Eating, sleeping, potty, and communicating

On eating

We go through over a box of family size Cheerio’s every week!! This kid LOVES to eat, but he is VERY picky and will only eat select foods. He’ll eat any pasta, mashed potatoes, bread, cereal, etc (can you say starchy carb attack?) and LOVES Cheerio’s and eggs. He won’t eat ANY dairy – no milk, cheese, yogurt, etc. He won’t touch most fruit and veggies – the only ones he will eat are grapes, cherries, baby carrots and snap peas. He’s not a big fan of meat, but I can sneak that into his mashed potatoes and pasta sauce.

Seth has an amazing appetite – he can eat more than me most mealtimes. Breakfast seems to be his biggest meal. He loves helping me make his eggs in the morning. He sits on the counter and watches the eggs cook – and passes me the spatula to make sure I put it on his plate as soon as it is ready. When I put it on the plate, he yells “YAAAHHH, eggy, eggy eggy, YAAAHHH!!!” It’s not uncommon for him to eat three eggs, a piece of bread, AND a bowl of cereal for breakfast!!! When we have those days, we usually have to distract him with a walk to the park to get him to stop asking for more.

We have been working on teaching him to slowdown when he is eating – he sometimes stuffs his face so fast and full that he can’t even close his mouth. When we first got home he would eat all day long, but lately he seems to be going a bit longer between snacks.

On sleeping

Seth naps everyday and sleeps through the night. One of us has to lay with him in our bed until he falls asleep, then we move him to a crib beside our bed. It can sometimes take him over an hour to fall asleep - Chad and I try to switch off, but he becomes more restless when we switch. In the first 20 minutes, Seth has discovered that if he gives me dozens of smiley wet juicy lip smacking kisses and moves my hand onto his back and tummy for me to scratch that I cannot resist this special time with him. He tosses and turns for at least 30-40 minutes before he falls asleep – you know he is about to go down because he bites on his thumbs with his molars (he actually has developed calices on his thumbs from all the biting). If we try to sneak out too soon, we have a VERY unhappy boy on our hands and double the work to get him to sleep. But once he is sleeping, he’s out for the night, phew. I've tried everything to help him get to sleep more quickly at night – cutting his nap, waking him up early in the morning, napping him earlier in the day, waking him after an hour into him nap - nothing seems to work at night, it still takes him a long time to fall asleep. So we’re just goin’ with it and enjoying our cuddle-time with him every night.

On the potty

We are not potty trained yet – and I am certainly not stress about it whatsoever, considering Sara was over three before she was fully trained and it is SO much easier when they are in diapers (no emergency bathroom runs when you’re shopping, in the car, at the park, etc.). I think Seth might be getting close though; he tells us EVERY time he is about to go, but when I try to put him on the potty, he get’s scared and says “no no no”. So we are just going with the diapers for a bit and we also look in the toilet and say bye-bye to mommy’s pee-pee from time to time.

On communicating

It’s amazing how few words you need to get your point across - Body language, gestures, and facal expressions speak for themselves. There are times that I have no idea whatsoever what Seth is saying, wanting, or needing, but in general we seem to get by. He shows me, I show him, or I just give him food – LOL.

His vocabulary is coming along very quickly. I have no idea how many Amharic words he was saying, but he is picking up new English words everyday and, for the most part, he understand everything we say to him.

Some of his first few English words included:
• Mommy-yeh
• Bye bye
• Car car
• Up
• No no no
• Daddy

Other common words (of many) that he says:
• Woo-wa (Sara)
• Puppy
• All gone (this means 'all done' too)
• Heh-woah (Hello)
• Wah-tee (water)
• Don’t touch
• Pee (please)
• Eggy
• Nag-woo (thank you)
• Shoes
• Nice
• Sue (swing)
• Two, tee (I say “one” and he follows)
• I la loo (I love you)
• Baby

Amharic words we (and he) always use (these are how they sound):
• Tenya (sleep)
• Koy (wait)
• Wooha (water)
• She –she (It’s OK)
• Dapo (bread)
• Bila – (eat)
• Ah-tee (bring/I want)
• Na (come)

More to come soon (it took me a week to write this one - LOL)...