Wuss

Tonight I found out that my son is a little bit of a wuss. This child, who takes balls to the face and runs into walls and then laughs about it or purposely falls backward hitting his head on the ground and then gets up to do it again thinking it's a great game, hates, absolutely HATES, having wet sand on his feet and in between his toes. We went to Phil's Fish Market tonight with my parents for Kasey's birthday and found a little trail next to the restaurant that lead to the ocean. I was excited because we haven't gotten Kalin down to sea level since last summer - which is really sad considering how close we live to the beach. He was about 7 months old when he last had some contact with the beach and ocean and the waves terrified him! But I could easily understand how those big, scary, loud waves could be frightening to a baby. So here I was, fully expecting my active, adventurous, and dare-devil toddler to be thrilled and excited about feeling the sand between his toes and experiencing the waves and water as they came up to wet his feet. He was ok while walking, in his shoes, across the sand. Once those shoes came off though it was a completely different story. He started getting upset the second his bare feet hit that wet, cold sand. Then Kasey gently dipped his feet into the water as a wave came up to meet us and that was Kalin's undoing. He would have none of it from that point on. Like grandmother, like grandson. I told him his Grammie Lyn would be very pleased to know how much he hated having sand between his toes. Oh well. Maybe next summer.

We've been experiencing some separation anxiety during nursery drop-offs on Sunday mornings. It seemed to correlate with a change in the drop-off procedure. Our church is doing some renovations so we have to enter the nursery through a different door. The first Sunday we had to do this was the first Sunday that we had a truly horrible time getting out of there. So last Sunday I had Kasey take Kalin to the nursery alone hoping that it would be easier with only one of us having to leave. But Kalin still wrapped his legs and arms around Kasey and started crying as soon as they stepped into the room. He knew what was coming and didn't seem too happy about that. The nursery workers are a little bit shocked seeing this behavior from Kalin because he's always the one that they can count on to be just the happiest, smiliest kid in there. They tell us that he always calms down after a couple minutes and then has a fabulous time.

New Words: The Baby Einstein dvd "Baby MacDonald" has really helped Kalin these last couple weeks to learn new words. The ones that he has picked up from there are: corn, hay, and wheat. He also tries to imitate: windmill, tractor, and barn. And it has helped him with his animal sounds. Some other words I hear frequently are: pool, more, and please. He was also trying to say peach today while I was feeding him a peach. Of course, most of these words may not sound quite right to most people but if you spend some time with him (or happen to know that he's repeating a word that was just said) then you can easily tell what he's saying. He still tends to say either the first part of the word or the last part. When he says open it's "pen", please is "plea", corn is "cor", wheat is "whea", etc. I got him to say his cousin's name, Hailee. Of course it was more like "Haiyee" but "L's" are very hard at this age. I couldn't say my name properly until I was, like, 3.

I love that he is starting to enjoy his different cars and trucks. He will actually grab a couple of them and start rolling them around making "vroom" sounds. One of his new games is to throw them all into his crib which of course means that I have to get them out and if I don't get them out then he tries to climb into his crib to get them. He's also been working on trying to climb out of his crib. I know that the day is coming when he will figure that one out but I'm hoping that it is still months away. I am so not ready for him to be in toddler bed where he can get in and out as he pleases.