Dis and Dat

I just did an entire load of nothing but baby blankets. In particular, they are the Aden and Anais cotton muslin baby blankets. We have a TON of these blankets.

It started out as an innocent four pack. I thought they would be nice and soft and I liked that they were thin muslin. Then while browsing on Amazon I saw another set in different colors. And another. And ooh, these would be cute.

Ironically, the last set I bought, all giant stars the size of your palm on each of them I was most hesitant about because the large sections of dyed fabric made them stiff, but they are Ian's absolute favorite. He asks for star blanket by name.

When he was in the toddler room he started calling things "dis". Everything was "dis" and nothing was "dat". Over a few months everything eventually got its own word, but his blankets remained "dis". As we get in the minivan and he asks for Mama nilk, he immediately asks for "dis" as well. "No, dat dis!" he says, pointing vehemently at one of the three blankets I have squirreled away in the seat.

I'm grateful that if he has a favorite "lovey" it's something we have a crate load of on hand. And while many other things we'll be passing on to friends or giving to the thrift stores, this giant pile of muslin will be around forever.

Growth spurt

I think someone is having a growth spurt. Ian has eaten twice what he usually does today and is actively asking for food (usually he has to be starving to request food versus just being busy). The other half of that is that we both napped from 12:30 to almost 4pm today! I was just going to lie down with him for a bit and then get up to do things but that didn't happen. Perhaps I'm having a growth spurt too. Ian's new favorite food is apples. I bought a 12 pack of the fuji apples from Costco and he's eaten almost half an apple each day. Perhaps it will keep the doctor away. He's coughing again, but his nose is running too so I'm chalking it up to a basic cold and we'll not take him to to doc unless his cough gets much worse.

The ladies at day care mention things like that a lot (runny nose, coughing) and I think they expect us to take him to the doctor, but I can't imagine it would really help. Then again, he had pneumonia a few weeks ago. So if his cough stays around much longer we'll see what we'll do but I'd like nature to take its course if we can. But at least I've logged when his coughing started so we don't have to wonder if he's had this cough since August and we just didn't remember.

Technical skills

One of my favorite milestones of late is that Ian can play games on the iPhone by himself. Even just last month there were several games he liked but lacked the dexterity to manage on his own. So it led to a lot of frustration for both of us as he would micromanage our every click on the screen with fits of "No Mommy, there!" But now he just says, "Mommy I wanna play Thomas on Daddy's phone." and I'm all "Knock yourself out, kid."

I'm not sure what age you're supposed to be able to do certain things. I actually read a fascinating article this morning about when kids can recognize colors. But he kicks butt at the matching game! And he can navigate through the stories that it reads to him and knows which arrows do what and how to get back to the main menu. I know adults who can't do that.

I've heard some folks say that they don't want their children exposed to too much technology too soon, but I haven't seen a single negative aspect to it thus far. Since it's all he's ever known he doesn't know to be nervous about its repercussions and just enjoys matching tiles and reading books in the back seat.