Linnaeus 19.0

Sprout's had some kind of bug this past week, leaving him rather listless & clingy some of the time. He had a fever on & off for a few days & there were a few rough nights, so none of us are well-rested at the moment. Particularly unusual for Sprout is that he wasn't all that hungry for some of the week either.

It's illnesses like this that make me glad I'm still breastfeeding him. Even though he's not that interested in eating, he can still get some nutrition & antibodies from my milk, not to mention the comfort. I have to admit, though I hate seeing him sick, I loved having him sitting on my lap for a solid hour or two straight while we watched videos & scribbled with crayons. I'm glad I was able to just sit with him for a while--he had a bit more energy after our cuddle & seemed somewhat recharged.

Happily, though he's still not feeling 100%, Sprout's vocabulary continues to grow quickly. I find it constantly fascinating to watch him start to learn to use particular sounds (he's getting better with L & S, for example). His words are evolving--not necessarily in a linear fashion--to eventually become more like we say them. An example is the word park. He originally said it like pok, then started to add in an O for the R sound: paok, but lately it's become more like pike as that O has shifted to a Y sound. 

Another notable language thing this week is that he identified some balloons as orange. He has been using the word balloon for months & he's not confusing them with the fruit--they weren't inflated & so aren't a similar shape. I was pretty excited that he's starting to get colours. It's the only one I've heard so far, though.

Hide & go seek is one of Sprout's newest games. He'll get a huge smile on his face, squeal & run off to stand behind a chair (where I can see his legs). A few seconds later, he'll peek out from around the chair & squeal when he sees me. He also decided to climb on top of the SPUD bin, under the microwave, as you can see in the picture on the right.

The favourite toy of the week award has to go to Sprout's ukulele. He carries it around the house, strumming & sometimes singing like a little ukulele minstrel. Fairly often he'll bring it to me, deposit it in my lap, insisting that I play it. Sadly, I can't play any better than Sprout can. Papa is the musical one in this household.

He also loves reading The Lorax--now that he knows the story (we've read it daily since getting it from the library about a week ago)--he'll sit through the whole thing quite contentedly.