have been using them almost weekly. Cash loves to look at the animals, walk around the park, and push the stroller. His favorite BG activitiy is the kid's water play area in the Sesame Street section. He is a social butterfly. He loves to scout out the pretty little girls and swoop in and make his move. It's so funny to watch because he couldn't care less about playing with the boys. He's all about charming the ladies. This week, he made friends with an older woman...a 4 year old. She was really sweet and would hold his hand and take him around to different parts of the water fountains. We were walking along with them of course. I love it when he plays nicely with other kids. Our first few times out in public, or on playdates, he would hit or try to bite etc. Now, I can see that he is starting to learn to share, and hasn't tried to hit or bite any other kids in a while (not to say that he won't ever again).

Lately, it seems like he's gone through anoter personality explosion. He is learning new things seemingly everyday. His vocabulary has expanded drastically. He is saying or has said, "Mama", "Daddy" (instead of Da-Da), "Dog", "Moon", "Water", "Oh Wow!", "Bath", "Bible", "Diaper", "Moe", "Hot", "Bye-Bye", "Hi", "No", "Kiss", "Mop", "Nose", "Eyes", "Kiss", "Beck" (for Beckett) and tonight he said, "I love you". Of course, getting him to say these things in front of people is another story. He says about 8 of those words all the time.

I was just telling Colt how crazy it is that he understands everything now. I can ask him if he wants to play outside and he'll run to the patio door. I'll ask him if he wants to smell his stinky feet, and he'll pull off his shoes and smell his toes! Haha! There are not many things he can't understand anymore. He loves to grab the remote control and point it at the TV. The other day, he climbed up in the chair in our family room, got cozy, grabbed the remote control and started changing channels!!! He LOVES to dance. I mean LOVES to dance. A few days ago I was coming out of the shower, and Colt was in the living room with Cash, playing the new Paul Simon album. Cash was standing in the middle of the family room, in his diaper, shaking his little rear end all over the place. Not only was his rear end shaking, but he was doing this little dance with his shoulders and head too. His whole body was groovin'. He loves all different kids of music, and responds to it everywhere. We were in the mall the other day, and the janitor was passing by us. His cart with his cleaning supplies was going over the tiles making a, "Thump, thump, thump, thump," noise. Cash immediately noticed it, pointed to it, and started dancing. He hears music in everything. He loves to play the harmonica (if you haven't seen it, check out my video on our family youtube page--link at the bottom of this post), the piano, guitar, banjo, mandolin, kazoo, recorder, and any other instrument that he can get his hands on, which is a lot around our house. Of course, I'm not claiming that he can actually play them well, but he knows how to make a sound come out of all of the instruments. He even knows when Mama has had enough of listening to the instruments because he can put his adorable little pointer finger up to his mouth and say, "Shhh!"

His bedtime routine has become a dream. I nurse for a few minutes, he gives Daddy a kiss, we go in his room for prayers, I give him a kiss and nuzzle him for a few seconds next to his crib, I turn on his monkey crib soother thing, lay him down, and he rubs the top of his head, and drifts off to sleep. Even if he doesn't go to sleep right away, he lays there and looks around his room until he does. Its a far cry from where we were a few months ago. Naptime is a breeze too. Same sort of thing.

Eating is a whole other monster. He eats a good amount of food, but our problem is, he forgets what he likes and doesn't like, or perhaps sometimes he just isn't in the mood for some foods. There isn't a lot of things that he doesn't like, but on any given day he could just not be in the mood for it. For instance, a few mornings ago I made him 3 scrambled eggs. He ate almost all of them and kept saying "Mmmm," as he ate. Today, I tried to feed him a bite of my scrambled eggs, and he spit them out onto the floor. Needless to say, it can get really old making a nutritious lunch that I think he'll like, and he refuses to eat it. The one thing he'll always eat is a peanut butter sandwich. I TRY to stick to a nutritious diet. In the morning I give him carbs, which is usually Quaker Oatmeal, and he'll eat a full size bowl (two packets) of that with his Almond Milk. For lunch I try to give him a protein and fruit which is usually an organic peanut butter sandwich and an orange, apple or pear with Almond Milk or fruit juice. For dinner it just depends on where we are. I try to stick to a protein and vegetable. If the boy sees a french fry on anyone's plate...its all over. He will only want french fries, so Colt and I both have to be cautious about ordering them.

For playtime, Cash enjoys "cleaning". He has a toy dirt devil vacuum and a broom that he loves to drag around with him. He also loves to play outside, although the mosquitos have gotten so bad in our backyard that we have to bathe him in bug spray before going out there. He also loves pushing his wagon, and smart trike. Mostly, he just loves exploring. He doesn't need a toy to have fun, he'd just rather explore his surroundings.

