Hallo-weeeen!

Leo Loves his buckeyes!

Before our date night

Leo is almost 19 months old and he continues to amaze us. His vocabulary is increasing daily. He is now using words we didn't realize he knew. Today he said guitar and climb.....where did those words come from?

He is obsessed with Halloween or as he says it "Hallo-weeeen." Every time he sees pumpkins, ghosts or any other Halloween decor, he happily declares "Hallo-weeeeen!" He loves the holiday, but it frightens him too. We bought him a Halloween themed Thomas train that came with a Halloween DVD. He was watching the DVD in his high chair the other day and Joe and I were in the other room. All of the sudden, we heard crying from the other room and came to see what was wrong. Leo had been frightened by the Chinese Dragon that appeared in the episode. The train's faces can be very expressive and when one of them has a scared or distressed look, Leo is very affected.

Leo also loves buckeyes, which he calls "cuckeyes." We keep them in his pumpkin bucket and he always wants to play with them... "cuckeyes?"

Leo is now fully sleep trained. He sleeps from 8 pm to about 7 am and if he ever wakes up in the middle of the night, all I have to do is go in his room and say, "night, night" and he goes right back to sleep. The sleep training is the BEST thing we ever did. Leo seems to enjoy his independence and Joe and I are finally sleeping well. Yeah!!! At bedtime, I still breastfeed Leo, but the last few nights, he has not been interested. He just pulled away and said "night, night," so I put him in his crib and he was ready to sleep. I always thought that ending that night time feeding would be very difficult for Leo, but he seems to be weening himself. I guess this is a blessing.

Leo continues to be a very energetic toddler. He is a picky eater and can throw quite the tantrum. He doesn't understand discipline either, which is frustrating. If I try to give him a time out for throwing food/drink from his high chair (a continual offense), he laughs and smiles. How do you train a toddler?

Even when Leo is challenging, I feel so lucky to have such a smart, engaging, healthy and handsome little boy.