As I'm sure most of you would agree the weather around this time of year is crazy and unpredictable. Lots of rain, unexpected wind storms, wintry mix - you name it we've had it in the last month! It makes it tough to get Colin outside on a regular basis, but I force myself to find the motivation to get him some fresh air as much as possible.
It helps tremendously when the neighborhood kids are outside - every time he hears them he wants to get outside and play with them! All of them are ready sweet kids. One day we walked to the bus stop to meet them after school and they all ran off yelling "Colin! Colin!" and hugged him. Of course he thought he was THE coolest.
He has even taken to helping me find & pick up garbage. Every little bit counts.
Of course, there are days when we can't get outside much or at all, so we have to find ways to entertain ourselves inside. As you can see, some of my ideas are excellent in theory but terrible in practice. I would not recommend the sensory bid of rainbow colored rice to anyone with even the slightest bit of anxiety.
And Colin also finds ways of entertaining himself outside the organized activities. I noticed one day that all the magnetic letters off the fridge were missing. A few days later, for whatever reason I noticed the cardboard backing on the fridge was pulled back, and sure enough I looked and there were all his letters!
Colin's favorite thing these days is to climb onto the toilet, turn on the faucet and play in the water. He splashes in it, pulls the drain up and even drinks it out of the faucet. I am constantly reminding myself to close the doors to all bathrooms because it is dangerous (and wasteful) but he's the ultimate opportunist when I forget.
The real positive of living in a place with not as many sunny days as Denver is that there are a lot of things to do inside. Colin loves going to the two libraries in town; they have great little children's sections and some toys. In Michigan, we can return glass & cans and get money for them, and I bet you can guess who loves to help us out when that time comes around! We also scoped out a little indoor play area at the mall, which we won't be going to again - even Chris said it was gross and that's when you know its bad!!
Earlier in the month we headed out to a nature center in Kalamazoo for a Maple Syrup festival. It was bitterly cold so we couldn't take the tour, but they had SO many indoor activities for kids! Colin had an absolute blast running around from activity to activity, playing with other kids. Such a great day.
Some fun little anecdotes to finish up about Colin!
- He has really increased his vocabulary. Colin does a great job with b, k, & g words, and is starting to pick up on p words (poop). We are working on "s" and "r" words now but really great to see him continuing to pick up new words.
- We work hard to tell him the names of things; if he points at something, we say the name. His favorite is when we are eating (he eats out of the sectioned plates) and he points to each type of food to hear what it is called. We also do this while looking through books, and with colors & shapes. I also recently started showing him our wedding album and pointing out all our family.
- Colin has also increased his physical abilities as well. He can jump high enough to fit a Monday newspaper under his toes, he can climb ladders, go up & down steps, and he has started shooting hoops from farther away than just dunking or cherry picking.
- Colin has also started to use facial expressions to indicate what he wants, or how he feels. He's been able to do that for awhile, but he's really perfected it recently. I've gotten the side eye, the slow head turn, the quivering lip and of course, the pout.
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