Colt and I always seem to say to each other, "This is the best stage," and then he does something new, to which we say, "THIS is the best stage." Everyday with Cash gets better and better. We are so blessed to be his parents.

Our Family YouTube page: http://www.youtube.com/user/CACFamily

And he will be called...

Seventeen weeks! How did that happen so fast! Time flies when you're running around like a headless chicken I suppose. I have a lot to update on, and serious lack of motivation considering all the other things I have on my to do list today. It'll be worth it when its finished!

So a few weeks ago we went for an ultrasound at Pregnancy Treasures. I'll start there! At 15 weeks, Colt and I decided that we would go to find out the gender of this baby. I have been dying to know ever since we found out I was pregnant. My friend from high school, Taylor was our ultrasound tech. We met my parents and sister, and Colt's parents at the u/s center. When I first got settled on the table, and the baby's little body appeared on the big screen, it was pretty surreal. This pregnancy has been different than the one with Cash, in that, after my few weeks of severe morning sickness, I haven't really had many overtly obvious symptoms. Its easy to forget you're pregnant when you're chasing after a toddler all day. You also have a lot less time to analyze every "symptom" when you're so busy. Anyway, it was so good to see the baby in there, happy and moving around. The first view that we got was overhead. We could see the top of the head looking down on the body. The baby was being very stubborn and wouldn't move from that position. After a few more minutes of looking at the baby from that view and a few more viewpoints, I leaned over to my friend, Taylor and said, "I don't see a penis, do you?" "Nope," she said! "Its a girl," I yelled over to the family watching the screen in the next room. For the next ten minutes, we looked at "her" body parts to make sure everything was in place. Just as we were about to pack it up, Taylor said she was going to call the other ultrasound tech in for a second opinion to confirm the gender. She instructed us not to tell the other technician what we thought it was so she could give an unbiased opinion. The second tech sat down in the chair and started moving the wand around on my belly. All of the sudden the baby started to move around. It started moving from the sitting position that it was in until his little rear end was right in front of the screen. As soon as I saw its little bottom, I knew! The technicians started whispering back and forth. "We have a difference of opinion". "You think its a boy?" I said. "I didn't say that," she said. "Well I know Taylor thought it was a girl, so I'm guessing you think it is a boy," I chuckled. As soon as we got that rear end angle in clear view, no one in the room was disputing the fact that he was all boy. "Nevermind! Its a BOY!" I yelled to the other room! I was so excited that Cash was going to get a little brother to pal around with. Not to mention, it was a big relief to Colt! Of course, one day we would love to have a girl, but upon getting the first results of a daughter, he said, "Yay, a girl," and sat down on the couch in silence. He said he hopes to have a girl one day, but after hearing the news, all he could think about was dating, boyfriends, modesty, and all the other issues that come with having a daughter. Hearing that he was going to have another son was a big relief! Maybe in a few years he'll be ready for a girl. Haha! We left the ultrasound center and headed to Chipotle for dinner with my family. We will confirm our newest little man's manhood in a few weeks at our 20 week ultrasound, but the tech said she was basically 100% sure.

Now, at 17 weeks, I am in the fun part of pregnancy. I started to feel that "rolling" movement (feels like the baby is doing somersaults in the womb) around 13 weeks, but it wasn't until 16 1/2 weeks that I was SURE I was feeling kicks. Now I feel him kick everyday. He loves to kick Cash when he is nursing at night before bedtime. Brothers...already fighting for Mama's attention! I think I have gained about 6 pounds by now, although I'm not sure! The only scale I trust is my doctor's scale. I have my next appointment on Monday, so I'll know for sure by then. Now, onto the name. Colt and I have gone back and forth about what to name this boy. I had a list of names that I liked, and Colt shot them down one by one. With Cash, I knew what I wanted to name him before I got pregnant, and we agreed on it pretty easily. This time, it took many hours of scouring the internet for the perfect name. I wanted something that sounded kind of country, like Cash. Just a tip, if you type in "western baby names", "country baby names", "cowboy baby names" or the like, you'll pretty much get the same list over and over again. After long deliberation, we have decided to name our second son, Beckett Jameson Clark. Jameson is after my father and brother, both named Brian James Perconti. I also like it because Cash's middle name is Anderson, so we'll have Cash Anderson and Beckett Jameson. Anderson is a family name on Colt's side, and Jameson is a family name on mine. Beckett was just a name I came across in my quest for the perfect baby name. So we'll have two C's (Colt & Cash), an A an a B. Sounds like an average report card. Haha!

So there it is! I will update more as there is more to update. Thanks so much for reading!